The Adventurers Club Ltd. Member's Dossier Articles Hat

The Adventurers Club Ltd., or ACL, was an organisation for players of Adventure games. Its owner was Henry Mueller (or Henry Muller as he now calls himself, at the insistance of the French government), who played MUD2 as SKIFF; he eventually reached the rank of the Arch-Wizard - and a damned fine one he was, too! Henry invited me to write a regular column for the Member's Dossier magazine which was despatched (initially monthly, later bi-monthly) to the ACL's members. As the ACL actually paid contributors, I was more than happy to oblige (although I did say I'd do it for free; Henry insisted, however).

What resulted was a series of 14 articles (I think - I may be missing some from early in the series, but probably am not). Some of these are quite deep considering that the target audience was people who were interested in single-user Adventures who didn't necessarily have any yearning whatsoever to know things about multi-user Adventures. Henry was happy, though, so I didn't alter anything (although re-reading some of what I wrote, perhaps I should have!).

Eventually, the Member's Dossier (or MD as the articles refer to it) was replaced by a ring-binder format file which was added to incrementally each issue. This worked surprisingly well, and Henry began to reprint old articles for inclusion, as well as continuing to publish new ones. However, shortly afterwards he sold the ACL, and the new owners were strangely silent as to whether they wanted me to continue with my column...

Pretty well everything written over the course of the two years my column lasted is still relevant to MUDs today. The ACL itself closed in 1991, however, Adventure games having finally died commercial death.
Mortar Board Introduction,
pages L-1 and L-2,
March, 1987.
Mortar Board Game management,
pages 11 and 12,
April, 1987.
Mortar Board Number of rooms in a MUA,
page 11,
May, 1987.
Mortar Board Architecture,
pages 27 to 29,
June, 1987.
Mortar Board A scathing review of IOK,
pages 27 to 29,
August, 1987.
Mortar Board The decline and fall of Essex MUD,
pages 27 and 28,
October, 1987.
Mortar Board MUA and SUA differences,
pages 27 and 28,
December, 1987.
Mortar Board Business models,
pages 27 and 28,
February, 1988.
Mortar Board The lack of female players,
pages 27 and 28,
April, 1988.
Mortar Board Profiles of wizzes,
pages 27 and 28,
June, 1988.
Mortar Board Social phenomena in MUAs,
pages 27 and 28,
November, 1988.
Mortar Board Graphics,
pages 27 and 28,
December, 1988.
Mortar Board Combat in MUAs,
pages L-21 and L-22,
March, 1989.
Mortar Board Writing your own MUA, part 1,
pages L-23 and L-24,
April, 1989.


Copyright © Richard A. Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk)
26th May :\webdes~1\ aclmd.htm