So, did you give Stone Soup another chance? I really think you just got on the RNG's bad side. I thought the tutorial in DCSS was WAAAY better and more thorough than the one in ToME (though my copy of ToME is still sitting at 1.1.5, so for all I know, the tutorial could have been changed for the better since I played it).

There's also the 'Hint Mode', which is good if you want to jump into the full game (albeit with a very limited choice of race/background combos), but still wouldn't mind a little extra guidance.

For me, Dungeon Crawl is the more fun game. ToME is cool and all, but I seem to prefer the relative simplicity of DCSS. It's like NetHack, but with 60% less sadistic cruelty. :P