.19 Tournament musings and morgues

[tasonir]

So in the past I've done writeups on notable tournament games I've played, and others I was too lazy to go ahead and write them up. I figure what the heck, let's do one this time; it can't be too hard since I didn't play as many games as I have in the past, so it won't take terribly long! Also I figure rather than monopolize the thread, might as well consider it open if anyone else wants to share characters they played or thoughts on the tournament!

I started out attempting an OpWr, because it was a nemelex combo. On my first try I clear the early game easily and even run through lair pretty smoothly - I managed to find a book of changes so I was fighting in ice form and therefore had some meager armor, and the bonus HP didn't hurt either. Of course on any run where you're doing rather well the overconfidence sets in and I soon get myself into trouble with a large swarm of orcs in the mines...So I blink back, cast regeneration, and figure I'll heal up slowly and everything will be fine, I'm at nearly 30 hp and there's no orcs within 5 tiles of me, what could go wrong? Well obviously a bolt to the face for 28 damage to leave me at precisely 0 hp. Oops. Morgue

Annoyed by the death, I figure let's go to a combo I'm familiar with which is very strong, and take VSMo. Well known as a powerhouse and great for speedrunning, it's what I've gotten my highest score with (40k turns, 15 runes), and others have won in ~20k turns. The first attempt died, but the second attempt goes pretty smoothly once I get statue form going. I wasn't really intending it to be a speed run, but somewhere around getting 2 runes I realized I was pretty strong and didn't really need to fully explore levels anymore, so I tried to shave of turns from then on with a goal of winning at around 70k turns with 15 runes. Ends up I won in 50324 turns, so I'm not sure if I should be impressed with how fast I ran when I wasn't really trying to speedrun, or ashamed that going all out risk-taking from the start only amounted to a 10k turn difference. You be the judge. Morgue

Attempted to streak with a Troll necromancer of Qazlal but a hasted Erolcha put an end to any streak possibility on D:9; doh. So at this point I'm at 1/4 winrate, and placing sort of high on the player high score list (I think I was like 30-40th or something). Let's ruin everything! Yay! I try some weird combos for higher race/god/background points, a few nemelex combos, a few really strong combos when I get frustrated from dying, etc. Nothing sticks. Give up on considering winrate as one of my goals for the tournament and decide to just zerg the dungeon until something lives. The only notable death from this carnage was a VSAM who got one rune - I didn't want to double up on VS, but VSAM was a nemelex combo and I figured the 75 point bonus was worth repeating the race. Turns out, merfolk impalers can hit for 52 damage, and I have the morgue to prove it: Here.

Edit: Oh, one other amusing character was a troll who was godless because I was trying to find Jiyva, at the time it was worth 300 points with zero wins, but no altars spawned. Went into slime to try my luck and was pretty quickly dispatched by an acid blob on slime 1 at level 14. Can't say that was unexpected, though.

So given my history with nagas and all, I figure I might as well go win a naga or else no one will take me seriously ever again (This implies anyone ever did)...so I fire up a Naga Transmuter of Chei. Goes pretty well, clearly strong enough to win the game, when I get a little bit too surrounded in depths. I chew through swarms of the nastier depths spawns that would have killed lesser characters easily, but there's still a caustic strike and some stranglers left, so I'd better run. No problem, I've got a ton of escape items, still have ~70 health, etc, what could go wrong? I read a scroll of teleport, and take ~20 damage down to 50ish. So I decide to be really safe, and read a scroll of blinking while I wait for the teleport to kick in. And then I'm dead. What just happened? So it turns out that I hit r then (I think) t, the slot which had teleport scrolls, to activate my teleport. And then when I went to read blinking, I managed to momentarily lose my grip on reality, and instead of pressing x for blinking, pressed t again. I died spending a turn canceling my teleport, clearly the optimal move when under danger. I don't get angry when these sorts of things happen and I took the loss pretty well in stride, but it definitely lowered my euthasism for playing more games in the tournament, hence the lack of zerging the dungeon after this. Morgue

Here's the last couple lines of the message history:

  Code:

You hear a screech!
A caustic shrike comes into view.
As you read the scroll of teleportation, it crumbles to dust.   <---SMART
You feel strangely unstable. The caustic shrike claws you!
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
You are splashed with acid! The acid burns!
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
Unknown command.
You feel much better. You feel sick. The caustic shrike claws you!!
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
The acid corrodes you! You are splashed with acid! The acid burns!
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
The caustic shrike closely misses you.
As you read the scroll of teleportation, it crumbles to dust.  <---NOT SMART
You feel strangely stable.  <---WTF GET ME OUT OF HERE
The caustic shrike completely misses you.
The caustic shrike closely misses you. The caustic shrike claws you!!
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
The acid corrodes you! You are splashed with acid! The acid burns!
You die...

So while I didn't really want to play too much more, I also couldn't end the tournament with only one win, so I picked something sensible to get a second win with, and did a troll necromancer of Qazlal. Ended up with a diverse cast of gods, and didn't repeat Chei once! See, I don't have a problem, no sir, no problem here. Morgue

So in short, t is not x, and no matter how much t lies to you, it is never x, has never been x, and will never be x. How did your tournament go?

[dowan]

t was x the whole time for me.

I learned that despite all logic to the contrary, when at 30 hp and next to cerebov(outside his vault, mind you) while worshipping chei with an amulet of faith, your best move isn't necessarily to read a teleport scroll.
I used slouch and bend time a few times, but I completely forgot about temporal distortion and step from time. Also I had intended to memorize Borg's revive, but spaced out and went back to pan instead.

I just don't have the concentration or the patience to do consistently well at this game.

[VeryAngryFelid]

FR: Warning "Are you sure you want to cancel your teleport?".

Sorry about the character.

[minmay]

I made an agreement that for every time I die in the tournament, I have to write 12 words of erotic DCSS self-insert fanfiction as a punishment for both me and hellmonk. I died 99 times due to excessive startscumming, so the story will be 1188 words long.

Since the goal is to skeeve out hellmonk, it involves elves. The basic plotline is this: one day, a bunch of my dreams all become true at once. Specifically, the dream where I was an elf, the dream where everyone in the world was a lesbian, the dream where my girlfriend and me climbed up a wizard tower filled with puzzles and books, and the dream where Duvessa was my girlfriend. But climbing up the tower deciphering spellbooks and solving puzzles gets tedious after a while, so we decide to take a break and do something else.

The cover currently looks like this (it still needs a lot of work):

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   _________________________________________________________________________
o=(________________________________________________________________________(==o
   '-----------------------------------------------------------------------'|
    |      _____________           ___                                      |
    |      \____________\          \_ \   /V\                               |
    |           | |                 | |   \ /                               |
    |           | |       _         | |    V                                |
    |           | |     ."_".       | |   .-.   .-. .-.   .--. .--.         |
    |           | |    / / \ \     _| |   | |   | | | |  /  _ V _  \        |
    |           | |    | \_/ |   ." " |   | |   | | | |  | / \ / \ |        |
    |           | |    \ .__."  / .". |   | |   | | | |  | | l l | |        |
    |           | |    | |  __  | | | |   | |   | | | |  | |  "' | |        |
    |           l l    \"\_/"/  \ "-" /   l l   \ "-" /  l l     l l        |
    |            "-'    "---"    "---"     "-'   "---"    "-'     "-'       |
    |                                                                       |
    |     A SENSUAL DUNGEON CRAWL: STONE SOUP ADVENTURE FOR ADULTS ONLY     |
   _|_______________________________________________________________________|
o=(________________________________________________________________________(==o
   '-----------------------------------------------------------------------'

[tasonir]

If everyone's a lesbian, does that mean half of us sex changed into women, or in the story were we all women to begin with? Asking the important questions here.

[minmay]

In the dream, everyone was lesbian to begin with (and the set of people who existed was significantly different). In the story, the dream suddenly becomes true at one moment, not having been true in the past. The exact temporal nature of what happens, including the answer to your question, is deliberately left a mystery, although the characters do remember their lives prior to the dreams becoming true.

[Floodkiller]

Pro Tip: Pearl dragons can appear in Depths, likely through a vault with an open design to let it wander. This is especially true when you are playing a VpAK. Also, never fight pearl dragons.

[Hellmonk]

gonna write a review of the minqmay story, 12 words for every time i died. may or may not be erotic, I havent decided yet.