Here are some quick hints to get you started…
- Remember that Cthangband is a turn based game. Don’t panic and hit keys quickly (especially in combat). Take your time.
- Make sure you always have food to eat. Starvation can make you weak and even kill you.
- Having a light source is essential. Running out is pretty much a death sentence.
- Don’t fight in the middle of rooms where you can be easily surrounded. Try to draw monsters into doorways and corridors.
- Rest often. Exploring while badly injured is just asking to get yourself killed.
- Unless you are on a special level, you lose nothing by retreating back up the stairs.
- It may look like there are a lot of things (damage types and conditions) that you need to resist, but many of these won’t start being necessary until you get to harder/deeper areas.
- The difficulty of monsters around the entrance to a dungeon are a good indication of how hard the dungeon is going to be.
- Quaffing unidentified potions or reading unidentified scrolls is incredibly dangerous, but if you’re going to die anyway it might be worth a shot…
- Farmer Maggot might moan a lot, but he’s also rather rich.