This makes me think that if D&D had been redesigned for an East Asian or South Asian market instead of a US market, maybe a class associated with environment/natural areas/treehuggers/etc. would be more popular since polytheism never died in Japan or India.
It's not the polytheistic origins that make it "uncool", norse mythology is also pagan / polytheistic but is very popular at the moment. It's a cultural backlash against the environmentalism movement of the 1980s/1990s, largely driven by corporate propaganda.
Maybe. It's kind of hard to gauge what political/social messages most players are most influenced by. I mean, a person can love reneweable energy but hate laws that protect rare/endangered species. You can think that eagles and owls are cool as heck but also hate anything even vaguely associated with furries, which Druids have been tarnished by due to Wildshape and some people's ummm, "thirsty" imaginations. I do agree there is a lot of anti-environmentalist propaganda, but if this is a big influence on why Druid is the least popular, why did Rangers, which also use Druid spells and are arguably just as out of step with anti-environmentalists, not get dunked on the same way?
Aragorn is more popular & well-known than Radagast the Brown due to how Peter Jackson's Tolkien movies were done.
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DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
why did Rangers, which also use Druid spells and are arguably just as out of step with anti-environmentalists, not get dunked on the same way?
Rangers aren't perceived as protectors of nature the way Druid is. They are more hunters, trackers, and survivalists (see popularity of survivalism in various reality shows). But they also did get dunked on, they aren't a very popular class and TBH many ranger players don't really use their druid spells. Plus, similar to Druid, Ranger didn't get many subclasses until they were turned into a "pet" class.
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Aragorn is more popular & well-known than Radagast the Brown due to how Peter Jackson's Tolkien movies were done.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
Rangers aren't perceived as protectors of nature the way Druid is. They are more hunters, trackers, and survivalists (see popularity of survivalism in various reality shows). But they also did get dunked on, they aren't a very popular class and TBH many ranger players don't really use their druid spells. Plus, similar to Druid, Ranger didn't get many subclasses until they were turned into a "pet" class.