Frankly, I don’t really care. Drizzt is a boring character anyway. Maybe if he hadn’t been able to use the novelty of being a good drow as a crutch, he would have needed to be an actually interesting character in his own right. Would that have been such a terrible thing?
Look, if you want simple, uncomplicated good vs evil games, no one is stopping you. Do whatever you want in your own game. But it’s much easier to remove nuance if you don’t want it than to add it where it doesn’t exist, and having a default where there aren’t entire races of inherently evil people makes the game more inclusive.
Ok. Sure. But I don’t think having a general description with a caveat is necessarily making a less inclusive game in any way that effects the world or large groups of players.
consequently, I am more interested in what makes a better game. It is and has always been a game with character classes and stat blocks with alignment and general inclinations of different species related behavior. Leaving it alone now is “less work.”
as to your assessment about drizzt, I don’t know what to tell you. I am sorry you don’t like him? I tired of him after a good many books and his endless exposition. However he has been a force in D&D fiction over many years. I don’t think WOTC wants to disown him anytime soon.
it is undeniable that a lot of his appeal is that he played against type and crushed expectations.
I support inclusiveness and treating people well but do not think dismantling pretend species does anything to further things in that regard. At all. I also don’t think it’s any sin to enjoy shared expectations and fiction in fantasy which can be modified.
further it’s all purely opinion based. Do we have to have disclaimers and no alignment or behavioral tendency for any monsters? Or is it just the bipedal ones? Or just the ones that aren’t undead? Or just the ones that can be PCs?
do we need to get rid of aliens in fiction when we only see the ones that want to conquer earth? If we don’t are we making a less inclusive movie experience that
alienates (pun intended) the audience?
I don’t expect nor desire any answers here because it is pointless. We get what WOTC produces. Then we decide if we like it and buy it or not.
but to reduce the choice to “a simple game” vs something desirable seems uncharitable at best. Many of us have been using stat blocks and alignment for decades. How many would say their game is simple?
is it really just black and white? We either do away with alignment and species typical behavior (that can and is modified campaign to campaign) or we have a “simple” and “uninclusive” game?
I prefer alignment in games and general species typical behavior describes without making statement about the quality of games that do otherwise. I like the shared nature of the fiction, the ease of use and the familiarity that can help create novelty and the unexpected. It is as simple as that.
