The elves' skin colour take on the appearance of the environment they live in. Sea elves are slightly green, wood elves have a brown-ish colour, and so on. The original drow had lighter skin. It wasn't until they started living in the underdark that their skin changed colour.

The drow were introduced to D&D in the late 80s. You make it sound like they were created in the 1930s where segregated schools and washrooms were still a thing.

Becoming a god as a get rich quick scheme doesn't make a lot of sense. Gods who have wealth don't even need it. They can just snap their fingers and whatever they want would just appear. They are *gods*.

There are gods of races who don't have a lot to take from in the first place. Oozes, jellies, kobolds, orcs, gnolls...you'll be hard pressed to find any member of these races living as wealthy lords in a keep. There is also the clergy of Ilmater, who looks out for the impoverished and suffering. Ilmater's clergy reject wealth and excess. You can't get rich off of people who didn't have money to begin with.

The way I see it, the problem isn't that the drow have dark skin; it's that they happen to be evil and have dark skin. It is this combination that feels so racist. (There's also sexism by the fact that they made the one matriarchal society evil.)

Having them be introduced in the 80s rather than the 30s makes the racism even less excusable.

In conclusion: There is absolutely no excuse for the racism the developers of AD&D had.

There's also the sexism with the strength caps contained in the 1e rules, as well as the racism with the level caps in 1e/2e (which the IE games thankfully don't implement).

I could also point out the use of sex changes as a joke, something that I would consider to be a bit transphobic, in BG2. (One of the instances is in the wild surge table; I would replace it with a different effect, like, say, a random alignment change.)

Drow society is heavily matriarchal because it was inspired by the black widow. Rashemen is also a matriarchal society in the D&D universe and they are mostly good aligned.

If the creators were racist we wouldn't have representations of other cultures. There are even whole campaign settings that are based on different parts of the real world:

Maztica - Central America
Kara tur - East Asia
Al Qadim - Middle East
Darksun - North Africa

'black' and 'white' humans are the same species. They just have a different skin tone.
Elves are a different species so why would their species be similar to humans?
Ironically, the most famous good Drow shows up in BG and what do people talk about? Strategies to kill and loot him......

The level caps for non-human races are a balancing tool. Humans are supposed to be dominant but how could they when the other races live twice as long or more and thus have more time to gain power? BG drops this rule because otherwise picking a non-human race would make the game too hard.

From a game design standpoint, the level caps do not work in a sane manner as a balancing tool.

At low levels, the level caps do not come into play; hence, they might as well not even exist. Racial level caps do not work as a balancing tool in low level campaigns at all.

At high levels, the level caps are way too punishing; the effect of these level caps is that they make a whole bunch of otherwise interesting options non-viable. Basically, the only viable options are to play a human (boring), or to play a thief (not really my cup of tea). In other words, in the name of balance, the developers took away a whole bunch of options. Even worse, the options are still presented to the player, but are effectively trap options; you can choose them, but your character will be useless.

Another obnoxious thing about the level caps: They were only listed in the Dungeon Master's Guide, which (back in the 1e/2e days) players weren't supposed to look at. Hence, as a player, you aren't aware of the racial level cap until it takes you by surprise, ruining a character who you were otherwise enjoying.

There's no doubt about it: Racial level caps are bad game design.

(With that said, such level caps might work in a game where you aren't meant to keep the same characters throughout the game; Dragon Quest 5 is an example, where many monsters are level capped, but you can get more powerful monsters later, some of which are more powerful than human characters. The AD&D CRPGs, however, are not games of this sort.)

We are in agreement that racial level caps are bad. I never played 1st edition but you are correct about 2nd edition. Only the DMG mentions those caps. I doubt many groups used those rules though and it would be a poor DM who didn't warn players about this before they start. Fortunately 3rd edition and Pathfinder have introduced better options to make playing humans more appealing.

It's a good thing that, when playing table top RPGs, the DM/GM can easily change a rule that hurts the game more than it helps. I've also heard of 1e DMs getting rid of the rule about female strength caps; if I ever DM that edition of AD&D, I will houserule that rule away.

I could point out, however, that the Gold Box games do enforce these rules. When/if I get around to playing them (I may start with Secrets of the Silver Blades when I do), I will hack the save file to give my female human fighters 18/00 strength, which is normally only allowed to male human fighters.

By the way, one idea if you want to run 1e/2e, but want to make humans more appealing without imposing level caps on non-humans:
* All humans get an extra proficiency; this can be either a weapon proficiency or a non-weapon proficiency. (Fighters still aren't allowed to start with better than specialization, however.)
* Human thieves and bards get extra bonus points at character creation (to compensate for the lack of racial bonuses). I would say that one level's worth of points might be a good amount.

No.

I actually have issues with this myself. In fact, if anything, it should be the arcane casters, not the divine casters, who get healing magic; divine magic would be more suited to things like destruction and mind-affecting spells. My preferred party role would be a healer, but I don't want to play the religious type (as I'm an atheist myself), and I don't want my healing to be penalized because of it.

With that said, regarding healing by magic:
* Bards get healing in every edition except 2e. Bards not getting healing magic is a 2e specific thing; 1e bards get druidic spells, while 3e bards get their own spell list, which does include the Cure line of spells.
* Rangers get access to Cure Light Wounds at a high enough level.
* Wild mages can heal via wild surge; it's not likely, but there is a healing effect on the wild surge table.
* Limited Wish and Wish are capable of healing. Polymorph Self allows for self healing. In BG2, there's also Summon Planetar (which summons a creature that can cast Heal and Raise Dead), and one of the 2e books includes a self-heal spell called Trollish Fortitude (which Icewind Dale implements).

By the way, one game that takes a different approach to religion and spells is Dragon Wars. All spellcasters can learn healing magic, though the best healing spell (which is available early) is a Druid spell. Sun magic, which is most comparable to clerical magic from a flavor perspective, actually gets the most powerful attack spells (not counting Kill Ray, a miscellaneous spell that any caster can learn, but it's only single target and doesn't scale).