Character Lifecycle

D&D4 is a unique game in that they consider the lifecycle of characters. They lay out the progression of heroes from level 1 to 30, talk about destinies, and lay out retirement options for characters. It is a fun system, of course, not all heroes make it, but it lays out a path for every hero to follow, and gives them many options for ending their heroic career.

I feel this sort of system came from some of the European boardgames that influenced D&D4's development; where the game cares about the endpoint, and sets forth a win condition that may or may never be reached. It puts a 'macro' feel on the game, and gives players a clear goal. Compare this with earlier versions of the game, where the goal was to gain power until 'maxlevel' is reached. IT feels nice to have these goals laid out for you, even if you never use them, or end up doing something totally different.

SBRPG does not have an endgame, due to its sandbox and traditional roots. The character goal in SBRPG is to complete faction goals, and those last as long as the factions and their goals remain relevant in the world's sandbox and theme. If your game's focus is the 1960's space race to the moon, and you end up colonizing the moon, there is not much room to go past that. Well, getting to Mars maybe, but that would be a theme change for the world, and require a bit of a rework for your game. The endgames in SBRPG are up to the gaming group to work out, and like a traditional RPG, up to the gaming group to work out.

Would thinking about endgames help SBRPG? Possibly, but SBRPG is so open, the endgames would be very difficult to mail down to a set group of options. A private eye in the 1920's could not become a god, and a lot of other poor fit scenarios come up when you predefine the paths. A better topic to handle would be faction-endgames, and linking the players to those. If your roleplaying game focused on a good guy secret agent organization was devoted to eliminating the bad guy group trying to conquer the world, then the endgame would revolve around finally destroying that bad guy group. The endgames for characters should begin there, and move onto obvious end points.