This is my adventuring party. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

If you were to describe your adventuring party’s members by name, lineage, backstory and class how likely is it that there would exist an identical party to yours? I contend that the distribution of party characteristics is more than likely unique to your party alone.  And while there might be some common archetypes the characters fall into: Tank, Sneak, Face, Caster, Healer, Skirmisher, thankfully parties often come out resembling that Rifleman's Creed from Full Metal Jacket: “This is my adventuring party. There are many like it, but this one is mine.” In trying to understand how groups function, the theory of Adaptive Structuration tries to address precisely how groups, like adventuring parties and rifles are the same and how they differ.

Prior to Scott Poole’s work adapting societal structuration to groups, many researchers operated under the paradigm that small groups followed a near-universal pattern for decision-making. This, so-called, single-sequence model asserted that a small adventuring party, regardless of composition, would follow the same basic outline for deciding how to (for example) assault a goblin encampment. First, little work would get done as members oriented themselves to the task at hand, clarified their goals, and became more focused. Second, members would then share alternative proposals for how to accomplish the task: illusion, charm, assault, or spycraft. The various approaches would naturally be in conflict with one another. Third, eventually the party would coalesce on a strategy. Tension would be reduced through more-or-less peaceful negotiations. Once the strategy was decided upon, the party would focus on executing the plan. The result would be party integration and accomplishment. However, when Poole tested this single-sequence model, only about one in four groups followed this five-step sequence.

Poole probably should have asked a dungeonmaster how many parties followed the breadcrumbs laid out for them or assaulted the goblin camp as expected. I bet one in four would be generous. Instead, Adaptive Structuration claims that party members create their own group even as they act within them. All groups contain within them both rules for behavior and resources to be martialed in the face of challenges. Within the context of roleplay gaming, the rules (at least the central ones) are written.  If you want to cast a spell with a verbal component, you have to be able to speak. That’s a rule. It serves to limit and constrain certain actions.  Similarly, if I want to get a proposal accepted at work, I have to fill out the appropriate TPS report. I’m not allowed to cast a spell with a verbal component without speaking and I’m not allowed to get a proposal accepted without filing the report with my superiors. The resources vary much more considerably than do the rules. In Dungeons & Dragons, resources include not just the items in your Bag of Holding, but your dragonborn’s breath weapon, your dwarf’s knowledge of stonecraft, and your warlock’s patron. All the personal traits, proficiencies, information, and abilities the party members bring to the group comprise the resources. 

The rules and resources a group has access to help to produce the group. Then, that group’s functions reproduce and reinforce the system that’s in place. This cyclical, responsive and reproduction of group structure is clearly more complicated than a single stream, mono-sequence model. As such, it’s far superior in addressing the complex interactions of groups deciding on a social media campaign, on a marketing strategy, or on how to assault those goblins.

The rules under which a group operates may help to indicate to group members how behaviors ought to be carried out and what morality is connected to certain behaviors.  For instance, in our adventuring party, there are two military veterans. In the service, one was an officer; the other an enlisted man. In the party should the enlisted character follow the officer as he would have in the army, or are they equal members? The military provides clear rules on how the chain of command is organized and how it is to be followed. Should military code of conduct be appropriated for the adventuring party such that the officer is the leader? Or should the party adopt a different power structure that is more democratic? Either way, the rules would constrain their players and the group in some ways, and liberate members in other ways. If the party uses the characters’ familiarity with military procedure and hierarchy to dictate its decision-making process, that would serve to reproduce that group structure over again. Necessarily, this will have consequences for the party and how it handles decisions in the future.

Productive and helpful interactions within the adventuring party require members to be self-aware and reflexive. The alert player (or group member) knows their character’s resources, skills, spells and abilities. They can respond to the effects of their own choices in order to help the group and themselves. They are thus able to make decisions that are ethical. Effective and appropriate communication becomes instrumental in helping adventuring parties function well. 

The ways in which group members create their group and then serve to recreate that group through its function may go unnoticed by the individual members of that group. The adaptive and fluid nature of structuration means that members’ choices serve to develop both stability and change within the group. Likewise, a group's rules and resources are the medium through which group activities are accomplished. Rules and resources help to determine the outcome of their interactions. Just as certain game rule systems change over time (from 5e to D&D One, for example) a group’s rules for interaction and the resources they can use to affect a change are similarly fluid. Imagine a party has chosen a course of action wherein they seek to confront a patron in an effort to protect a valued party member. According to Adaptive Structuration, such a plan of action serves two purposes. Their course of action reasserts the group membership, group values, and group priorities while simultaneously restating and reproducing the group’s norms and values.  

Finally, neither at your gaming table nor in the real world are rules neutral nor resources distributed equitably. Thus, decision-making within groups often carries with it a moral component that both gamemasters and players would do well to be aware of, lest they serve to reproduce unjust treatment, unfair oppression, or inequities. Thankfully, Adaptive Structuration privileges and prioritizes human choice over a cookie-cutter formula for group work, allowing all the mess and magic of authentic human interaction to produce unique groups and adventuring parties. It is a theory, unlike many of the earlier, single-sequence models, which asserts the value and primacy of player and group-member agency.  It’s an empowering theory for groups and adventuring parties. None alike; all unique.