Troubles of Middle Earth

Troubles of Middle Earth, or ToME, is one of the more popular Angband variants. It is also currently one of the most "Tolkienized", as the world map is a sort of ASCII conversion of the real Middle Earth maps. This means you can walk around in Middle Earth and visit Lothlorien just as you imagined when you read The Lord of the Rings. This is one of the two main points that sets it apart from "vanilla" Angband and other variants. The other is the sheer amount of stuff in the game. For example, there are currently 22 races, 9 race modifiers or subraces, and 29 classes, far more possible combinations than vanilla Angband. It's a great laptop game, as it requires little computing power and doesn't need a mouse of any kind.

T.O.M.E, formerly PernAngband, is an Angband variant based off Zangband 2.2.0, and authored by DarkGod. For more info, visit http://t-o-m-e.net/.

As it says in the game's FAQ, the main dungeon has been split into 4 separate dungeons, requiring the player to traverse the overworld map in order to reach the deeper levels. There are also many side dungeons and quests, and all of it has a strong Tolkien theme. Old Man Willow stands rooted at the bottom of The Old Forest dungeon. Glaurung's flying around in Erebor. There are masses of thieving urchins lying in wait for you at Bree--yes, they were in the book. What do you think those dirty hobbits were?

TOME has an interesting, and more importantly decent skill system. Your character is born with a set of skills determined by race and class. The set tends to be very limited. Additionally, you only get skill points when you gain a level, and there's an experience-cap to prevent endless level gain. So SP is a limited resource; there's a strategy in choosing which skills to increase, and when.

Current version is 2.1.2, released 03/03/2003.

Sources:
http://t-o-m-e.net/
http://www.thangorodrim.net/pernangband.html