Save scumming does have its purposes as a learning tool imo. Without the ability to ask the internets back in the day (dad said, "get off the internet, I'm waiting for a phone call"), I relied on my two sources of ADOM info: my buddy Corey who introduced me to the game and save scumming. Even then, I never got a character past level 25.
However, recently, I have sworn off save scumming for good. It makes the game a lot more fun and exciting. It's bad for me because I don't play as cautious as I know I should in ADOM and often end up being careless and dying.
As for other forms of "scumming", I've done them all. Dragon gold doubling, mass pick pocketting, ID farming, wish engines, other less scummy tactics that others would call scummy (hmmmm, this scribbled scroll looks empty... let's read it a couple thousand times to train my Literacy). After the first time I did some of them, I got a bad taste in my mouth and swore off using those tactics for good (wish engine being one of these. It totally wrecked my game to have 40+ socr.)
What I recommend to anyone is play the game with all the scummy tactics you could imagine. Once you beat the game with these scummy tactics, remove some of the ones you felt were completely retarded (gremlin bonging for example) and beat the game again. Eventually, you will run out of scummy tactics to remove at which point you can begin applying restrictions to your games such as "illiterate" or "athiest" or whatever you want. You could even pretend to be Jellyslayer and play Doomed characters.
Long story short: Scum until you are good enough not to need to scum.
I said it before, and I'll say it again. If I knew scripture like you, I'd prolly be an athiest too.. -gut
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