CHARACTER CREATION AND DEVELOPMENT
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You  will have the opportunity to create a new character each time you
start  up  omega.  A random selection of statistics will be generated.
To discourage sitting around trying to get an "optimal" character, you
can  only  "reroll"  9  times before having to reload the game.  Since
your  statistics tend to go up as you play, it isn't fatal to have low
statistics  when  you  start out.  On the other hand, high stats don't
hurt, either....

AMIGA:
You will unlimited chances to reroll.

Each statistic is very important, but depending what sort of character
you  wish  to  play,  different  statistics will stand out.  Combat is
helped  by  Strength and Dexterity, Magic-use is aided by Intelligence
and Power.  Agility helps you avoid getting hit and avoid traps, while
Constitution determines how many hits you can take before dying.

A new option for omega is to "play yourself".  By answering a sequence
of  personal questions, omega arrives at what your personal statistics
should  be.   It  is  in  seriously  bad  taste  to  lie....  Only the
character  you  create  in this mode can be saved to the omegarc.  The
questions  are  set up so that a "renaissance man" type of person will
probably  have stats generally around 14-15.  The rest of us will stay
around  9-12  on  average.   If  you  are  really impressively good at
something  you  can  start  out  with  a stat of up to 18, but this is
pretty unlikely for most of us.

AMIGA:
The 'play yourself' option has been removed and it is possible to save
your generated character in .omegarc.

As  you continue to play, you will hopefully accumulate experience and
treasure.   You  can  gain skills and abilities through various means,
the most important being training in one of the Rampart establishments
devoted  to self-improvement.  Thus, you can choose to work out at the
gym,  study  at  the Collegium Magii, meditate at a Temple, and so on.
Certain  skills  and abilities may only be gained through adventuring,
and  others  are  mutually  exclusive.  For example, you can only be a
priest  of  one  particular deity.  One of the appeals of omega is the
variety  of  different types of characters you can play, each with its
own set of goals and benefits.

Another aspect of your character is alignment.  Characters are aligned
towards  the  primal  forces of Chaos and Law, or they can be neutral.
Various  actions  affect  this  factor;  killing peaceful monsters, or
committing   burgalry,  for  example,  are  chaotic  acts.   Alignment
determines  which  guilds  will  let  you  in,  the  behavior  of some
artifacts and monsters, as well as much else.

Your  character  will  gain  various  statuses, abilities, immunities,
etc.,  both  harmful  and beneficial.  Most of the time these are kept
hidden  from  you, but there are various ways of discovering the truth
-- self-knowledge is very useful in omega.  Remember, the oracle knows
all, sees all....

Experience  is accrued for skillful actions in the game.  As in rogue,
one of the main methods of acquiring experience is defeating monsters.
You need not kill an opponent to defeat it (you can use the 'threaten'
option  of  the 't' command, sometimes).  There are many other ways of
gaining  experience,  though,  including learning spells, deactivating
traps, using artifacts correctly, etc.

Experience goes towards two kinds of character development.  First, in
the bizarre tradition of role-playing games like * & *, hit points and
combat capabilities go up as experience is gained.

Secondly,  experience  gained  is  shared  out  to each of the guilds,
priesthoods, etc.  that the character belongs to.  The more guilds the
character  is a member of, the slower promotion will be (except in the
City  Nobility, and among the Gladiators, where promotion is not based
on  experience,  but on quests and combats, respectively).  Regardless
of  the  number  of  guilds  the  character  is  a  member of, overall
character  level,  the  first type of experience will not be adversely
affected.
