Re: Roguelike Engines and Short Form Game Modules

Martin Read  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Rick Frankum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>rewards at lower levels?  I think the playstyle is different enough in 
>>rogue/crawl/nethack, where resource management is a *serious* part of 
>>the game, but in *band it's more about collecting resistances than 
>>trying not starve to death.
>Unless you're seriously mishandling things, you should starve to death
>exactly *once* in Nethack (i.e., the time you *discover* that you can
>starve to death).  Your god is your friend, unless you piss them off.

Except that a prayer for food isn't a prayer for something else you
needed.

[I realise you, Martin, know this, but;]

One of the nice things about NetHack is that all the resource management
stuff interconnects. Sure, you can pray for food; but then you can't pray
for hitpoints, or to lose cursed items, or to cure sickness. You can wear
a ring of regeneration to help with hitpoints, but then you burn through
food. Use a scroll of teleporation now as an escape item, you can't use it
to level-teleport to a stash later, or just as a blank scroll to inscribe
upon.

You can beat any given resource management aspect, but possibly with the
result that you die by exhausting some other resource.

So with that in mind; yes, food is a good thing in NH. It bleeds away
prayer and carrying capacity, and encourages the player to keep moving.
-- 
David Damerell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Distortion Field!