One recurring theme in almost every D&D 3.5 campaign I played online as a teenager was a crappy government in the setting. Governments in D&D tend to suck. They seemed to either be impotent to ridiculous extremes in order to not “step on the PCs toes” as they do literally everything to save the world; or they are an active hindrance and the final great enemy to defeat. I always find the first the really frustrating one. When you’ve got an army of 10,000 tin can people who are WORTHLESS in the face of such great threats as goblins and ooze it gets just a little too ridiculous for me. I like to have my characters act within existing structures that a character from that Setting might be expected to work with. I report stuff to the guards and see if they’ll help; I ask if there’s a postal system and use it; I once even wrote a letter to a regional governor in-game. It almost never panned out because everyone seems really averse to having government as an aspect you can actually engage with.
There was, however, the odd campaign where I ran for President.
