How do you play?

[Djabanete]

Here's how I play.

1) used to be Entroband, now Chengband. Vanilla Town mode.
2) no selling.
3) preserve off.
4) One visit to town per 10 dungeon levels. Don't bother clearing levels, just move on unless it's a strong level feeling.
5) No store scumming. If the town doesn't have it, buy 'em out or move on to the next 10 dungeon levels.
6) Random race, random class.
7) Mutter to myself constantly --- "Death is waiting for you around every corner. Death wants you. Death is waiting." Every time I forget this, I die.

It's rough! I haven't won this way yet. But I haven't played perfectly yet either. Maybe sometime I will.

How do you play? (And what version/variant?)

[Adley]

1) Unangband
2) Selling on, money's first source in Un is that, and it's much needed.
3) preserve on. Un's specific again : greater vaults are near guaranteed at the end of the game, so artifact are too.
4) Clean EVERY level, in case there's a feature i haven't seen yet, or a funny looking room.
5) Store scumming at the end of the game, to get the consumables to do the greater vaults at the end.
6) Hobbit archers or shadow fairies archmages. More luck with the first
7) Always have my camera ready.

[fizzix]

1) vanilla, usually with custom changes to gameplay that I'm testing*
2) disconnected stairs, (and no selling when the feature is available)
3) preserve on, randarts on
4) I used to level clear, and still do occasionally, but go faster nowadays.
5) mainly use town for basic consumables, buying unid'd stuff, and home storage
6) random race and class *except* when I want to playtest a specific gameplay change I've made.
7) detect monsters about 4 times more than necessary.


*current changes involve TO being a bolt and allowing monsters to save against destruction by being teleported instead of deleted.

[Xaxyx]

1) Vanilla, eagerly awaiting the next major release.
2) Selling, until money becomes relatively pointless (see 5).
3) Randarts on, preserve on. Also, CHEAT MODE: Full Monster Knowledge. It's simply more convenient than having to refer to spoilers all of the time in order to know what can kill me instantly (see 7).
4) Generally dive hard until key danger levels, depending on kit. Stop to level clear only on superb feelings.
5) As little store scumming as possible (will scum when char is crippled, for example, for !Restore_Strength).
6) Race/class to suit my mood. Generally aim to maximize starting number of blows.
7) Play in spurts so as not to get slightly bored, and thus slightly distracted, and thus slightly dead.

[dos350]

1. vanilla 3.2
2. selling on, normal stairs
3. randarts on preserve on
4. extreme stair scumming
5. town scum when needed
6. i choose my race and class, usually high elf
7. usually play constantly til i get slain or dlvl 60+
8. avoid high end hounds completely, i mean all hounds that arent basic or shard!

i have won once since i started as a warrior in 3.12v2, i want to play faster, im trying a mage. eeee

[LostTemplar]

1. FAangband
2,4,5. Ironman
3. N/A
6. Choose class and race I like, mostly HE warriors.
7. Kill anything I can for loot and exp, love clearing pits but ignore vaults.
About 90% of my inventory and equipment comes from monster drops, not from dungeon floor.

[Timo Pietilä]

1) Vanilla 3.2
2,3) usually standard options on: preserve on, maximize on, connected stairs (disconnected stairs is more challenging, but I find it too weird for my suspension of disbelief).
4) Mixture of diving and clearing. If there is a excellent level feeling, but no dungeon feature to explain it, look every item on the floor, pretty much skip boring levels.
5) No store scumming. No buyouts, just play until store has what I need or I find it at the dungeon. I miss discounts.
6) This and that. No rogues or paladins, because I find them boring. Mostly priests.
7) Detect every time I feel like it which is often enough that I am usually not yet found trap detection border. Less with ESP. Excessive use of mapping when possible.

[will_asher]

1) DaJAngband (almost always)
2) no selling (almost always)
3) randarts sometimes on sometimes off as I feel like it. always connected stairs. never even consider touching preserve or maximize from the defaults.
4) Mixture of diving and clearing. If there is a excellent level feeling, but no dungeon feature to explain it, look every item on the floor, pretty much skip boring levels. (yes I copied and pasted but it's the same thing I do).
5) town scum when needed (which isn't often)
6) whatever race/class I'm in the mood for, sometimes random.
7) detect often when I can, but I don't use mapping much.
8) generally find it very hard to be consistently careful and then I die.

[buzzkill]

1) DaJAngband (mostly recently)
2) No selling if it's an option, but even in selling games I don't sell as much as I could.
3) I hardly ever rest for HP/SP recovery, and avoid using 'cheesy' tactics most of the time.
4) Randarts on, if I remember to turn them on. Always dis-connected stairs. If DCS is not an option (FA wilderness) or it's a birth option that I forget to set, then I try to always use a different stairway/passage than the one I arrived via.
5) Mixture of diving and partial exploration based on preliminary detections and level feelings (even if I know level feelings are mostly broken).
6) Never town scum, stair scum, save scum or use spoilers.
7) Always random character selection, always the standard roller
8) Detection and mapping as is prudent and available, but I'm not manic about it. detect treasure/items quite often.
9) I usually throw inferior characters against superior opponents looking for a moment of glory. it usually ends badly, however I do get my 'hero moment' every once in a while. "I'd rather die fighting, than win trampling."

[Magnate]

1. V mostly, with a little S for light relief.
2. Options get toggled manically for testing.
3. Wizard mode gets used a lot.

IMO the automatic point-buy stat generation that ajps did is the single best addition to the 3.x series.

[pampl]

It's a little surprising how many people just play V given this is the variant subforum. I wonder how the answers would look if this had been posted in the V forum...

1) My own variant, Reposband, mostly; sometimes Pos to re-inspire myself
2) Usually selling on. I like the little struggle for inventory slots that occurs between greed and need. I don't care about selling much once I'm done with stat gain, though.
3) Preserve on. I love collecting artifacts and it pains me to see them (LOST), even the chintzy daggers and gauntlets.
4) A visit to town once my inventory is full or I have some other need. My first dive I can usually make it to floor 15ish, after that it becomes a bit more common.
5) Store scumming only for WoR.
6) Whatever race I need to test. This last time it was an Umber Hulk, and I have a feeling I'll have to be playing one again soon as they need some work before they're fun.

[Seany C]

1) Mostly FaA, recently trying out V 3.2 (first serious time spent with V since 2.7.8 and the Ben Harrison era), planning to get back into Z+ eventually.

2) Selling on - FaA doesn't have enough treasure drops to make no-selling a fulfilling existence.

3) Preserve on - with thrall mode and the amount of stair-scumming required, most non-ironman characters would end up with a handful of artifacts at most.

4) I don't have any hard'n'fast rules on returns to town. Usually once my pacl is full of good loot (with a few discards already made) or where I'm low on CCW or WoR. No clearing levels, unless it's one with a big vault or lots of uniques (and then, rarely successfully cleared). I tend to try to dive beyond my comfort zone to avoid boredom, and egotistically to avoid ladder dumps where I've taken 1m turns to get to DL40.

5) Store-scumming only once in a blue moon - maybe if there are no CSW or CCW and I'm out, but the multiple towns and wilderness exploration. in FaA usually provides decent alternatives to town scumming. I don find myself scumming wilderness levels in the early FaA game, though (e.g. Thargelion 11 / SV 30).

6) Both for V and FaA, any race (or race/class combos) with few or no posted winners. So Green-Elves, Petty-Dwarves and Easterlings for FaA and combos like Half-Elf Paladin or Kobold Mages for V. Who needs another H-E Mage or Dwarf Priest on the ladder?

7) Cautionary tactics? Very few, alas - my characters tend to live fast and die young...

[Bostock]

1) Mostly S, occasional forays into FAA, Z+, and V. Tons of ToME 2.3 back in the day. No mods ever, no birth options of late, did some heavy ironman S about a year ago.

2) Selling off wherever feasible - I'm not good enough at juggling slots to enjoy selling on, and I like the real-time speedup to play.

3) Preserve on, for the same reason I go light on Sangband quests -- having punishment for leaving certain levels based on a rather arbitrary criterion kind of spoils the fun otherwise inherent in non-perma-levels for me.

4) I tend to recall at five minutes to midnight; I just hate wasting money on extra WoR and extra turncount on the wait. This gets me killed sometimes. Whether recalling late or on time, my criterion are the usual - CCW count, ?Tel count, statdrain, XP drain, torched books, etc. I go quickly to my quest depth if questing, or as deep as I can go without feeling I have an instadeath resistance hole if not questing. I go by feeling; while I have no qualms against spoilers or source-diving, I usually can't be bothered. I stop along the way during my "lazy diving" for uniques, pits, and other interesting stuff, especially when they have abnormally high reward/risk due to my resistances etc.

5) Store-scumming almost never - Sangband usually makes it unnecessary thanks to player-friendly store stocking and, recently, thanks to a buyout button. In other variants and in V I'm usually bored enough already* without one of the genre's most boring tactics. Town-scumming fairly often, usually because I forgot to leave enough money to buy WoR or because I'm two gold short of another CCW or whatever. Stair-scumming only to heal or to reach my desired depth - and even to these ends I'll often try some other less boring means.

6) In familiar-to-me variants, I always try for something interesting, either in race, class, or playstyle. In unfamiliar-to-me variants I tend to dip my toes via a warrior, then a mage, then...

7) Play as sloppily as I can get away with, except when playing more sloppily than I can get away with.

* I've got horrible eyesight, and almost no other variants come even close to S's nearsighted-friendliness. I think my boredom in other variants mostly revolves around that.

[Nick]

1) Mostly O or FA recently (although lots of time longer ago in V, NPP, Steam, Pos, Un)
2) Almost always selling
3) Preserve on
4) Visit town when inventory full (O) or whenever (FA)
5) Store scum only for ID or WoR in O
6) Randomish race/class in FA; always Shadow Fairy Necromancer in O
7) Have learnt all the important lessons, so I always know how to classify my deaths

[HallucinationMushroom]

1) FA, but I would like to claim a win in Un and O, but death will probably take me first.
2) I go beyond buying and selling, I hoard. Most of my characters have a ridiculous stockpile of crap in their homes and I love to wallow in it.
3) Preserve on.
4) I visit town when I can make a lot of money by doing so.
5) I don't scum town anymore, but I think buying out stores for restocking is fine.
6) Usually warriors and races that make good warriors.
7) I'm usually inebriated when I play, bashing the keys at high-speed.