Micro-challenges/ gameplay restrictions?

[mim]

I'm wondering if any of you also stop yourself from doing some things which otherwise would cause the game to be too easy?
As an example, I never use ?oFSummon, nor ID stairs hopping, same as invis 2x xp thingie, gremlin bombs etc. I also try not to use polearms if possible, use birth signs that are pretty useless for given class, avoid candle, pick race and class that aren't going well together if in mood...
How about you?

[anon123]

I've done some reading on gremlin bombing here and on the wiki, but never actually did it. Just w5-ing around waiting for gremlins to multiply and then die (by alarm or light traps) is boring. So is pickpocketing, then letting a companion kill them to avoid uber-gremlins.
I make massive use of the ID in the early game, but I don't stairhop. I browse every level from top to bottom, then ascend or descend.
I've used piety overflow once to see what the fuss was about, but never again.
I took the banshee to the animated forest a few times and the loot was nice, but running around waiting for her to catch up and scream was boring.
I used to read blessed SoFSs in DH2 during the early game, to get very powerful companions, but they eventually turned on me. And having to deal with BreakMe, the extremely experienced greater earth elemental when you're barely around level 20 yourself can mean game over.
I might use starvation and sickness to get the most out of some corpses (e.g. oracle), but not so much. Usually 1-2 times per game. Rings of weakness aren't used.

However, scummy things that aren't listed above are part of my natural playstyle. These include:
Dragon doubling. As I noted on the bug tracker, it's possible to enter a dragon tension room with 20000gp and leave it with 2 billion thanks to it. You can then spend a few hundred million gp in Garth's hall to pump stats a lot. And being a millionaire is generally nice, e.g. to buy potions I can't kick-rob from the casino. Sadly this will be fixed in 1.2.0.
Wish engines. It can take some effort to start one, but it's hardly a problem when the reward's potentially unlimited wishes. I usually try not to get greedy and attempt to continue the engine to end up with dozens of RoDSs, however. 19 is already very nice.
Grinding. At least some people might see my early-game usage of the ID as such.
Shop restocking. One word - casino. Also useful to get more out of random shops if I find some.
Kick-robbing. Shop walls are not diggable more often that not, though.
Milking and pickpocketing. They can yield nice spears and loads of useful items. But I stop pickpocketing around the CoC graveyard.

I also try not to use polearms if possible, use birth signs that are pretty useless for given class, avoid candle, pick race and class that aren't going well together if in mood...

The only reason I might do this is to see how far I roll with things I usually take for granted, for example Candle's healing factor. Otherwise, I think it's pretty stupid to set such restrictions on yourself. No offense meant, of course, and if you actually enjoy the game more doing that - then so be it! Having fun is what matters.

[gut]

i used to not pray when playing wizards, but had to drop that restriction when
I started trying to break the < 5000 turns mark. I got so spoiled by it that I
just started spamming it for all it was worth in every situation. Added to the
breaking is that I now know more about what makes prayers more expensive,
so can actually pray twice as much as I could have when I wasn't... er, something
like that anyway

[JellySlayer]

It depends a lot on what I'm doing, I guess. I've played with all kinds of restrictions. I was recently playing a game without items (pretty hard), and I used to play a lot doomed, which usually meant no prayers (except to doom myself) and no crowning. If I'm doing a speedrun or something, OTOH pretty much everything is fair game.

For a casual game... anything that is boring and excessively repetitive, I probably don't bother with. Definitely no ID, or gremlin bombing or piety scum, probably no herbs except for what I can pick on the run. No precrowns or postcrowns. No Casino gold--I'll just rob it instead.

[Silfir]

I have five thousand conscious and unconscious restrictions and listing them would feel like a waste of time. Not just yours, or mine, but the very dimension of time itself. More or less I play the same way with every character that I do in my video Let's Play. (Except robbing Darkforge, I never usually do that. That was just because I didn't want to work the "heavy object" method into the videos.)

[gut]

^ df = casino

[Al-Khwarizmi]

I have five thousand conscious and unconscious restrictions

Same thing here. But I think in my case, they can be more or less summarized saying that

- I don't do things that are out of character or that break the world's coherence (or my interpretation of it). This includes all cheating (piety overflow, dragon gold doubling, etc.), exploits (kick-robbing), ways to optimize things that don't make sense from the character's point of view (slowing down yourself or making monsters invisible before killing them), and various things that are features but are unrealistic and I don't like (shop restocking, infinite pickpocketing, stairhopping, etc).

- I don't do things that are scummy/boring. This includes gremlin bombs, stairhopping, rerolling for stats, etc. (some things are in this and in the previous category).

- I don't do highly chaotic things like killing people in towns except if I'm playing a chaotic char.

I think all my conscious and unconscious restrictions fall into those categories although I might be forgetting something.

I do use polearms (although not systematically), good starsigns if I get them, and scrolls of summoning (those are not so game-breaking IMO, with great power comes great responsibility - I have had promising chars killed by pet greater earth elementals gone mad). There is no item in the game I won't use, I just don't use them in a scummy way (like starving myself to use herbs or things like that).

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Oh, I forgot one restriction that isn't in those categories, it's just a quite irrational restriction but it's very fun.

With almost all my chars, I start the game in the following way: I go straight to the SMC (or via Terinyo to buy rations/read books if applicable). I look for the blanket, then go down to the UD, and exit via the HMV. I strictly do that, i.e., I never leave the SMC by the up stairs, and I never leave the SMC without the blanket.

I find that that

(1) produces a kind of Darwinian selection of characters (if I successfully complete the blanket run and get to the HMV, the character is worth playing,
(2) makes the rest of the early game a breeze if you get to that point, and
(3) is lots of fun,

that's why I do it.

[Silfir]

Oh, I forgot one restriction that isn't in those categories, it's just a quite irrational restriction but it's very fun.

With almost all my chars, I start the game in the following way: I go straight to the SMC (or via Terinyo to buy rations/read books if applicable). I look for the blanket, then go down to the UD, and exit via the HMV. I strictly do that, i.e., I never leave the SMC by the up stairs, and I never leave the SMC without the blanket.

I find that that

(1) produces a kind of Darwinian selection of characters (if I successfully complete the blanket run and get to the HMV, the character is worth playing,
(2) makes the rest of the early game a breeze if you get to that point, and
(3) is lots of fun,

that's why I do it.

I do the exact same thing for the exact same reason.

[anon123]

Except robbing Darkforge, I never usually do that.

I usually raid Darkforge on my way to the Griffyard, around level 18 if it's relevant - not in search of good armor (although it's certainly welcome), since I wear the AMW for most of the game, but rather a nice spear. I seem to have overall very bad luck with item generation there, though. Where other people find fine leather armors or rune-covered halberds... I've had games where only non-artifact robes and leather armors were in the armor cache, and the most remarkable thing (for my playstyle) among the weapons was a knife of endurance. I don't make a big fuss about it, though - if there's something nice, that's fine, and if not it's okay. There's plenty of weapons and armor in other parts of the game.

- I don't do things that are scummy/boring. This includes (...) rerolling for stats

I'm very OCD about getting good Learning for my wizards. It's very frustrating for me to get ~200 castings of an offensive starting spell when it's most needed - the early game. This made me reroll a lot, then try to get the stat roller working on Windows, then becoming more obsessive about getting even better Learning, then dropping the roller, then discovering the joys of the question system.

Similarly, I have another quirk which is 'Q'uitting PCs that "don't gain any new insights" from reading starting books they should be able to handle (basic things like -foo- Bolt obviously, not Death Ray or Create Item). I'm not sure know why, but seeing that message frustrates me enough for me to be done with that character, even if his stats were good.

- I don't do highly chaotic things like killing people in towns except if I'm playing a chaotic char.

I tend to show my true colors after I have got what I needed from NPCs. Usually post-D:50, when my PC can deal with pissed off towns without a hitch. Videogame cruelty potential