I believe the suggestion about immersion is that it wouldn't make sense to introduce exotic races just for PCs.
If that is true ...
Then i purely disagree.
This game dont cover even 1% of Faerun ...
Therefore opposite is corect, for rare races, it makes perfect sense to not meet any NPC of same race as our Tav will be.
Quite honestly (and feel free to corect me if im wrong) i cant help the feeling that even Dragonborn are quite rare in the City of Baldur's Gate!
As far as i know, they tend to live a little more North/East ... and also quite far from this particular place.
So, personaly i expect at best up to 10NPCs of this race.
Or our PC is the only example of their race so players who choose not to play that race aren't bothered by it, but then we need character models and animation that will be used only for the PC which doesn't seem very efficient.
Question is if efficiency is even concidered.
Personaly i dont see much reason even in giving Elves their own animations.
And yet ... they have them.
Also, some recyclation is allways possible imho.
If you want Warforged to move like a construct ... well, we have Bernard (and constructs in city, im no animator, but i believe they should be able to just scale it down) ...
If you want Lizardfolk to move like a reptile ... well, there are Dragonborn ...
Not really sure about Tabaxi ... but arent there some spells that allow caster to grow claws? I only remember one Druid cantrip, but that was not from PHB.
