Is that so? I thought it was mainly for technical game reasons, less waste of resources f.e. for armor.
It's both. Depending on developers.
Some developers really do listen to those that are highly vocal about absolute nonsense (For example, Bioware) so they heed stupid arguments like how Tolkien was racist because Orcs = Black people.
Others will humanize races simply due to technical issues. It being a lot easier to have a single base model for animations and meshes.
I'm not a fan of many different races, I don't see much sense in it.
The main thing about having alternate races, is the ability to develop unique lore regarding them and their culture.
More races means more groups of people with completely unique cultures and values (As well as aesthetic designs).
For example, the Githyanki in D&D are a race who's culture is based around strength. They are completely ruthless and revel in violence. Which is a stark contrast to modern human values (As well as typical fantasy humans who are often based around modern human values)
These differences allow for a lot of variation in overall worldbuilding too. Locations can differ wildly based on the cultural designs and practices of the race that inhabits them. To say nothing of the unique political interactions caused by races with different values clashing (For example in Divinity and D&D we have the Imps and Tieflings both vilified due to their ties to Devils).
In short, it adds more variation to the setting. Which keeps things interesting.
With of course, the potential for players to create characters of different races, which provides more options in terms of visual identity as well as role playing possibilities.
I don't care, in the end I played human in BG 3 and will play as human in Divinity, despite abilities.
That's an interesting view.
Personally, I played primarily humans in BG3 (As they had the face I found most aesthetically pleasing) and played humans in DOS2 (Though I was tempted to make an Eternal just for the gameplay of throwing posion everywhere, but I didn't want to do another Lone Wolf run and Fane is the only Eternal companion meaning that 2 party members would be harmed by such gameplay). But I still enjoyed seeing other races in the games, delving into their cultures and values was interesting as well as seeing characters with unique designs.
Though in other games, I often do entertain other races besides human. Depending on their aesthetics (Such as my Miqo'te in FFXIV who's the cutest cutie patootie ever
)
