Fantasy governments

There will always, always be a court mage or mage's tower for any kingdom worth its salt.
The study of magic and applying magic would be essential, as the first kingdom that employs spellcasters in its ranks and military will dominate all others.
Treat powerful mages like WMDs, and make peace treaties be predicated upon the knowledge that magic, if applied in certain fashions, can cause untold destruction and loss of innocent life.
Clerics could be employed in the same manner, but the king is not the one who decides when magic is appropriate in that case, and the church is essentially running your government at that point. Theocracies can easily be headed by a grand cleric of some kind.

That video is interesting. How accurate are their videos?

Define "large".

City-states in general had problems being... too large, because ya can't really have a democratic parliament over a certain number of citizens. I guess you could conceive a magical way to bypass it at least partially, tough: maybe they "broadcast" parliament sessions in the capital, and at the end of the session the smaller towns' meeting cast their votes? It wouldn't be EXACTLY like Athens were theoretically any citizen could speak, but still, might make sense.

In italian renassaince cities direct democracy wasn't ever perfect, but anyway they mostly become pretty soon patriciate dealings with a side of unruly common people not-directly-involved with the governement, and soon even that was scrapped for the Signoria vs the patriciate. (Venice is the execption as it died as an aristocratic republic, but the fun part is that it kinda dissed off the more "popular" elements sooner than most, and people didn't mind much. Also, they never had nobles locked to the land, which in hindsight is what fucked up the "republic" part of the other Comuni)

It's worth mentioning that usually the middle class in cities had the guilds to take care of them. They were (among other things) something pretty similar to strong trade unions, in a sense you might say that they achieved thorugh them social security (well, relatively speaking) but they didn't have proper executive and even more legislative control as modern democracies give their citzens. Also, poor and rural people didn't really have that luxury.

They are quite accurate on the scripted content, but it's kind of a running joke that they will make huge anachronistic fuck ups in the art every episode.
For their larger series, they will have a video that comes after called "Lies" that goes into most of the things they got wrong, usually also touching on what they got wrong in the one-offs.

People on the 4Chins dislike them mostly because the main writer/researcher guy was very vocal about his stance during the Great Internet Fight About Video Games That Shall Not Be Named, to the point where he got recorded making some very dishonest statements and was pissy on Twitter for a while after.

It shouldn't actually matter; it's been years, he's mellowed out, and the content does what it does well.

By the examples of successful republics from history. Like Rome, or Venice. I like the latter, because Doge is a can fun title.

I think you're needlessly focusing on medieval era republics. Just use the roman republic on the cusp of empire as your starting point, it's a sufficiently interesting setting all on it's own without much need of tweaking.

Have a senate. Have it mostly be corrupt, have it infight, have it mostly be useless. Have idealistic senators loudly and publicly espouse the virtues of the Republic. Have cynical ones manipulate and take advantage of others for themselves. Have the occasional scandal (manufactured and real). Have elections. Have a sense of stagnation.

Have powerful generals which have the loyalty of the soldiers, which given the right circumstances declare themselves emperor. Have it seem like saving the republic from the senate might be a good idea, which would get things going again. Have the threat of power corrupting such a person make it seem unpalatable to many.

Have powerful and skilled generals be constantly stymied by powerful senators to ensure that they do not win too many victories and do not become too popular. Have them send out less skilled, less socially astute generals to ensure that the generals and the military are seen as weak and ineffectual.

Never present either side of this political divide as truly good or truly evil. Constantly show that there are benefits as well as risks and pitfalls on either side. Let your players debate and argue amongst themselves, and that's when you have them invested in your setting.

If you need inspiration watch the old BBC show I, Claudius.

Good luck.

Make it a dictatorship. No, really. The Romans invented that shit. That society known for their innovations in politics was also the first to create the rule of absolute power. See, even monarchs had to pay dues to their nobility. Not a Dictator, though.

It worked a little something like this: in peaceful times, Rome's government could change as quickly or as slowly as it damn well pleased. So long as the people weren't at risk of their lives or ravaged by sickness or starvation, they let the politicians pretty much do as they pleased without complaint. When Rome's security as a state was threatened, the senate would hand over all decision making power to one individual for a set amount of years. That one person would buckle down and captain the ship without question, getting their nation through the storm ideally as prudently and efficiently as possible. Then, when their time was up, the dictator would hand the reigns of the city back to the people. The funny thing? They did. Consistently, men would take up, justly use, then surrender their absolute power. Like this guy,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Quinctius_Cincinnatus

Point is OP, you could make a republic with an idea as simple as "this home is pretty good to me and my family, but it's going through some hard times. I've decided to buckle down and support it for now even if they have to get a bit rough, because I'm hoping the storm passes and things return to normal." Doesn't actually need to be any more than that.

There's a single representative for each race taking part in a council who makes the decisions. However, the method of electing these representatives differs depending on the race. Humans might have a monarch by blood be their representative, Dwarves have their highest ranking military soldier be their representative, Elves use a classical democracy, the bear-people use a survival of the fittest tournament to determine their representative, etc.

Interestingly enough the office of dictator works until Fabian, when the Romans got so pissed his strategy of dealing with Hannibal was to delay him they elected a SECOND dictator, which destroyed the office until years later when a certain motherfucker would declare himself dictator for life, massively overhaul Rome's political system, institute the cursus honorum to try and restrain the young and ambitious, and then he retired fully expecting Rome to go back to normal.

Instead, Caesar wound up taking over, because all anyone saw was that he has seized perminant absolute power with no mandate.

Actually, that's not quite correct. Fabian gets reelected after that incident.

For those not in the know, Fabian was a patient motherfucker. He refused to fight any battle that wasn't absolutely advantageous. He would let crop fields burn and surrender territory, because he knew that Hannibal's tactics would not last a prolonged fight. The raider's supply was short, their men wrought with injury and sickness, their numbers only bolstered by unruly and untrained local barbarians. They would fade so long as Fabian held the line. Sadly, the Roman people didn't understand that. They just saw their ruler standing by as fields burned and decided him a cowered. Even his soldiers would defy him on multiple occasions, each time drawn in by a ruse from hannibal to be slaughtered. Fabian had the men, supply. and strategy to win but lacked the moral of the people.

Of course, right after kicking him out of office Rome would see some of the soundest thrashings of its history before promptly reinstating him. It's sad, but he was a person with every correct choice but no faith from his peers.

Democracy if really fucking ancient. It just doesn't seem to work as intended when there are a lot of citizens but the tech level is low.
It doesn't exist because it not convenient.

You can do confessional ism for that, with species instead of religions

>Commonwealth
>elected Despot
>large, powerful state
Sounds like the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, except they held onto the title of King. You should look at their history a little. A few aspects of their government stand out that might interest you in a game.

Firstly, the nobility of the Commonwealth had the right to armed rebellion against the King if they felt the King threatened their liberties. In a sense it was a medieval equivalent of public accountability, and allowed the parliament to demand redress.

Secondly, when a new King took the throne he was forced to sign a pacta conventa, a list of the demands of all the nobles who were responsible for electing him to the throne. Ideally this gives the leader of the country a specific, focused mandate, but in practice often meant that the King was coerced into carrying out the demands of the oligarchs who formed his support base.

Finally, all members of the Polish parliament were granted the power of a veto (liberum veto), allowing them to stop the passing of legislation immediately. This was debatably one of the major causes of the Commonwealth's downfall, because any member of the parliament could paralyse proceedings indefinitely, and simply prevent the legislature from working. This made it extremely hard for reforms to be passed, since they essentially required unanimous support. It becomes even more of a problem if, say, your Russian/Swedish/Prussian/Ottoman neighbours were to bribe a few members of parliament to veto any bills that might work against their interests.

As far as the rest of your post goes
>would they have knights?
Knights require a land-holding elite. Your theoretical country needs to have adequate amounts of grazing land to be rearing horses, and there to be tenants-in-chief and other landholders who have enough serfs or peasants working underneath them that they can afford to have a horse, armour, and weapons and have the time to train with them. This is why smaller states with a much larger middle (merchant) class and less of a feudal structure (north Italian states, some German states) tended to have fewer or no knights, since they simply lacked the social structure necessary to support them.

>Should nobility be dropped and republicanism be extreme with belief in the "common man" the fervently defended idea?
Possibly, but this is an enlightenment idea and so would be pretty anachronistic in a medieval fantasy setting. Go for it if you like the thought I suppose.

>cultural norms, titles and such
Can't help you with culture really. Titles tend to be similar to monarchical titles. Doge, for example, is derived from the same root as Duke. Sometimes titles come from extremely esoteric things though. For example, the British Exchequer is called so because it used to sit at a table covered in a checkered cloth.

>The 12 or so wealthiest merchants make up a council which make executive decisions.

All of the medieval city states I have looked all that reached a good size had more then 12 votes that mattered. See pic for details. The issues is that republics work based on making all the people with real amounts of wealth aligned with the republic.

>If you need inspiration watch the old BBC show I, Claudius

Good advice here. That show is fantastic.

>I know there were some Italian city-states functioning as republics during the medieval ages so it's not like it's entirely alien, but for this commonwealth I was thinking a large, powerful state.

Not saying that this is undoable in D&D but keep in mind the main early enemies of Democracy: Illiterate voters, poor populations groups, limited pool of well educated people, and distance.

Illiterate voters makes keeping new as it moves honest very hard. In late medieval times only around 16 to 18 percent of people could read in Western Europe and in most other places that number was lower. In the 17th century it had gotten better but for Western Europe it ranged from 30.5 to 36 percent. Oliver Cromwell knew that was a huge issue facing his government and thus made a set of very large investments in education.

Poor populations groups leads to either buying votes directly via bribery or have to disenfranchise the group. Disenfranchise of the poor is the better of the two options but it still has issues. If they can not vote then the government has no reasons to help them out. This leads them to be very bad off over time and makes them angry. British workhouses were a great example of this issue.The fix that happend was improvement to stranded of living in the 18th century thanks to the industrial revolution.

Limited pool of well educated people: Passing laws in a republic is labor intensive and the labor comes from a hopefully well educated group. There is only so many of those people in a pre-modern state. This means a a lot of them end up being a law maker and a agent of the state. For Oliver Cromwell the issue was that PMs were needed to staff his army. For medieval city states it was bureaucratic roles like tax collectors and judges. Image if the head of the IRS was also a member of the US congress. That would be a major issue.

Distance: travel times for D&D are based on clear weather with good roads and bridges. cont.

People and horses getting tired after days on the road. That does not make much sense to factor in for a rule set focusing on prime of their lives adventures. However that does make a lot of sense when talking about elder statesmen.

Here is what can make your idea work. Good roads, some type of basic public education, large colleges, and it covering a few wealthy regions. At this point however the 'commonwealth' does not look very medieval. Also it would be very powerful when weighted against likely neighbors.Either hose neighbors have a alliance against the commonwealth or the commonwealth has became a regional hegemony.

What are your favorite things about the Venetian Republic?

Noice

>Head of State and head of all government institutions

he had very little power if I recall correctly, mostly because the government was actually balanced
also, to be fair the Venician form of govermnent was one of the most complex (the voting process was fucking abysmal too)

How did Venice last so long?

much commerce

very thalassocracy

Do you have any recommendations on readings about medieval city states? Books or maybe even some articles on the web?

My home campaign is set in a new repuic making a difficult transition from a monarchy. Like the Holy Roman Empire if the Hapsburgs had sucked more at holding onto power and had a tendency to run off with biologically incompatible races, leading to their early extinction. Each semi-autonomous region has a Lord Elector who can vote for the emperor and some other federal officials. The Lords Elector are usually hereditary but not always - it comes down to whoever wears the Electoral Amulet that magically casts votes from a distance whenever a vote is called for in the capital. Amulets have been sold, held in trust by local landowners who have elections if their own to let someone wear it for a term, and even stolen by doppelgangers.

How about this? A mercantile civilization that is heavily influenced by the production of magic-based crafts and services, Lostutter. Lostutter is a nation filled with artisans that pour spells that are sold for later use or enchanted items that varies from replacing lanterns with light making runes to designing a shield to absorb Dragons fire, mercenaries trained in ways the world have never seen before ( an example being the Fly Guys specialist in air hit and run combat just think of the green goblins glider as an idea), to merchants acting as mediums to sell these one of a kind commodities, and most importantly the creations, from golems to homunculi creations form the workforce, servants, and eternal guardians of Lostutter. Creations hold a special place in Lostutter, born for the eternal duties they were created for so one can find an automaton at the forge to be older than most of the current civilizations. so no one should  be suprised to find the Leader of Lostutter to be none other than a creation, Astoranex, a fully artificial dragon with a star as it's core.

Sorry but no. I have read a a lot of general Medieval history ( and other subjects of history). This is from a British history course I took. Reasons why someone would be monarchist in the 17th century. These were all know to people back then.

I did a barbarian meritocratic warrior democracy once.
Every one votes, but a person's vote is multiplied by the number of battles they fough in. Three freemen must witness every single battle.

So Grack's vote, a veteran which fought in two campaigns, would be count as eight, while Ocun the breadmaker counted only as one.

The political parties were simply the networks of warriors which witnessed each other's fights.

The idea was to combine athenian democracy with spartan militarism

>How would Veeky Forums structure a republic in a medieval fantasy setting?
There are so many examples you can follow, with the Roman Republic front and center (not medieval, but w/e).

>Going with what's familiar I'm considering calling it a Commonwealth run by an elected Protector of the Realm. Perhaps in the past it was a monarchy but either the common folk or the nobility replaced it with a Protectorship.
Let me work it out for you as a suggestion, very vaguely basing it on Rome. Once upon a time, in the city-state of Capitalistan, a great king was born. He was a brilliant tactician, a masterful diplomat and an inspiring speaker. He managed to turn Capitalistan into a great power, conquering some of its larger neighbors and turning others into client states. During a great battle the king took an arrow to the throat and died, unmarried and childless.

When news arrived in the capital, there was a great crisis. There was no proper heir, and many less-than-savory pretenders showed up. Fearing a civil war on top of the ongoing conflicts with foreign powers, a group of generals decided that the realm would be run by the military class/nobility. While this originally started out as a war council, it eventually became a body fully concerned with the day-to-day governance of the empire. Many of the masses, especially of the territories subjugated by Capitalistan, were displeased with this. To appease them a lower body of legislation was created which could approve of or reject proposals by the council of nobles, in which all parts of the realm had equal representation. And so the Commonwealth was born: headed by an elected head of state from among the nobility, mostly run by a council of nobles and their decision approved of by regional representatives. What started out as a temporary compromise to get the kingdom through the war ended up becoming so popular nobody really cared about who would inherit the throne anymore.

What about a counsel run state, where each member is the head of a guild or union. Groups that wouldn't normally unionized (say farmers?) do so just to have a spot at the table. You'd still have infighting, bribing, etc and how the counselman are choosen varies on guild (voting, richest, best craftsmen, ect).

Head of the counsel could be voted I OR better - it's required that they always have an off number of guilds which means there's issues with when and who to add to the table. Some groups may get added just to paid voting lapdog to a more powerful group.

>I'm also looking for ideas like governmental practices, cultural norms (would they have knights?), titles and such. Should nobility be dropped and republicanism be extreme with belief in the "common man" the fervently defended idea?
If you want to make it medieval, knights should certainly exist. The French Revolution and its anti-noble attitude (even the constitution of 1791 had a clause in which the government no longer acknowledged noble titles other than that of the king) happened when it did for a very good reason. Not because the peasants were upset (the Jacqueries had enough angry peasants but never amounted to anything), but because the time was right.
>Power was centralized in the figure of the monarch (though much less so than we like to pretend nowadays)
>There was a centralized army that served directly under the king
>Equipment became "cheaper": a soldier only needed a gun and ammunition (barring cavalry and artillery, with the latter mostly being bought with state funds if I'm not mistaken)

In the Middle Ages as we know them this would be impossible. Armies and the state in general were decentralized, conferring much power to local nobles. On top of that, there needed to be a dedicated warrior-class that could afford expensive equipment and training. Even in the Republic's conscript army being an equite or patrician really helped your chances because you could simply afford better equipment.

A medieval egalitarian republic according to the French model would demand not only highly centralized state power, but also an almost industrial standardization of equipment provided by the state to an army of conscripts. Said republic would need an extreme, almost anachronistic, advantage in tech to achieve this. Nobles will remain a neccessity then.

Good analysis.

>spartan militarism
Why?

That was just the premise. Working within set limits, even if completely arbitrary, makes me more creative than having complete freedom.

That actually does make sense.

You know there are enough actual republics in the medieval era to base one on, right?

The idea of the common man republic is more an Enlightenment era thing, but there were plenty of merchant republics, noble republics, elected monarchies (yes, this is a real thing) and so on.