"Uping" Your Game: Where to next?

[steeldragons]

In a game born of imagination and creativity, quite literally the "sky's [or deities thereof] the limit." The characters increase in level and experience, the threats magnify (or focus more?) to accordingly. Makes sense, right?

I've never been a DM to only throw "level appropriate" encounters at a party (Knowing/recognizing the "better part of valor" is something I instill early on.), but for the most part, the individual challenges/limited plot BBEG's aren't too significantly ahead of where the party is.

One of my best group's didn't take on a "real" fully grown dragon (non of this "youngling" nonsense for 3rd level players until they were, I think the party average, was 7th level...and it was a TOUGH fight.

Generally speaking, for my own 1-2e homebrew games (a few 3e elements incorporated over the years) I've often mentally categorized things as follows:
"Low level", 1-3rd or 4th: Local hazards, bandits, raiding goblins, evil cultists trying to corrupt the town, and the like. Dungeon crawls that offer modest rewards and treasure, gaining the characters a "reputation" in their vicinity without all out "fame" or "fortune."

"Mid-levels", which I'd put anywhere from 4th to say 8th or 9th level: You're not just saving the village/town but saving the kingdom/nation, taking on whole churches of evil, whole tribes of orcs, etc...Thwarting much further reaching schemes and dungeon delving is much "deeper" if you would, more unknown territory, more time spent abroad, in the wilderness/away from your starting village/town/city of origin...political elements come into play much more and the lines between good and evil are more often intermingled and difficult to discern. True "fame" and probably a good amount of fortune comes into play through these levels.

"High levels", say anything over 9 or 10: World spanning quests/saving the world not just the nation, traveling to other planes (for extended periods, specific purposes), dealing with the truly "powerful" of the setting world...and/or other worlds, commanding armies and otherwise making a real impact on the layout of the game world, dungeon delving really is, quite literally, "off the proverbial map" to places few others know about let alone believe exist or have ever been.

So, I guess my question/point of the thread is this: Once you've defeated the dragon, what next? Where do you go from there without it becoming or before it becomes some inter-planar arm-wrestling with demon lords and taking tea with the gods sort of "epic silliness"? Once you've taken down the 20th level high priest of Orcus or slain Lolth, what provides any [non-ridiculous] challenge?

In short, "How and when do you 'Up' your game/plots?"

--Steel Dragons

 

[the Jester]

The higher level the game gets, the more the players should drive it (IMHO).

After they kill the dragon? The pcs get together and talk it over.

The wizard says, "I want to build the biggest arcane library in the land."
The cleric says, "I want to become my religion's high priest."
The fighter says, "I want to build an army and become a king."
The rogue says, "I want to steal the crown jewels of the richest kingdom in the world."

The dm says, "Okay, how are you going to go about that?"

 

[SkredlitheOgre]

When I was running my 3/3.5 campaign, I had set everything in motion that Fraz'urb'lu was the BBEG. I had managed to trick the party into gathering the Staff (Rod?) of Seven Parts by telling them that it had to be destroyed in the Abyss for it to be truly destroyed. I had set it up so that in exchange for returning his Staff to him, Fraz was going to let the party go and give them some kind of boon that I currently don't remember.

So, the night of the final confrontation, I come down with the flu. I call the right people so the word goes out. I get a text saying 'Craig (one of the players) will run a session tonight'

I assumed they were going to do some kind of side quest/shenaniganery. Nope. They went to the Abyss and killed Fraz'urb'luu and 'finally' destroyed the Staff. Of course, I found this out the next morning in an email. I was cheesed, to say the least. And from what I was told, combat with a Demon Lord vs. a party of 5 (granted) epic level characters lasted four rounds. None of the players went past half HP.

I guess my point here is that sometimes, there is no 'up,' because nothing poses a challenge anymore, at least combat wise. After that happened, I said "Okay, we're done. This campaign is over because I can't challenge you anymore. Roll up new characters." They weren't happy about it, but the group broke up not too long after that, so I guess it worked out for the best.