svw (08/10/82)
What the heck is the big deal about cheating at rogue? I mean, what's wrong with it? Artificially inflated scores? The scoring is the least interesting part of the game. Who cares if you get your name at the top of some list; it will only be displaced by some clown who remembered to get rid of the ring of adornment two rooms before you did. If you play Rogue to get a good score, you reduce it to just another Zork or Adventure, except a little less boring. A little. The point of those games, see, is to assemble this huge idiotic puzzle, which can only be done one way. Rogue, on the otehr hand, is different each time for a reason: the fun is in seeing how far down you can go, and to DO THINGS. I like to play with magic toys: wands, rings, scrolls. I like to make things happen. Have you ever fought a dragon? Have you ever been at one hit point and was being chased by an umber hulk, a dragon, two centaurs and an angry kobold, only to find a trap door with your ***Ring Of Searching** and jump in before they all converge on you? I was (really) being menaced by a centaur, an hobgobble-un, a orc, and a rustoleum monster. I ducked into a corridor, dropped my scare-monster scroll, and backed off. As they stood in line, stuck on the scroll, I filled them full of arrows one at a time. Once a centaur was pounding me to a jelly. I raised my trusty Polymorf wand, and *ZAPP* the centaur became a nymph, who promptly stole the wand and disappeared. So it wasn't the happiest moment of my life; it was exhilarating. Cheating? Why not? I'd only be cheating myself, and I don't mind being cheated by myself. Just once I'd like to genocide all rust monsters and gi-ants just as I begin, or arrange for all the magic devices in the dungeon to be found on the first two levels. I wouldn't think of it as a regular Rogue game, but a different variety. The main point is that I would create situations I've never encountered normally, andI think that's fun.