[wwweston]

> Nethack allows selling items to shops. This means there's a reason to pick up trash items, which is annoying.

This seems subjective? I mean, sure, it's grindy to pick up cheap helm after cheap helm, but there are other ways of getting money for shops, or getting items from shops without money, or getting by without shops entirely if need be. You can adapt your gameplay to your preferences and/or what the game is giving you.

Similarly with traps: playing without much specific care for them (beyond maybe getting a helm and poison resistance as quickly as possible) basically makes them random bad effects. You can choose to play more carefully or experience them as "sourceless malevolence."

People talk a lot about nethack lacking tradeoffs compared to DCSS and while it's apt enough for the late game where lots of ascension kit gear and other prep have a strong particular shape, I think that's wrong for the early and mid games which offer a wide variety of options and play for reaching intermediate goals.