This page tells the tale, of how it is to be a beginning ToME player.
Recording in the life
Oldendactred (Neuter Elf Warrior)
Olendactred (Neuter Elf Warrior) was Kernigh's very first ToME character. Kernigh has used the roguelike keyset from the very beginning, moving around with yuhjklbn. Olendactred began with an empty monster memory in Kernigh's save file.
The main feature of this character was extreme inability to hit anything with a weapon.
Now upon the character screen (press C) is a a way to adjust tactics. Coward or berserker? Slug-like or running? If Kernigh had adjusted combat tactics toward berserker, Oldendactred might have lived to see Barrow-Downs level 2. As it is, Olendactred never adventured past level 1 of the Barrow-Downs, even though Kernigh used "quick start" to restart Olendactred five times.
Glauseth (Female Elf Rogue)
Glauseth (Female Elf Rogue), like Olendactred, never adventured past level 1 of the Barrow-Downs.
Kernigh plays ToME on a Unix (actually OpenBSD) system. Instead of using the X11 interface, Kernigh opens a terminal emulator, sets TERM=xterm-color in the environment, launches ttyrec to record the game, and within the recording launches ToME using the main-gcu interface. Thus ToME actually connects to the pseudo-terminal or pty created by ttyrec, which in turn connects to the pty created by the terminal emulator. (The pty pretends to be a real Unix terminal on a serial cable so that interactive command-line apps can run.) Thus ttyrec, in addition to recording the game, must relay things between ToME and the terminal emulator.
This already creates a technical problem. Now any Unix terminal, including any pty, provides special keys like Control-C to interrupt, Control-Z to suspend, Control-D to indicate end-of-file. (On BSD, the "stty all" command does list these keys.) Control-Y is an unusual key; it means to suspend as Control-Z would do, but to wait until when the program would have read Control-Y in its input (so nothing happens if the program never reads input). However, Control-Y is also the command to dig northwest in ToME.
Now Glauseth is wandering through the forest of Barrow-Downs 1, using the roguelike keys to dig away the trees, Control-YUHJKLBN. Everything seems okay until Glauseth tries to dig a tree to the northwest. Control-Y. Upon a Control-Y, everything exits. The game is lost, unrecoverable.
Jerois (Neuter Elf Ranger worshipping Tulkas)
This is where things become interesting. The first attempt at Jerois (Neuter Elf Ranger worshipping Tulkas) failed:
Failed start
- http://kernigh.pbwiki.com/f/tome.2006-05-29.19-33-52.ttyrec - start Jerois (frame 1696/9479), enter Barrow-Downs, "The Zombie Floating eye gazes at you.", die (frame 9451)
But after this began what would become Kernigh's first campaign, a game in which Kernigh could actually clear some monsters from the Barrow-Downs.
From time to time, the Konsole terminal emulator OpenBSD will generate an unexpected error. (The xterm terminal emmulator above OpenBSD does not have this problem.) Sometimes this causes ttyrec to fall off the terminal emulator. Now ttyrec forks into three processes: one to execute ToME, one to relay input, and one to relay output... it is the relay of input that suddenly exits, causing a return to the command line.
For unknown reason, ToME continues running (on the pty of ttyrec) and the relay of output remains open. With no way to tell ToME to save and exit, Kernigh resorts to signaling ToME to perform a panic save. The command is "pkill -1 tome", which sends a SIGHUP to ToME. (For Jerois, Kernigh used "pkill -4 tome", which sends SIGILL. However, SIGHUP works best with other roguelike games like NetHackBrass.)
Campaign - http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=5877
- http://kernigh.pbwiki.com/f/tome.2006-05-29.21-32-55.ttyrec - quick start Jerois (frame 181/7455), enter Barrow-Downs, panic save (frame 7450)
- http://kernigh.pbwiki.com/f/tome.2006-05-30.00-28-22.ttyrec - save game (frame 361/2394), lose game to Control-Y (frame 2380) (I would then restore Jerois from the save at frame 361.)
- ...
The second recording ended with the Control-Y problem again. Now Kernigh always uses the command "stty dsusp none" to disable the Control-Y feature on the terminal emulator so that ToME characters can dig northwest as normal. So Kernigh restored Jerois with an older save file. This was recovery from an accident, and Jerois had not died or made a major mistake after the save, so it did not feel like cheating.
Now for actual gameplay
Jerois (Neuter Elf Ranger worshipping Tulkas) continued
The campaign initially was slow. Jerois repeatedly went between Barrow-Downs 1 and Bree to take and sell loot. Jerois managed to gain character level 8 without going deeper than 50 feet.
Then Kernigh started to write the story of Jerois on the ladder page, http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=5877 ... it includes a princess quest and a pile of junkarts. However, the ladder does not mention that Jerois almost never travels out of Bree.
It all ended on Barrow-Downs level 5. Jerois did not have enough HP to use genocide, a technique of rapidly killing monsters by reducing the hero's HP. So Jerois died while activating a junkart of mass genocide.
Growen, Adroal, Sevoagan, and Cadeind
These four characters are all Skeleton Elf Rangers worshipping Manwe Sulimo.
Growen went on campaign, http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=5930 ... but encountered too much danger too quickly. Growen went down the Barrow-Downs faster than Jerois. Growen also decided to explore a bit of the world map around Bree. At one point Growen entered The Old Forest west of Bree, a dungeon that starts on level 13. After exploring part of the level and successfully some of the monsters, Growen became overwhelmed and fled up the stairs. Growen ultimately perished in the Barrow-Downs while trying to gather loot to sell in Bree. At level 7 amid to loot, a Death sword appropriately hacked Growen to death.
Adroal, Sevoagan, and Cadeind were effectively rerolled versions of Growen. All three intended to explore the Barrow-Downs, much as Jerois and Growen had done. However, Adroal acted very aggressively and repeatedly died repeatedly in the thieves quest (the "HomeQuest" of Bree), which Kernigh was now trying to do at the beginning of each game. In succession, Adroal, Sevoagan, and Cadeind gave Kernigh more experience in the thieves quest and exploring the overworld. One incarnation of Sevoagan found Lothlorien, and one incarnation of Cadeind also found Minas Anor, but they both mistakingly wandered into the ice, finding their deaths, never finding Gondolin. (Read the parchment! Gondolin is in the northeast, not northwest.)
Altogether, these four chars did much to help Kernigh advance own understand of how to play ToME.
Growyr, Cadoloth, Bireld, Grerim
These four characters were experiments in race, class, and god selection. Kernigh wanted to switch from playing Rangers to using more magic. Growyr was a Warper and the other three were Runecrafters.
Growyr went for Yavanna Kementari; Cadoloth went for Eru Iluvatar; Bireld and Grerim returned to Manwe.
What Kernigh thus found?
- Quick trips between Bree and Gondolin are possible. Kernigh finally memorised the route.
- It is okay for chars to enter the Barrow-Downs before doing the thieves quest.
- When assigning skill points, the choice of magic school is important. Cadoloth depended so much on Runecraft (while only carrying the initial Rune Arrow and Rune Fire) that he could not fight fire-resistant Tengu. Bireld and Grerim used Thaumaturgy to supplement Runecraft. Bireld wasted points on Conveyance instead of putting them into prayer (for Manwe grants Conveyance). Bireld used Weaponmastery to supplement magic and conserve mana. Grerim tried to use Weaponmastery despite having a STR of only 7, but Grerim found a big mana boost by putting points into Magic.
- Eat when Hungry; do not become Weak. ToME is not NetHack. Food is plentiful. Bireld died a stupid death in Gondolin by not reading any of his Scrolls of Satisfy Hunger.
- Grerim fell to ambush in the water. Going to Lothlorien is a bad idea.
Kernigh played one more failed start, Asendawyth the Neuter High-Elf Priest of Manwe, before creating two characters that would be more successful, Vinwan and Wicilib.
Vinwan (Neuter High-Elf Runecrafter worshipping Manwe Sulimo)
Starting with Vinwan, Kernigh made more use of the ladder at angband.oook.cz; Vinwan is at http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=6064 and the first comment reveals,
The difference between Vinwan and my previous characters is armor. I now try to buy the most enchanted nonmetal armor in stores. I consider the purchase of armor to be more important than the purchase of other items. I am presently wearing a mix of purchased armor and Barrow-Downs discoveries.
This is a change from Jerois and Gorwen, who believed that Scrolls of *Identify* were most important because they had found many junkarts. Jerois and Gorwen would buy as much *ID* as possible and underfund their equipment.
In many roguelike games, the utility of armour is how it can protect the hero's small amount of hit points. There exist some lyrics (by Elvish Pillager) about armor in ToME. Vinwan established that upgrades to armor can be very important. Armour is not always the most important thing to acquire; sometimes it is more important to gain more HP, while a player with ample HP and armour may have the most need for something else.
Wicilib (Female High-Elf Priest worshipping Eru Iluvatar)
However, it was Wicilib who rose to be the best of 13 Kernigh's characters on the ladder (including 9 ToME characters and 4 Zangband characters).
After, Vinwan, Kernigh played three more characters before Wicilib. All three were Priests of Eru. Kaecan died at level 1 of the Barrow-Downs. Agrilinn and Onucred died north of Bree. Though they may be failed starts, Kernigh submitted them to the ladder.
The Priest(Eru) class and the High-Elf race work well with a player who advances through the dungeon slowly. A worshipper of Eru gains piety through time, so as the player needs more time to advance, the character gains more piety. A Priest(Eru) must avoid bladed weapons, but has the option of casting Manathrust at enemies. Despite the use of Manathrust, a Priest(Eru) may wear gloves. The penalty of gloves applies to magic users, those being characters with skill points in any school of magic. A Priest(Eru) has skill points in Prayer but may have no skill points in any school of magic. Access to any school of magic through Prayer (to cast Manathrust or any other spell) does not cause the penalty of gloves.
Wicilib advanced as far as experience level 20, without traveling beyond Barrow-Downs 6, except when traveling to deeper lost temples for the relic quests. Wicilib died during the second relic quest. Wicilib's death suggests that when dealing with leveled monsters, like those in a lost temple, the more dangerous monsters are the ones that had to gain more levels.
Ten months later
Bendatram (Male High-Elf Runecrafter worshipping Manwe)
After playing Wicilib in October of 2006, Kernigh took a break from ToME until August of 2007. Across this break of ten months, there are a few minor changes. There is an upgrade of ToME from 2.3.3 and 2.3.4. Perhaps more importantly, Kernigh has discarded the ~/.tome directory, including preferences and the save file, so Bendatram starts with an empty monster memory.
Bendatram died during the first trip to the Barrow-Downs. Though throwing Fire-Arrow or Manathrust at enemies, Bendatram could not deal with enemies that had their own ranged attacks, such as one small kobold archer. However, Bendatram was the necessary prelude to Forewyth.
Forewyth (Female High-Elf Loremaster)
Forewyth became the first Loremaster of Kernigh. Monster-lore and its various subskills were new, unlike any sort of Combat or Magic. Now most Loremasters upon the ladder seem to use Possession, yet Forewyth never assigned points to Possession, because it seemed to be the least desirable of the Monster-lore subskills, because of the documented risk of becoming very vulnerable after failing to possess a corpse, and while searching for an alternate corpse.
Forewyth instead put points into Summoning and Symbiosis. This worked together with Archery and Corpse-preservation to create a playable character. The story of Forewyth is upon the ladder. Forewyth's death was unusual and unexpected, the result of a habit of eating corpses to preserve food rations. Forewyth suffered an instakill from eating the acidic meat of a green icky thing. Matthias commented on the dump, "Angband: The food strikes back."
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