Acbosgd.156
net.games
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ihnss!cbosg!cbosgd!mark
Sun Nov 22 20:31:31 1981
quitting vs. getting killed in rogue
The way the current game is structured, you get a large bonus for
recognizing that you are about to have your brains bashed in and
giving up.  (Actually, you get a large penalty for NOT recognizing
this - 10% of your winnings, to be precise.)  The authors claim
the motivation behind this is to make the player make a decision -
there is some risk in continuing to beat on that monster when you
are down to one hit point, but the reward is to be able to continue
on in the game.  In practice, there are many times when it is obvious
that I'm about to die and there is nothing I can do about it.  Examples
include being trapped between two nasty monsters in a passageway,
and being transfixed/held/caught in a trap/asleep while being beaten on.
Even running up against a single nasty monster with your hit points
down will do it if you don't have any magic and don't know where the
stairs are.  Can anyone suggest a more fair way to handle this?