Oh yes, basically Larian expects you to go along with what you are given but then there are multiple ways you can refuse Gortash and start a fight yet that has no reactivity in the game whatsoever and like you said going that route will break multiple quests in the game.
Meanwhile in act 1 you could attack Priestess Gut on sight and a fight against the entire gobbo camp would break out (if enemies got to the drums and alerted everyone) and the only things you could possibly lose in that scenario is a couple of conversations and approval points from companions. But that's it, the quests would still update that you slaughtered the 3 leaders and no further quests would break.
But it's clear that Larian has worked on act 1 and all the possible approaches to boss fights and the world's reactivity to your actions a lot more (3 years of EA, yo!) while multiple approaches to questing are still somewhat present in act 2, but nearly forgotten about and dropped in act 3.
It's why so many of us abhor act 3.
