The opening post already listed most of my issues with BG3's Drows.
Still, I feel it's worth insisting on the fact that Larian's new categorisation of Drows, and creation of new Drow groups, is just extremely confusing in my opinion. And with no apparent good reason.
For people who know the lore, it's jarring to not see Drows as a type of Elves. Personally, I fail to understand what the newly created lore is supposed to mean. The Seldarine Drows are most unclear to me : are they surfacers, followers of Vhaeraun, followers of Eilistraae ? I don't get the Lolth-sworn Drows either : are they all from Menzoberranzan ? But I'm can't help being curious about them. If a standard Lolth-sworn Drows turns away from Lolth, do they instantly become of another sub-race ?
For people who don't know any DnD lore, it's probably equally confusing. Mechanically, Drows have all the features of a sub-race of Elves. Worse, the two Drow sub-races are mechanically similar in every aspect, or at least in every clearly communicated aspect. So if I choose to create a "Drow 1" over a "Drow 2" ... what am I signing up for exactly ? I have no idea.
I fear this is just needlessly creating confusion for everyone.
If Larian is somehow trying to get some sort of alignment tag for Drows, I feel that encoding this through the race is a poor choice. I was under the impression that WotC is precisely trying to move away from "your race and your alignment are tied", so this feels like going in the opposite direction.
I'd rather just be given good dialogue options, so that I can roleplay a Drow through my words and actions, rather than be treated as a walking stereotype. And if they really need an alignment tag, Larian could do this through a special option, like for the deities, as was suggested. (Or just
allow anyone to have a deity, but that's another topic.)
