Do you stair scum?

[Zero]

Not only do I not stair-scum, I don't even give myself the option. I disable connected stairs.

I'll go to DL1 and rest for a few thousand turns if there's something I need from the stores that isn't available. Honestly, I strongly dislike many things about the town: Maggot's drop makes too much of an impact on the early game, loss of visibility at night requires monster detection that is not challenging and wastes time, black market items can make the game too easy, town-scumming for common items is annoying, farming townspeople allows a (very boring) way to generate unlimited cash for classes that can create food, etc.

I'd like to see the edit files changed to allow more self-sufficiency. For example, make the books drop earlier, !restore stats should be set to DL10, food, light, and ?identify could drop more often. Really, I think the town, money, and WoR should be removed entirely. Having to survive entirely on what one finds in the dungeon would be more fun and challenging, IMO.

[EDIT] > loss of visibility at night requires monster detection that is not challenging and wastes time

What I mean is that either you have to proceed slowly to make sure you don't run into filthy urchins, or you have to cast detection. Either way, it's a slowdown that adds nothing to the overall gameplay.

[Narvius]

I like possibilities. Really. It should be possible to stair scum, scum on townspeople, scum for stairs, generate food, kill Maggot for stuff and so on. If someone does not like it, he or she may not use that feature. Nobody forces you to murder the poor farmer.

[Antoine]

I'd like to see the edit files changed to allow more self-sufficiency. For example, make the books drop earlier, !restore stats should be set to DL10, food, light, and ?identify could drop more often. Really, I think the town, money, and WoR should be removed entirely. Having to survive entirely on what one finds in the dungeon would be more fun and challenging, IMO..

I'm happy to tell you that there is a variant which is exactly what you describe

It is called Ironband and you can download it at http://angband.oook.cz/ironband

A.

[daft]

Is townscumming part of the character of the game? If some items were permanently available in the shops a la the general store, would it impact gameplay at all or just make it less annoying?

Even though I am frustrated when I get back to town only to find the store out of stock on something I dearly need I accept it, as I would in real life. Heavily stocked stores are a crutch.

[Zikke]

I tend not to stair scum, but not because I have a moral problem with it. I find that I get better items and have more fun when I clear entire floors. As you can imagine, with this technique I rarely dive and I stay pretty conservative on the dungeon level. I like going around a level *knowing* that I could probably crush anything I run into.

[Conker]

Even though I am frustrated when I get back to town only to find the store out of stock on something I dearly need I accept it, as I would in real life. Heavily stocked stores are a crutch.

Personally, I think it would vastly improve the game to have more items guaranteed at the shops, including restore potions, identify - to be honest, I'd suggest making even 'conveniences' like CCW, phase door scrolls and Holy Chant guaranteed. If somebody really wants those items (and given that it's a massive game with perma-death, people aren't going to go 'oh sod it, I'll just play on with -5 CON and hope everything is ok!'), they'll go down the stairs, wait 1000 turns, etc, repeat until the item they want is there. I don't think it would ruin anything at all to eliminate that part of the process - I play Angband to kill monsters, not to wait for a vendor to restock his wares.

[zaimoni]

Would it suffice if the Black Market was guaranteed to have those items "when needed" if no other stores did?

[Narvius]

Eh, that's an awesome idea.

[Blackleaf]

I don't stair scum, but I do make more recalls back town more often than is strictly necessary till I have restore potions stocked up - which is basically the same thing so far as I can see.

[rdermyer]

I'm also a fan of Zaimoni's idea. I would much rather shell out extra gold than waiting around in dungeon level 1 waiting for !restore strength to show up.

[Zikke]

I do like the feature in some variants where the Temple will restore a stat for a hefty fee. It's not too unbalancing.

[Narvius]

I wouldn't like any "services" in Vanilla.

[Elsairon]

I like the Black Market idea of carrying 'necessary' items when the other shops don't have them. But I also like the occasional challenge of not having an item I need available. I vote for having those items show up in the BM 'most' of the time.

[Papayouki]

Another idea should be to increase the skills and the inventory of shopkeeper depending on the money he earned by trading with you.
For example, if you sell plenty of good stuff to the temple, the priest becomes a bishop who can cure your stats and sells better items.

When you sell him unidentified good stuff, the shopkeeper gains 10 points of xp, when you sell him an identified good item he gains 1 point, when you sell him an unidentified bad item he loses 1 xp. After 100xp, the shopkeeper gains a new inventory and skills.

Or you can calculate the level of the shopkeeper only with the amount of gold he earns. So the player could sell a wonderfull artefact for 1 gold, just to make the shopkeeper rich.

[Medardo]

I don't. And I hope the game can be won even without any sort of scumming.