[...] TSR reserved high levels for kingdom-building and keeping high-level they felt should be in the game but largely out of reach for PCs. After 9th level or so, you're supposed to re-focus your efforts on the big picture, and leave the life of an adventurer behind for the most part. That idea wasn't popular so it was gradually dropped, leaving us with the high level mess we have now.
Yeah, I think WotC took that most people (atleast those talking at cons and on the old TSR message boards and BBS) kept playing level 13 like level 4 just with more power and learned the wrong lesson. instead of "We need good advice on how the game changes in the second half and really to double down on why" they took it to mean "Lets just give them what they do anyway."
[...] I submit that the players don't really have a solid, consistent idea of what they want out of play at that level either.
So, I'm no expert, as I wasn't playing (or alive) in the heyday of OD&D, but my understanding is that domain play was
on its face the sensible way for high level games to go, based on the way D&D was originally played.
If you're in a player-directed west marches sandbox style game with the standard barony/minor kingdom setting, PCs that get to 9th level become de facto power players in the game world. They are higher level and have more resources and magic gear than the local leadership and, because they've been running amok, profiteering, and making friends and enemies, they have lots of ideas for how they want to remake said barony/minor kingdom in their own image. Domain rules were just a way of making the game that players were already engaging in more functional.
However, lots of players wanted D&D to do epic high fantasy, a la dragonlance, with darklords and macguffins, and, once the game moved in that direction, there was no natural reason for players to care about domains anymore (though I'm sure some people still did, even in the later style of game).
A lot of the wierdness of old D&D stuff is like that. The rules made sense for the game that people were playing at the time.
Here's a video about that.
[...] the old TSR high level play of strongholds and domain management is a separate game. It can be bolted on top of D&D at any level and can operate at a number of levels of abstraction. From the highly abstract version Strongholds and Followers by Matt Colville to a full blown economic system and wargame.
All it really needs is a wargame from WoTC that integrates with PC characters and then any one of the third party Stronghold systems could be used.
Strongholds and Followers, if I understand correctly (never read it) adds the stronghold experience to a more modern and drama-facing version of D&D, so it might actually be doing something different than the old wargaming style. Regardless, you're right that both are secondary systems with different advancement mechanisms layered over the base rules.
But though you could play domains at any level, they still probably make the most sense for characters of middling power. 1st level fighters are basic mooks in a wargame-style battle whereas archmagi and high priests that can potentially take on gods are sortof beyond caring about kingdom-level warfare, i.e. the BECMI progression makes a certain amount of sense.
Really you could have a few things for levels 11-20.
You could have them be advanced versions of the classes with a new subclass you pick at 11th level.
You could have an E10 system as an alternative, where you get feats instead of leveling benefits starting once you hit 10th level. Get up to 10 boons this way (still cap at 20th) or just let people go forever, etc.
You could create a dynamic faction roleplaying game and give each player a "leader" version of their class from 11th-20th level. Sorcerer become Sorcerer-Kings, Fighters become major conquerors or demigod heroes, clerics are fighting alongside angels and dealing with heavenly/infernal factions, and so on.
You could create a magic system progression past 10th level, where your class determines what magic item you get instead of a level up, and each level is a quest to get these magic items or evolve them or unlock their power, etc.
There is just so much you could do that, in my opinion, would be more popular with the mainstream base and give DMs and tables a lot more power to play their version of D&D if we just moved away from the current model to a slightly more modular one that more fits the reported play experience.
Super cool ideas. I like all of them.
The one with class progression via magic items would make it SO much more intuitive to conceptualize what a high level fighter is and why he/she makes sense as the equal of an archmage.
