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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 TSR Inc.
12 March 2002 NETHACK(6)