For any other rtorrent users, check out rtorrent-pyroscope for a modified version that provides a number of enhancements (more compact UI, a number of ancillary scripts to manage torrents, make torrents and modify torrent files).
I found rtorrent kept breaking on my often enough (mac) that it wasn't worth keeping around. It got dropped from homebrew for that very reason. Transmission cli does a wonderful job in place of it.
https://github.com/pyroscope/rtorrent-ps