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[ Home | 1987 | 1993 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | Ascensions ]
NetHack keeps a file called record with your best games, and at the end of every game it draws you a tombstone. Mine has a few hundred entries going back years. These are ten deaths I remember, one or two from most of the years I've been playing, each under a tombstone like the one the game draws, with the turn I died on. All my characters are named brad, because that's my login and I'm not creative at eleven at night.
Every one of these is a lesson. I didn't learn most of them the first time.
Hack, a Fighter. Spring 1987. Turn 211.
----------
/ \
/ REST \
/ IN \
/ PEACE \
/ \
| brad |
| 14 Au |
| killed by a |
| jackal |
| |
| 1987 |
*| * * * | *
___)/\_//(\/(/\)/\//\/|_)___
My first game of anything like this, on a VT100 in the terminal room. I didn't know what anything was. I knew the d next to me was my dog. I didn't know the other d coming down the corridor wasn't. I let it get close, to see if it was friendly. It was a jackal. Then there were three jackals. Keith came back from lunch and looked over my shoulder and said, "Yeah, that happens," and went back to his desk. That was all the instruction I ever got. It turned out to be enough.
NetHack 3.1, a Valkyrie. March 1993. Turn 1,412.
----------
/ \
/ REST \
/ IN \
/ PEACE \
/ \
| brad |
| 87 Au |
| killed by a |
| gnome lord |
| |
| 1993 |
*| * * * | *
___)/\_//(\/(/\)/\//\/|_)___
Third level of the Gnomish Mines, doing fine, a long sword and a full belly. A blue e was sitting in a little dead-end tunnel. I'd read about floating eyes. I had. I was in a hurry and it was in my way, and I hit it. The game told me I was frozen by its gaze. And then I watched, for what the game decided was a very long time, while a gnome lord walked up the tunnel and hit me with whatever he had, again and again, until I died. A gnome lord. A Valkyrie. I didn't play for a week.
Lesson: rule 2. Never melee a floating eye.
NetHack 3.1, a Valkyrie. January 1995. Turn 18,456.
----------
/ \
/ REST \
/ IN \
/ PEACE \
/ \
| brad |
| 1204 Au |
| turned to |
| stone by Medusa |
| |
| 1995 |
*| * * * | *
___)/\_//(\/(/\)/\//\/|_)___
This is the one that still hurts. I was deep, I had a good character, I had a blindfold in my pack for Medusa, and I put it on before I crossed the water to her island like you're supposed to. Then I couldn't find the downstairs. Blind, you feel your way along one square at a time, and I got impatient, and I thought: I'll take it off for one turn. Just to see where I am. She was standing right there.
Lesson: rule 6. And the part of rule 6 in quotation marks.
NetHack 3.2, a Tourist. June 1996. Turn 3,877.
----------
/ \
/ REST \
/ IN \
/ PEACE \
/ \
| brad |
| 3310 Au |
| turned to stone |
| by a cockatrice |
| corpse |
| 1996 |
*| * * * | *
___)/\_//(\/(/\)/\//\/|_)___
New version, so I tried a Tourist for the first time, to see if I could. I was doing better than I deserved. I killed a cockatrice with darts, from a distance, very carefully, very proud of myself. Then I walked over to pick up my darts. There was a corpse on the square too. I hit the comma key to pick everything up the way I'd done ten thousand times before. A Tourist doesn't start with gloves.
Lesson: rule 3. Also, look at what you're picking up. The game asks.
NetHack 3.2, a Rogue. October 1996. Turn 6,604.
----------
/ \
/ REST \
/ IN \
/ PEACE \
/ \
| brad |
| 612 Au |
| killed by a |
| shopkeeper |
| |
| 1996 |
*| * * * | *
___)/\_//(\/(/\)/\//\/|_)___
Rogues throw daggers, several at a time, and I threw them at everything. A jackal followed me into a shop. I let fly with a handful of daggers. The jackal stepped aside. The shopkeeper, who had been standing politely behind it, did not. One of my daggers hit him. That's all it takes. He stopped being polite, and a shopkeeper who's stopped being polite is the most dangerous thing on the first ten levels of the dungeon. I lasted three turns.
Lesson: rule 10. Look at what's behind the thing you're throwing at.
NetHack 3.2, a Wizard. February 1997. Turn 1,688.
----------
/ \
/ REST \
/ IN \
/ PEACE \
/ \
| brad |
| 158 Au |
| starved to |
| death |
| |
| 1997 |
*| * * * | *
___)/\_//(\/(/\)/\//\/|_)___
Hungry early, as Wizards are. At turn 1,140 I was Weak and prayed, and Thoth fixed it, and I felt very clever. I didn't find any food after that, either. At turn 1,650 I was Weak again, and I thought, well, it worked last time. "You feel that Thoth is displeased." That's all. No food. No help. A few dozen turns later I fainted in a corridor, got up, fainted again, and that was that.
Lesson: rule 4. Your god keeps a calendar. It isn't the same one you keep.
NetHack 3.2, a Healer. July 1997. Turn 3,512.
----------
/ \
/ REST \
/ IN \
/ PEACE \
/ \
| brad |
| 440 Au |
| killed by a |
| water demon |
| |
| 1997 |
*| * * * | *
___)/\_//(\/(/\)/\//\/|_)___
A Healer has no business fighting anything, so I was playing very carefully, and I was out of potions, and there was a fountain, and I was curious. A water demon came out of it. Water demons are much too big for a Healer on the fourth level of the dungeon. Every so often a water demon will grant you a wish instead of killing you. This one didn't feel like it.
Lesson: rule 8. I knew rule 8. I just wanted to see.
NetHack 3.2, an Archeologist. January 1998. Turn 4,790.
----------
/ \
/ REST \
/ IN \
/ PEACE \
/ \
| brad |
| 931 Au |
| killed by a |
| soldier ant |
| |
| 1998 |
*| * * * | *
___)/\_//(\/(/\)/\//\/|_)___
There's no clever story here. It was a soldier ant. Ask anybody on the newsgroup what killed them and half of them will say a soldier ant. They're fast, they bite and sting, and they come in groups. My Archeologist could dig through solid rock. He couldn't dig fast enough. If you see a blue a early on, go back upstairs. You can come down again later.
NetHack 3.2, a Barbarian. May 1998. Turn 7,231.
----------
/ \
/ REST \
/ IN \
/ PEACE \
/ \
| brad |
| 276 Au |
| choked on a |
| food ration |
| |
| 1998 |
*| * * * | *
___)/\_//(\/(/\)/\//\/|_)___
I'd just prayed (correctly, on schedule) for hunger, and my god had fixed it, which leaves you very full. Then I found a food ration, and I ate it, because it was there. The game warns you when you're having a hard time getting it down. It even asks if you want to stop. I said no. I was a Barbarian. I was hungry in spirit.
Lesson: when you're Satiated, stop eating. This is also good advice outside the game.
NetHack 3.2.2, a Samurai. October 1998. Turn 21,388.
----------
/ \
/ REST \
/ IN \
/ PEACE \
/ \
| brad |
| 2785 Au |
| drowned by a |
| giant eel |
| |
| 1998 |
*| * * * | *
___)/\_//(\/(/\)/\//\/|_)___
This time I had reflection, a shield of it, and I was not going to make the 1995 mistake. I didn't. I made a new one. To reach Medusa's island you have to get across a lot of water, and there are things living in it. A giant eel came up next to my raft of good intentions, grabbed me, and pulled me under. A giant eel can drown you in one or two turns, and it did, with my shield of reflection still on my arm, shiny and useless.
Lesson: Medusa's level kills you two ways. The other one is the water. Stay away from the edge.
The Samurai after this one was the one who made it. See ascensions.
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Brad Despain, [email protected]