As to the people commenting on my outlier spiel, I admit I don't know Forgotten Realms lore. All I know of it comes from the player's guide, a bit of the DM manual and a bit of Xanathar's guide. So maybe that's why I don't hold much regard for the lore. I've been under the impression for years that the intent, explicit or not from the core rules is that you're "meant" to create your own setting, and all the flavour stuff is there just as a baseline. And it's a baseline that's really never grabbed me if I'm honest.
Ah…I understand the problem. This is actually a problem with D&D. This may a get a little OT, but it’s such an interesting aspect of rule design that I’ll elaborate a bit.
You see, D&D is not a ruleset made to be adaptable to different settings. You can do so with some creativity, but the ruleset has not only no built-in support for it, but it is a ruleset designed for a very specific type of fantasy setting. As such, it does not recognize that a race package, in any adaptable ruleset, can’t be part of the core rules but must be part of a world supplement.
The first thing to take away from this is that in BG3, you are not simply playing D&D. You are playing D&D in Faerun, which is a continent of the world of Toril, and in Faerun there are different races with somewhat distinctive traits. If you choose to play as a member of a certain race on Faerun, you are choosing a specific set of advantages and limitations. If you don’t want them, you must play as someone else. It’s not a necessary part of the rules, but it is a fact of the world. It just can’t be easily overridden without adversely impacting the integrity of the world. Now, in tabletop, if I was your GM and you wanted to play a half-orc wizard, there would be two things to consider: first, you would probably NOT feel behind because you’d likely be the only wizard in the group. As opposed to a video game, you would not compare yourself to 10000 players across the world who play human wizards. Instead, you would probably feel rather unique. Second, I am fairly certain I could make it interesting to play this character without having to compromise my worldbuilding.
However, to bring the point home, if you played with me as a GM you would almost certainly not play in the kind of setting easily encapsulated by the D&D ruleset. You would not be able to play half-orcs, elves or dwarves because those do not exist in my settings. Instead, you’d be able to play…..say….a Z’ari mentalist. The Z’ari are a species of sea-dwelling intelligent octopi with psionic powers, whose main polity managed to acquire some surface holdings because they can float and have magic/tech/biology that lets them easily breathe air (heh…I made those up as an example for this post, but they sound cool. I think I’ll keep them). “Mentalist” would also not be a class but just the most fitting term for the set of freely-selectable skills you chose and perhaps an occupation you chose to have within Z’ari culture. Could you adapt the D&D ruleset to include all that? With some creativity, perhaps, but how do you account for the fact that D&D has no way to balance different modes of locomotion? For the fact that this character could plausibly, albeit expensively, buy seven levels of ambidexterity? For the fact if more races than Z’ari and humans existed in this world, they would be certain to have a distinctive morphology as well?
So yes, from the perspective of rule design, race packages are arbitrary. They can be whatever you want. But D&D is not just a ruleset. It is a ruleset and a world type supplement in one package. And from the perspective of worldbuilding for the purposes of roleplaying, races should actually be intrinsically different. Else, why have them in the rules the first place? If race is nothing but an aesthetic choice, then it is also irrelevant if you're a half-orc wizard or a human one.
