> The meaning of MEDIEVAL is at the heart of this. D&D is Medieval, as it has markedly and prominent medieval world characteristics. That's the important part

> The meaning of MEDIEVAL is at the heart of this. D&D is Medieval, as it has markedly and prominent medieval world characteristics. That's the important part for me, too. The general idea I always ran with was that "medieval" in the context of D&D (and most role playing games with that setting) referred to the environment (castles, villages, etc) and technology level (swords, bows, etc; sometimes early firearms). As a general rule of thumb, it didn't go into government at all, because that's a aspect of the campaign setting. The actual campaign settings (Greyhawk, etc) defined various governments, everything from kings/emperors, to mage groups, to dragon kings.