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[Arcvasti]

How long does it take most people to win?

Do you mean to complete a winning game, or to win for the first time after trying the game?

I take around 4 hours to win a 3 rune game and 8-12 hours to win a 15 rune.

Took quite a while to get my first win, went through many dozens of characters, but most died pretty early.

I mean after first trying the game. I've been on and off for months and i've got no further then the orcish mines.

Oh. That can take a while. Even if you use the easier races like Gargoyles or Minotaurs, that can still take quite a while. I'd generally recommend doing Lair before the Orchish Mines, unless there's an especially dangerous unique. The first couple levels are sink or swim and death yaks are quite nasty, but still less dangerous then the higher tier Orc enemies. Also Gargoyles are absurdly powerful. Use them.

[DeKaFu]

I've been on and off for months and i've got no further then the orcish mines.

I've been playing on and off for 6 years and I've yet to reach Zot.

To be fair, I'm apparently just incredibly terrible at this sort of game. At least it's continually getting easier, so eventually I might meet it in the middle. (note: I am slightly bitter about this)

[Damiac]

Well... it depends how much you play, and what type of character you're trying to play...

I got my first win probably a month after I started playing.  I did that by playing the absolute easiest character possible, which was a Deep Dwarf berserker of trog.  No HP regen, but they have a special property called damage shaving, where they just take some damage off the top of each attack, guaranteed.  I don't know the exact formula, but it results in you being extra tough.

Trog's hand gives you some regen for a period of time, so that's useful for healing, although you won't have enough piety to completely rely on this to keep your health up.
However, Deep dwarves also start the game with a wand of healing.  Plus, they have an ability to recharge a wand for the (permanent) price of 1 max MP.
You get more max MP on level up, as well as for levelling spellcasting, evocations, or invocations.  As a trog follower, you have no use for spellcasting or invocations, but everyone can use evocations, so you'll want to spend some XP there.

In the end, you get a tough little dwarf who takes less damage than most characters, has loads of HP, and, as long as you play reasonably carefully, will have no trouble keeping their heal wand full of charges.

If you don't want to deal with the lack of natural HP regen, a Minotaur Berserker is also a good choice.  Berserk will kill anything in the early stages of the game, and your natural minotauriness should take you the rest of the way.  Just use the biggest version of whatever weapon type you want, wear the biggest armor you find, put all stat ups into dex, and press tab a lot.

EDIT: Here are some quick tips for survival:
1. Early on, maybe after you finish D1, read your scrolls until you find identify.  Identify your potions, starting with the largest stacks first.  Having good potions identified is something you want to do before you need them.
2. Realize that most enemies in the game, especially early on, are exactly the same speed as you, and do not have a ranged attack.  Therefore, most enemies cannot harm you if you keep moving away from them.
3. Teleport is a lifesaver, but takes several turns to kick in.  You will get lots of teleport scrolls throughout the game, make sure to use them whenever you find yourself in a bad situation.
4. You are in a bad situation if you are below 50% health, and you aren't about to finish off the last enemy.  This is a good time to think about walking away, or teleporting if necessary.
5. You don't have to kill Sigmund(Or other dangerous uniques). Walking away is a good idea most of the time.
6. There are 3 entrances to most floors.  If you don't like what's around one entrance, try another.
7. Potions of curing cure confusion.  If you are confused, and there are dangerous enemies around, it might be a good idea to drink a cure potion.

[monk12]

How long does it take most people to win?

Do you mean to complete a winning game, or to win for the first time after trying the game?

I take around 4 hours to win a 3 rune game and 8-12 hours to win a 15 rune.

Took quite a while to get my first win, went through many dozens of characters, but most died pretty early.

I mean after first trying the game. I've been on and off for months and i've got no further then the orcish mines.

It took me around 200 games after I decided to get serious about actually being good instead of just finding interesting new ways to die (e.g using the wiki/devpage.) That number was aided dramatically by a friendly competition I was having with a friend on who could beat the game first, so there's probably another hundred or so games of his that I was spectating and learning from as well (he was actually the first one of us to clear out Zot, though he died on the Orb run.) I consider having a win at all to be something of a feather in my cap; this is a freaking hard game.

[EnigmaticHat]

My basic advice to crawl:

1.  Be very good at your main source of damage.  This applies at ALL points in the game, from the moment you kill your first rat.  Your main offensive option should be ~5 levels higher than all your other skills.
2.  Have consumable or piety based options for when you need to be trying really hard.  It could be something like a few scrolls of blink, a potion of might, god-summoned allies, ect.  Either kill things really hard or escape.
3.  Recognize when you're in trouble before you're about to die.  I can't stress this enough; reading situations is THE main skill to DCSS.  When your health bar is red, that is not the time to desperately start searching through your inventory and spell list.  When you see that enemy the game lists as "extremely dangerous", or that black mamba notices your squishy stealth character, THAT's when you start running to the nearest stairs or reading your scroll of teleportation.
4.  You have to have a ranged option sooner or later.  Even if its just throwing tomahawks until the enemies close.

You also want to make smart skill/race/god choices, but... eh.  Different people find different things in DCSS easy.  My first win was with a Troll Hunter of Nemelex Xobeh, which I've never heard anyone suggest as an starter setup but I found it very easy to play as.  My experience is if you've made bad build decisions you'll start falling off in power around the end of lair and then slowly bleed consumables until you die with an empty inventory.

[EnigmaticHat]

That sounds cool.

Especially if its a stupid combo no one would ever play normally.

[Sarrak]

I support playing stupid combinations. It offers unique learning experience.

[EnigmaticHat]

Question for the melee players out there: I've got a heavy armor Minotaur with a lot of axe and crossbow skill.  Is it worth concerning myself with shields at all or should I just grab the biggest baddest axe I can find and spin to win?

Edit: I just found a trident that can evoke blink, berserk rage AND invisibility.  That's so cool!  Useless to me, but cool.

[Sarrak]

Question for the melee players out there: I've got a heavy armor Minotaur with a lot of axe and crossbow skill.  Is it worth concerning myself with shields at all or should I just grab the biggest baddest axe I can find and spin to win?

Edit: I just found a trident that can evoke blink, berserk rage AND invisibility.  That's so cool!  Useless to me, but cool.

If you have no Shield skill - take the biggest axe you can find. Otherwise, use broad ones. As Covenant has said, axes are quite weak at this moment, but they are still best for taking out heaps of useless enemies.

[EnigmaticHat]

I've had solid results with my axes thus far.  My strength is pretty high, 35 when I switch on vitalize, so that's probably helping.  I agree that crossbows are worth further investment.

Just opened my first treasure trove.  It asked for an +3 Ice Dragon Armor and it was a... potions trove.  Not sure if I'm totally satisfied with that, but I now have 9 potions of gain health and 8 potions of haste.  Also 6 potions of ambrosia which I guess has synergy with sanctuary.

[Scoops Novel]

I've been on and off for months and i've got no further then the orcish mines.

I've been playing on and off for 6 years and I've yet to reach Zot.

To be fair, I'm apparently just incredibly terrible at this sort of game. At least it's continually getting easier, so eventually I might meet it in the middle. (note: I am slightly bitter about this)

You're telling me. They need to make the early game more varied rather then yet more gods.

[Aoi]

I actually really like handaxes of distortion on heavy meleers. Tack on a shield of reflection and some kind of semi-decent ranged, and everything is either being shredded, banished, or teleported away to be plinked.

[EnigmaticHat]

That sounds incredibly disorienting.

[Aoi]

Lovely how DCSS caters to so many different styles, eh? =D

It usually isn't too big a deal; the blinking keeps things scattered so you're relatively unlikely to be surrounded, and your shield+reflection is preventing any ranged damage from them. I wouldn't try it on a softer melee class though; keep it to things like trolls, gargoyles, minotaurs, etc. who can take a beating. Also, copious amounts of tab. I can picture this getting annoying if you prefer manual play or aim to minimize turns.

[Micro102]

First person to respond gets to decide what I play next. Note that it's pretty pointless if I die early because you asked me to play a felid warrior.

Name the race, class, and god.