Unangband help

[Lankiel]

I've played a few other *bands (FAangband and Tome/Theme), and thought I'd look at Unangband. But, there's almost overwhelming choices right from the start. So, what basic characters would you go with? There seem to be too many spells, options, etc for me to get a handle of the game.

thanks!

[SaThaRiel]

Hm, im also hoping to find a good Unangband introduction. Sadly i havent found one.
But one thing i learned with roguelikes: Just play, you will always learn more while playing as from a manual. For the spells/races/etc you should have a look into the help-folder of your [Un] installation. There are some good introduction - which won't spoil it.
So thats my hint - just play and learn. But if there is a good introduction which shows some "secrets" i would appreciate it too

[Bandobras]

Fortunately, many of the starting options are almost only for flavour, or effectively so until you master the game enough for them to make a difference. E.g., the difference between various men races. And, if they are for flavour, role-play and choose something that strikes your fancy. Chances are, if it role-plays well, it will also game-play well.

For the really important choices, in the birth menu you can press ? and you'll get some info. E.g. there is only one entry for men in general, but it tells you something about them. Also, some races are missing from ?, with the comment that they are strange and dangerous --- take it as a hint, that you'd better stick with those in ?. When you are experienced enough to benefit from the other races, you probably won't need the help files anyway (though you may want to get some hard numbers from the spoilers, if you are the analythical kind of player).

There is also some more in-game help you'll get as you progress (unique among variants, I think). Lastly, ask here, it's fun to mentor fellow adventurers.

Go, shown them!

[PowerDiver]

You might take a look at old competitions. http://angband.oook.cz/competitions.php Look for ones using Un.

Presumably whoever created the chars had something in mind. You might get more info by reading the competition discussions and/or comments on chars submitted to the comp ladder.

[Big Al]

Alternatively, you might want to try a Maia Istari - they're purposefully overpowered for beginners, can pretty much do everything well, and are not restricted from using mage and/or priest books, so you can try a bit of everything and do what you like.