1NETHACK(6) NETHACK(6) 2 3 4 5NAME 6 nethack - Exploring The Mazes of Menace 7 8SYNOPSIS 9 nethack [ -d directory ] [ -n ] [ -p profession (role) ] [ 10 -r race ] [ -[DX] ] [ -u playername ] [ -dec ] [ -ibm ] 11 12 nethack [ -d directory ] -s [ -v ] [ -p profession (role) 13 ] [ -r race ] [ playernames ] 14 15DESCRIPTION 16 NetHack is a display oriented Dungeons & Dragons(tm) - 17 like game. The standard tty display and command structure 18 resemble rogue. 19 20 Other, more graphical display options exist if you are 21 using either a PC, or an X11 interface. 22 23 To get started you really only need to know two commands. 24 The command ? will give you a list of the available com- 25 mands (as well as other information) and the command / 26 will identify the things you see on the screen. 27 28 To win the game (as opposed to merely playing to beat 29 other people's high scores) you must locate the Amulet of 30 Yendor which is somewhere below the 20th level of the dun- 31 geon and get it out. Nobody has achieved this yet; any- 32 body who does will probably go down in history as a hero 33 among heros. 34 35 When the game ends, whether by your dying, quitting, or 36 escaping from the caves, NetHack will give you (a fragment 37 of) the list of top scorers. The scoring is based on many 38 aspects of your behavior, but a rough estimate is obtained 39 by taking the amount of gold you've found in the cave plus 40 four times your (real) experience. Precious stones may be 41 worth a lot of gold when brought to the exit. There is a 42 10% penalty for getting yourself killed. 43 44 The environment variable NETHACKOPTIONS can be used to 45 initialize many run-time options. The ? command provides 46 a description of these options and syntax. (The -dec and 47 -ibm command line options are equivalent to the decgraph- 48 ics and ibmgraphics run-time options described there, and 49 are provided purely for convenience on systems supporting 50 multiple types of terminals.) 51 52 Because the option list can be very long (particularly 53 when specifying graphics characters), options may also be 54 included in a configuration file. The default is located 55 in your home directory and named .nethackrc on Unix sys- 56 tems. On other systems, the default may be different, 57 usually NetHack.cnf. On DOS or Windows, the name is 58 defaults.nh, while on the Macintosh or BeOS, it is NetHack 59 Defaults. The configuration file's location may be speci- 60 fied by setting NETHACKOPTIONS to a string consisting of 61 an @ character followed by the filename. 62 63 The -u playername option supplies the answer to the ques- 64 tion "Who are you?". It overrides any name from the 65 options or configuration file, USER, LOGNAME, or getlo- 66 gin(), which will otherwise be tried in order. If none of 67 these provides a useful name, the player will be asked for 68 one. Player names (in conjunction with uids) are used to 69 identify save files, so you can have several saved games 70 under different names. Conversely, you must use the 71 appropriate player name to restore a saved game. 72 73 A playername suffix can be used to specify the profession, 74 race, alignment and/or gender of the character. The full 75 syntax of the playername that includes a suffix is "name- 76 ppp-rrr-aaa-ggg". "ppp" are at least the first three let- 77 ters of the profession (this can also be specified using a 78 separate -p profession option). "rrr" are at least the 79 first three letters of the character's race (this can also 80 be specified using a separate -r race option). "aaa" are 81 at last the first three letters of the character's align- 82 ment, and "ggg" are at least the first three letters of 83 the character's gender. Any of the parts of the suffix 84 may be left out. 85 86 -p profession can be used to determine the character role. 87 You can specify either the male or female name for the 88 character role, or the first three characters of the role 89 as an abbreviation. -p @ has been retained to explicitly 90 request that a random role be chosen. It may need to be 91 quoted with a backslash (\@) if @ is the "kill" character 92 (see "stty") for the terminal, in order to prevent the 93 current input line from being cleared. 94 95 Likewise, -r race can be used to explicitly request that a 96 race be chosen. 97 98 Leaving out any of these characteristics will result in 99 you being prompted during the game startup for the infor- 100 mation. 101 102 103 The -s option alone will print out the list of your scores 104 on the current version. An immediately following -v 105 reports on all versions present in the score file. The -s 106 may also be followed by arguments -p and -r to print the 107 scores of particular roles and races only. It may also be 108 followed by one or more player names to print the scores 109 of the players mentioned, by 'all' to print out all 110 scores, or by a number to print that many top scores. 111 112 The -n option suppresses printing of any news from the 113 game administrator. 114 115 The -D or -X option will start the game in a special non- 116 scoring discovery mode. -D will, if the player is the 117 game administrator, start in debugging (wizard) mode 118 instead. 119 120 The -d option, which must be the first argument if it 121 appears, supplies a directory which is to serve as the 122 playground. It overrides the value from NETHACKDIR, HACK- 123 DIR, or the directory specified by the game administrator 124 during compilation (usually /usr/games/lib/nethackdir). 125 This option is usually only useful to the game administra- 126 tor. The playground must contain several auxiliary files 127 such as help files, the list of top scorers, and a subdi- 128 rectory save where games are saved. 129 130AUTHORS 131 Jay Fenlason (+ Kenny Woodland, Mike Thome and Jon Payne) 132 wrote the original hack, very much like rogue (but full of 133 bugs). 134 135 Andries Brouwer continuously deformed their sources into 136 an entirely different game. 137 138 Mike Stephenson has continued the perversion of sources, 139 adding various warped character classes and sadistic traps 140 with the help of many strange people who reside in that 141 place between the worlds, the Usenet Zone. A number of 142 these miscreants are immortalized in the historical roll 143 of dishonor and various other places. 144 145 The resulting mess is now called NetHack, to denote its 146 development by the Usenet. Andries Brouwer has made this 147 request for the distinction, as he may eventually release 148 a new version of his own. 149 150FILES 151 All files are in the playground, normally 152 /usr/games/lib/nethackdir. If DLB was defined during the 153 compile, the data files and special levels will be inside 154 a larger file, normally nhdat, instead of being separate 155 files. 156 nethack The program itself. 157 data, oracles, rumors Data files used by NetHack. 158 options, quest.dat More data files. 159 help, hh Help data files. 160 cmdhelp, opthelp, wizhelp More help data files. 161 *.lev Predefined special levels. 162 dungeon Control file for special lev- 163 els. 164 history A short history of NetHack. 165 license Rules governing redistribu- 166 tion. 167 record The list of top scorers. 168 logfile An extended list of games 169 played. 170 xlock.nnn Description of a dungeon 171 level. 172 perm Lock file for xlock.dd. 173 bonesDD.nn Descriptions of the ghost and 174 belongings of a deceased 175 adventurer. 176 save A subdirectory containing the 177 saved games. 178 179ENVIRONMENT 180 USER or LOGNAME Your login name. 181 HOME Your home directory. 182 SHELL Your shell. 183 TERM The type of your terminal. 184 HACKPAGER or PAGER Replacement for default pager. 185 MAIL Mailbox file. 186 MAILREADER Replacement for default reader 187 (probably /bin/mail or 188 /usr/ucb/mail). 189 NETHACKDIR Playground. 190 NETHACKOPTIONS String predefining several NetHack 191 options. 192 193 In addition, SHOPTYPE is used in debugging (wizard) mode. 194 195SEE ALSO 196 dgn_comp(6), lev_comp(6), recover(6) 197 198BUGS 199 Probably infinite. 200 201 202 203 Dungeons & Dragons is a Trademark of Wizards of the Coast, 204 Inc. 205 206 207 208 9 August 2002 NETHACK(6) 209