Stupid question... but where are the normal people?

[PowerWyrm]

Angband's base town is quite unusual... idiots, wretches, lepers, beggars, drunks, rogues. Where the hell are the normal people? I suppose they all fled... or maybe they constitue the pool of adventurers that roam the dungeon.

[debo]

lol i wondered the same thing the very first time I played

Although I suppose once you have one leper, many more are soon to follow... the same could also be said for rogues and drunks.

[Nick]

I've been to towns like that

[ekolis]

The town is actually the remnants of Las Vegas thousands of years in the future. Everyone's a vagrant because after the meteors hit and destroyed the casinos, there was no work or entertainment available.

[Derakon]

It's a boomtown built off the proceeds of loot adventurers haul out of the dungeon; all you can expect to find are merchants, adventurers, and those unable to leave.

[HallucinationMushroom]

Wait, I thought those *were* normal people. But, I work at a public library, so my idea of normal is quite different from someone who works a few hundred steps in the other direction...

[fizzix]

If you were a normal person, would you stay in a town where some crazed person comes out of a cave and viciously slaughters the entire populace several times a day?

[Derakon]

To be fair, I don't bother with killing townspeople so long as they don't move. Even the movers may get to live if I don't have an area-effect spell handy (i.e. am a warrior or rogue).

[chris]

If you were a normal person, would you stay in a town where some crazed person comes out of a cave and viciously slaughters the entire populace several times a day?

Sometimes I'd prefer slaughtering the shopkeepers instead, but the game won't let me!

[ghengiz]

If you were a normal person, would you stay in a town where some crazed person comes out of a cave and viciously slaughters the entire populace several times a day?

Why do you slaughter them? kills in town don't give exp AFAIK, and the loot isn't that great anyway.
Sure, the thieves can be annoying, but to exterminate the whole town seems a bit too much to me...a conditionate reflex to kill everything that moves in and out the dungeon? ;-)

[Derakon]

I kill them because they're keeping me from being able to run from store to store. It's almost trivial to make an option that keeps monsters from disturbing you on dlvl 0, but we have limited room for options...and it shouldn't be a default new behavior because it can get you killed e.g. if you're a mage walking around near mercenaries.

[PowerWyrm]

If you were a normal person, would you stay in a town where some crazed person comes out of a cave and viciously slaughters the entire populace several times a day?

Reminds me of this: http://www.penancecomic.com/2007/01/12/1-4-there-is-no/

[Shockbolt]

You should be able to throw coins or other objects in order to distract them as they run off to pick stuff up...much more humane than simply running them down.

[Djabanete]

I just vanish them all using the edit file...

[Narvius]

I wonder what is worse - killing them, or Banishment (t). What exactly happens to banished entities?