As I read another post asking for this, I just wanted to come back to this older thread, summarise why the current situation of Drows as a Race is poor choice, and add in some new information that Larian released recently (post Panel From Hell 8).


I'm going to leave aside the fact that Larian's choice isn't quite so compatible with D&D lore (where Drows are Elves).

I'm going to leave aside the fact that Larian is implying that there is a connection between Subrace (what an individual is from birth and cannot ever cease to be) and who they worship (which is but one of many cultural aspects and can change through an individual's life). I find that implication very poor taste, but hey, Larian's view on this, and world-building, and lore, is Larian's view.

I'm also going to leave aside any discussion about the appropriateness of naming one Subrace Seldarine Drows (it doesn't mean anything to me, despite the fact that I feel I am decently knowledgeable about FR lore ; quite possibly it was never defined before).



Drows as a separate Race is a poor UI choice.

Firstly, consider the other groups from the Underdark.

The Gnomes from the Underdark (the Deep Gnomes) are categorised as a Subrace of Gnomes. The Dwarves from the Underdark (the Duergar) are categorised as a Subrace of Dwarves. And so it would only make sense that Elves from the Underdark (the Drows) would be categorised as a Subrace of Elves.


Secondly, consider Half Elves.

This Race is divided in 3 Subraces that are named Half High Elves, Half Wood Elves, and Half Drows. The first two (High Elves and Wood Elves) are Subraces of the Elves Race while the third (Drows) is a Race of its own.

This is an inconsistent rule for categorising and naming the various kinds of Half Elves.

For Half Elves to be consistent, one of the following would need to be done. Either create a new Race called Half Drows, with 2 Subraces : Half Lolth-sworn Drow and Half-Seldarine Drow. Or make Drows a Subrace of Elves and leave Half Drows where they are, as a Subrace of Half Elves. The second option is the better one.


Thirdly, consider the two Drow Subraces.

They have no mechanical difference.

For every Race other than Drows, if the Race has Subraces, these Subraces come with mechanical differences. Drows break that pattern.

What's a new player to make of this ? If there is no visible difference, what's the difference ? Good question, but don't expect to find text in the character creator explaining to you that this choice of Subrace is actually not truly a choice of Subrace but rather a choice of a tag that will be used for in-game reactivity.



Larian's rationale for the choice of making Drows a separate Race with 2 Subraces.

The arguments above were made long ago. Larian, in their infinite wisdom, decided that they weren't good enough reasons to re-organise the presentation of the Drow-related player options.

In a recent video published on GameSpot (4:03), however, Larian explained their reasoning for taking Drows out of the list of Elven Subraces and making it a Race of its own. It goes like this.

They decided to split off the Drows into a separate Race, in order to highlight how much reactivity/gameplay/specificity there is behind playing as a Drow.

I have no doubt that this intention is going to be crystal clear to the new players who will jump in BG3 without having listened to that GameSpot video, without having player Early Access and without knowing about tags and reactivity.


In summary, Larian's choice to make Drows a Race, with a Seldarine Subrace and a Lolth-sworn Subrace, makes the character creation UI inconsistent and illogical. But it also doesn't properly communicate to players that signing up for a Drow (and a specific Drow Subrace) comes with extra reactivity.



Suggestions for a better character creation UI.

  • Make Drows a Subrace of Elves.
  • Have Drows choose a Deity an Allegiance/a Group : Lolth-sworn or "Seldarine".
  • Include text, preferably not in a tooltip, to explain the meaning of this Allegiance (this is not standard D&D Lore), and to explain that this choice will greatly affect reactivity (mostly dialogue options), much like a choice of Deity.
  • Have Half-Drows also choose an Allegiance.


Benefits :

  • More logical and consistent UI.

    Elves have 3 Subraces. Accordingly, Half Elves have 3 Subraces, one for each Subrace of Elves.

    Subraces have mechanical differences. Accordingly, the choice of being Lolth-sword or Seldarine, which comes with no mechanical difference, is not a choice of Subrace.

    Half Wood Elves get Fleet Of Foot, just like Wood Elves. Half High Elves choose a Cantrip, just like High Elves. Accordingly, Half Drows choose an Allegiance, just like Drows.

  • Better communication of the reactivity of Drows and their Allegiances.

    Broadly speaking, it's probably not great design to implement 10 Races but have some be superior choices. So it wouldn't necessarily be a good idea to explicitly say "Drows are our favourite. You'll get more reactivity if you choose this Race".
    Just like it would probably not be good to explicitly say "short Races are a bad idea. We don't like them so don't expect great reactivity or Halflings that look good".
    But at least, there would be text clearly informing players that choosing this or that Allegiance will affect reactivity. Perhaps, if Drows (and Half-Drows) are the only Subrace to come with a choice which is non-mechanical and only-for-reactivity, players will get the hint better than if Drows are made a separate Race.

  • More player agency.

    Why is it that if I play a Drow, I get to choose which Allegiance/Group/society my character come from, but if my character happen to be a Half-Drow, I can't ?

    It doesn't sound like a stretch of the imagination to envision a character with an Eilistraee-following Drow parent who married (or just shared some good time with) a Human, and passed their Eilistraee-influenced values to their child. Like it's not a strech of the imagination to envision a Half Drow whose mother was a Human slave used for pleasure by a male Drow, and who decided to show the full-blooded Drows that he or she could be meaner, badder, more treacherous and Lolth-fanatic than them.

  • Minimal work required.

    There's already a UI to let a Subrace choose options (e.g. High Elves can choose a cantrip). There's also already a UI for the choice of Deity, which applies a tag to the character, and that tag can trigger special reactivity. All there is to do is to replace the list of Deities by a different list : {Lolth-sworn, Seldarine}.


Extra suggestion (in case the goal is to do things well rather than half-arsed) :
  • Actually, don't have Drows (and Half-Drows) choose an Allegiance from the list {Lolth-sworn, Seldarine}. Make them choose from the list {Lolth, Eilistraee, Vhaeraun} (or more). In fact, don't call this parameter an Allegiance. Just call it a Deity and make it be the same as the choice of Deity that every character should have. Then, when generating tags for a character, if the character's Race is Drow and the Deity is not Lolth, then apply the same tag that Seldarine Drows currently receive, and voilà.
  • Stop using the term Seldarine for Drows that don't follow Lolth. Eilistraee isn't part of the Seldarine (the Elven Pantheon). Vhaeraun certainly isn't either. And I don't think I heard that the Seldarine are ok with Drow followers.

Flash info : The Dark Urge is not an Origin Character. And it's not a new concept.