Once upon a time, I had a laptop that my parents had locked down at night (must have been fifteen or so), so I installed a small Ubuntu partition on it (this not being my first experience--I'd started out with Knoppix [hilariously outdated even then] a year or so before) to get around this restriction. So, this would have been around 2006-2007.
One late night, I went through the entire games repository looking for something small and fun to play (sometimes the Internet was unplugged at night and I'd have nothing to do). Among many other games (TuxRacer!), I tried a sweet little game called Meritous (which you should totally check out; it's a simple, interesting diversion). To this day, I think I still haven't completed Meritous's version of ADOM's Ultra (you have to explore every room in the dungeon, as I recall).
I found Meritous to be very interesting, and decided to check out the other games like Meritous in the repositories--roguelikes. NetHack, Angband (and some variants), and ADOM (though odd in retrospect that it was stocked since it is nonfree--guess it is Ubuntu and not Debian though).
I was very nearly put off by the non-ADOM roguelikes. However, I was immediately captivated by ADOM. I think I found the Guidebook shortly after, which I kind of regret to this day; guess I was a lot more immature/impatient back then …
I think I achieved my first win just a couple years later (2009 or so?), with a GE Wiz. Despite playing very much on and off since then (once you go ADOM you'll never go back), I've come a fair ways. Odd, and frustrating, how the ADOM bug always bites during finals, though.
gate closers: GeWi GnMo(unarmed) DeAs/Pa/Mi(staves)/Ra GePr DrBb HrMo | p7: MeBf | p17: GnPr | p20: DrDu GnAs DeCk MeWp OrBf GnTh MeHe | R57: MeDu | R101: DrAs (26,674 turns) GnDu (26,748) DrAs (18,533)
ULE: HeRa — OCG: DeMi
currently speedrunning DrAs.