What's Next?

High Level Characters
So, the dragon is slain and there is enough wealth to build the castle of your dreams. This should secure your place as a lord of the realm and that princess you just rescued, maybe there could be some future there? You are feeling at the top of your game, having been able to take on a regiment single-handed since before you made Superhero. What's next for the Fighting Man who has done it all?
If you were an experienced wargamer back in the 70's you knew what came next. Your 9+ level Lord secured some land, built a castle, collected some men and became a player in the miniatures wargame campaign. Map campaigns were nothing new for miniature wargamers by the time the White Box was released. You draw out a map, divide it up according to how many players you have in the campaign, assign forces and start fighting your tabletop battles to see who ends up controlling the map. The rules are a combination of what battle rules the group uses and some campaign specific rules agreed upon by the participants to govern things like income, raising and equipping troops, etc.
Your PC lord might come out of semi-retirement to adventure from time to time, but his/her future usually had more to do with power politics, gaining battlefield glory and annexing territory at the expense of one's neighbor. High level magic-users and clerics also entered the power-politics realm and could recruit forces and build strongholds.
I always have found the low to mid level game to be most rewarding, personally, and therefore seldom bothered with the few high level characters I had. They tended to sit in semi-retirement in my notebook waiting for the day when a trip down a killer dungeon like Tomb of Horrors would kill them off. I am aware many other campaigns, such as Mr. Gygax's Greyhawk incorporated the higher level PCs into the ranks of world movers and shakers. As a player now with PCs in the teens, I am once again looking for exit strategies. Their story seems to have been told, their personalities, such as they may be, have been explored and it seems time for them to ride off into the sunset. Handing them over to the referee to become an NPC is one option. Building a castle, raising some troops and coveting the neighbor's land is yet another option.