Ross, I listened to your podcast about Real World Campaigns and saw the parallel to the All Mages Must Die in the peasant rebellion discussion. I therefore take credit for the idea retroactively.
Speaking of Real World Sources of Inspiration, here's some things you may or may not have heard of that would all qualify as Campaigns I'd Run If Etc...
Killing Pablo: By Mark Bowden, the guy who wrote Black Hawk Down, this is the story of the attempts to assassinate Pablo Escobar, the cocaine kingpin who essentially ran things in Colombia. The facts of the situation and how it played out are kind of insane, particularly when it comes to describing just how much power Escobar had. For instance, dude paid for his own luxurious prison when the Colombians were trying to appease the U.S. on jailing him. Ultimately, a combination of an NSA group called Centra Spike, U.S. Army Special Forces (including Delta Force), and Colombian cops finally cornered the guy - but getting there was quite involved and quite gameable. If you want to see how taking down a "real" Bond villain might work, its great stuff.
Generation Kill: This is a book and it was adapted into an HBO miniseries by the guys who did The Wire. Its about a Marine unit that's "the tip of the spear" in the invasion of Iraq, and the experiences a Rolling Stone journalist had with them. The best thing about it is its uncensored straight-forwardness about the trivial, the brutal, and the just plain incompetent aspects of the invasion and subsequent occupation. There's maybe one or two firefights of note, but its mainly about the guys in the unit and the logistics of trying to take over a country. You come to respect the soldiers (some of 'em) but its about as unglamorous as you can get when it comes to depicting modern conflict.
All The President's Men: Book and movie. The true story of how two plucky reporters investigated the Watergate break in and eventually took down the Nixon White House. No chases, no shooting, no magic CSI computer use; just smart, dedicated people who did their research, hounded potential sources, and figured out a top down conspiracy and exposed it to the public. If you like Fox News, it'll probably sound like science fiction, but this shit actually happened.
From Earth to the Moon: HBO miniseries - look, I like them alot, okay? - about the Apollo space program that landed a couple of people on the surface of the moon. In terms of premises, I'd have to say that successful space exploration is one of the more upbeat ones, at least if your test pilots and astronauts don't die in launching pad fires. So, while we've obviously got a laundry list of hate crimes, mass murders, and tragedy in the human experience - people did this kind of thing too.