Traditional P&P and single player CRPGs suffer from a lack of dynamism within the players' party, especially during the early levels. A typical campaign starts with a weak fighter, unable to defeat much of anything, a weak thief who couldn't pickpocket a peasant, a mage who can barely light up a room, and maybe one or two other ineffective characters. I'm not aware of any RPG that doesn't start with an assortment of weak and powerless characters who are expected to struggle to survive in the most noobish places: the cave full of rats, or the alleyway full of thieves and rats.
Such a powerless party necessarily encounters powerless foes. Otherwise, if they met a hostile and experienced wizard for example, they would be decimated. With such a limited range of abilities between the party and their enemies, the narrative opportunities are restricted and can seem contrived. However, this is not the way things are in fantasy literature. The initial party in The Hobbit is made up of a very experienced wizard, several somewhat experienced Dwarves, and a level one halfling, who of course has the pivotal role. The narrative opportunities with such a dynamic party increase dramatically. Gandalf spends his time protecting Bilbo and heading off to do mysterious wizardly things, Thorin and the others do the gruntwork of getting Bilbo to Smaug, while Bilbo has fun with Sting and hones his luck. Such differing activities would not be possible with a group of players all within a few levels of each other.
Why do we restrict ourselves to a narrow range of ability? Perhaps designers feel that the players of low-level characters would feel left out. But in my experience, as long as the overarching story is compelling, the players are happy to play along, as long as each character has a role to play. The story must be sophisticated enough to allow for such a range within the party. In my view, placing demands on the story, bringing it up to a certain level of quality, can do nothing but good. With a group of 5 level three characters, any town threatened by orcs will do, but what's a 15th level thief doing with a first level cleric and two midlevel fighters? This dynamism drives a cycle of creativity: the disparity within the party demands an explanation, the explanation in turn reinforces the roles of each character and the story they are a part of.
DMs and game designers, I challenge you to come up with story about a party that contains at least three significant levels of ability. Your game will be the better for it!
