I share the admiration for Crawl. It really was probably the first good roguelike, where you continuously have to "play your hand", make the best of what you ha

I share the admiration for Crawl. It really was probably the first good roguelike, where you continuously have to "play your hand", make the best of what you have. It's in sharp contrast to a roguelike like ToME, where you can (and pretty much must) plan how to optimize your skill paths (the meat of the game) before you even click begin. But there's not one Crawl, it's been worked on for so long that there's honestly little which has survived from Linley Henzell's game other than flavor (and even that is questionable). And the newer versions make you realize what the Slay the Spire devs made a fortune on: while a hard game with real decisions where you have to play the hand you're dealt can be fun... it's also fun with the occasional "exploit", lucky broken combinations of events which give you a free win (or more likely, make you go down in a blaze of hubristic glory).