NetHack
Move levitation potion headache false rumor into true rumors
Quaffing a cursed potion of levitation does indeed cause a headache, up to d10 damage. Assuming one was quaffing 'many' unidentified potions, it's possible one of them is indeed cursed when the player hits their head on the ceiling.
https://github.com/NetHack/NetHack/blob/f5a9901db1d9e7ebc97f4ad1fdffebb695ca2b79/src/potion.c#L1182
I think there are quite a few rumors in rumors.fal that aren't strictly false but just aren't directly helpful or useful to a player.
I think there are quite a few rumors in rumors.fal that aren't strictly false but just aren't directly helpful or useful to a player.
@entrez I can go through each rumor if we think there are more that may need candidates for moving, but to be honest this is the only one I considered in this commit. Would you like me to evaluate each rumor? I do understand what you mean by 'strictly false' in that some can be ambiguous, but in my opinion this one is wrong.
This actually came up in context of live-watching a player who encountered this rumor and some conversations came up on the truthiness of it.
In xNetHack, the rule of thumb for true rumors is that they must be "helpful to a player encountering the game for the first time", though they don't have to be straightforward. I would consider this potion of levitation rumor to qualify as true by that standard.
(Meanwhile, false rumors allow "pretty much anything NetHack-related, as long as it's not actual valid advice. Cryptically hinting at mechanics that don't exist, recommending that the player do useless things, even total tangents, as long as they make sense in context.")
I doubt if this change is going to be incorporated. The rumor implies that the number of potions of levitation you drink can have an effect other than levitating and that is not helpful or useful. Contorting it to mean "if you drink a lot of them, some are likely to be cursed" isn't either. If the first one you drink happens to be cursed, does "one" count as "many"?
What really ought to be done--I'm not suggesting that you do it, and I'm certainly not going to do it--is to review all the rumors looking for ones that are classified as True but are no longer True or classified as False but are no longer False after umpteen years of gameplay changes. That would be tough even when the meanings are straightforward and they often aren't.
