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- NETHACK(6) NETHACK(6)
-
-
-
- NAME
- nethack - Exploring The Mazes of Menace
-
- SYNOPSIS
- nethack [ -d directory ] [ -n ] [ -p profession (role) ] [
- -r race ] [ -[DX] ] [ -u playername ] [ -dec ] [ -ibm ]
-
- nethack [ -d directory ] -s [ -v ] [ -p profession (role)
- ] [ -r race ] [ playernames ]
-
- DESCRIPTION
- NetHack is a display oriented Dungeons & Dragons(tm) -
- like game. The standard tty display and command structure
- resemble rogue.
-
- Other, more graphical display options exist if you are
- using either a PC, or an X11 interface.
-
- To get started you really only need to know two commands.
- The command ? will give you a list of the available com-
- mands (as well as other information) and the command /
- will identify the things you see on the screen.
-
- To win the game (as opposed to merely playing to beat
- other people's high scores) you must locate the Amulet of
- Yendor which is somewhere below the 20th level of the dun-
- geon and get it out. Nobody has achieved this yet; any-
- body who does will probably go down in history as a hero
- among heros.
-
- When the game ends, whether by your dying, quitting, or
- escaping from the caves, NetHack will give you (a fragment
- of) the list of top scorers. The scoring is based on many
- aspects of your behavior, but a rough estimate is obtained
- by taking the amount of gold you've found in the cave plus
- four times your (real) experience. Precious stones may be
- worth a lot of gold when brought to the exit. There is a
- 10% penalty for getting yourself killed.
-
- The environment variable NETHACKOPTIONS can be used to
- initialize many run-time options. The ? command provides
- a description of these options and syntax. (The -dec and
- -ibm command line options are equivalent to the decgraph-
- ics and ibmgraphics run-time options described there, and
- are provided purely for convenience on systems supporting
- multiple types of terminals.)
-
- Because the option list can be very long (particularly
- when specifying graphics characters), options may also be
- included in a configuration file. The default is located
- in your home directory and named .nethackrc on Unix sys-
- tems. On other systems, the default may be different,
- usually NetHack.cnf. On DOS or Windows, the name is
- defaults.nh, while on the Macintosh or BeOS, it is NetHack
- Defaults. The configuration file's location may be speci-
- fied by setting NETHACKOPTIONS to a string consisting of
- an @ character followed by the filename.
-
- The -u playername option supplies the answer to the ques-
- tion "Who are you?". It overrides any name from the
- options or configuration file, USER, LOGNAME, or getlo-
- gin(), which will otherwise be tried in order. If none of
- these provides a useful name, the player will be asked for
- one. Player names (in conjunction with uids) are used to
- identify save files, so you can have several saved games
- under different names. Conversely, you must use the
- appropriate player name to restore a saved game.
-
- A playername suffix can be used to specify the profession,
- race, alignment and/or gender of the character. The full
- syntax of the playername that includes a suffix is "name-
- ppp-rrr-aaa-ggg". "ppp" are at least the first three let-
- ters of the profession (this can also be specified using a
- separate -p profession option). "rrr" are at least the
- first three letters of the character's race (this can also
- be specified using a separate -r race option). "aaa" are
- at last the first three letters of the character's align-
- ment, and "ggg" are at least the first three letters of
- the character's gender. Any of the parts of the suffix
- may be left out.
-
- -p profession can be used to determine the character role.
- You can specify either the male or female name for the
- character role, or the first three characters of the role
- as an abbreviation. -p @ has been retained to explicitly
- request that a random role be chosen. It may need to be
- quoted with a backslash (\@) if @ is the "kill" character
- (see "stty") for the terminal, in order to prevent the
- current input line from being cleared.
-
- Likewise, -r race can be used to explicitly request that a
- race be chosen.
-
- Leaving out any of these characteristics will result in
- you being prompted during the game startup for the infor-
- mation.
-
-
- The -s option alone will print out the list of your scores
- on the current version. An immediately following -v
- reports on all versions present in the score file. The -s
- may also be followed by arguments -p and -r to print the
- scores of particular roles and races only. It may also be
- followed by one or more player names to print the scores
- of the players mentioned, by 'all' to print out all
- scores, or by a number to print that many top scores.
-
- The -n option suppresses printing of any news from the
- game administrator.
-
- The -D or -X option will start the game in a special non-
- scoring discovery mode. -D will, if the player is the
- game administrator, start in debugging (wizard) mode
- instead.
-
- The -d option, which must be the first argument if it
- appears, supplies a directory which is to serve as the
- playground. It overrides the value from NETHACKDIR, HACK-
- DIR, or the directory specified by the game administrator
- during compilation (usually /usr/games/lib/nethackdir).
- This option is usually only useful to the game administra-
- tor. The playground must contain several auxiliary files
- such as help files, the list of top scorers, and a subdi-
- rectory save where games are saved.
-
- AUTHORS
- Jay Fenlason (+ Kenny Woodland, Mike Thome and Jon Payne)
- wrote the original hack, very much like rogue (but full of
- bugs).
-
- Andries Brouwer continuously deformed their sources into
- an entirely different game.
-
- Mike Stephenson has continued the perversion of sources,
- adding various warped character classes and sadistic traps
- with the help of many strange people who reside in that
- place between the worlds, the Usenet Zone. A number of
- these miscreants are immortalized in the historical roll
- of dishonor and various other places.
-
- The resulting mess is now called NetHack, to denote its
- development by the Usenet. Andries Brouwer has made this
- request for the distinction, as he may eventually release
- a new version of his own.
-
- FILES
- All files are in the playground, normally
- /usr/games/lib/nethackdir. If DLB was defined during the
- compile, the data files and special levels will be inside
- a larger file, normally nhdat, instead of being separate
- files.
- nethack The program itself.
- data, oracles, rumors Data files used by NetHack.
- options, quest.dat More data files.
- help, hh Help data files.
- cmdhelp, opthelp, wizhelp More help data files.
- *.lev Predefined special levels.
- dungeon Control file for special lev-
- els.
- history A short history of NetHack.
- license Rules governing redistribu-
- tion.
- record The list of top scorers.
- logfile An extended list of games
- played.
- xlock.nnn Description of a dungeon
- level.
- perm Lock file for xlock.dd.
- bonesDD.nn Descriptions of the ghost and
- belongings of a deceased
- adventurer.
- save A subdirectory containing the
- saved games.
-
- ENVIRONMENT
- USER or LOGNAME Your login name.
- HOME Your home directory.
- SHELL Your shell.
- TERM The type of your terminal.
- HACKPAGER or PAGER Replacement for default pager.
- MAIL Mailbox file.
- MAILREADER Replacement for default reader
- (probably /bin/mail or
- /usr/ucb/mail).
- NETHACKDIR Playground.
- NETHACKOPTIONS String predefining several NetHack
- options.
-
- In addition, SHOPTYPE is used in debugging (wizard) mode.
-
- SEE ALSO
- dgn_comp(6), lev_comp(6), recover(6)
-
- BUGS
- Probably infinite.
-
-
-
- Dungeons & Dragons is a Trademark of Wizards of the Coast,
- Inc.
-
-
-
- 9 August 2002 NETHACK(6)
-
