1 .TH NETHACK 6 "2 February 2018" NETHACK
11 .ND $NHDT-Date: 1524689549 2018/04/25 20:52:29 $
12 .NB $NHDT-Branch: NetHack-3.6.0 $
13 .NR $NHDT-Revision: 1.14 $
14 .ds Na Robert Patrick Rankin
16 nethack \- Exploring The Mazes of Menace
50 .BR \-\-version [ :paste ]
75 .\" Make sure path is not hyphenated below
80 is a display oriented Dungeons & Dragons(tm) - like game.
81 The standard tty display and command structure resemble rogue.
83 Other, more graphical display options exist for most platforms.
85 To get started you really only need to know two commands. The command
87 will give you a list of the available commands (as well as other information)
90 will identify the things you see on the screen.
92 To win the game (as opposed to merely playing to beat other people's high
93 scores) you must locate the Amulet of Yendor which is somewhere below
94 the 20th level of the dungeon and get it out.
95 Few people achieve this; most never do. Those who have go down
96 in history as heros among heroes - and then they find ways of making the
97 game even harder. See the
99 section on Conduct if this game has gotten too easy for you.
101 When the game ends, whether by your dying, quitting, or escaping
104 will give you (a fragment of) the list of top scorers.
105 The scoring is based on many aspects of your behavior, but a rough estimate
106 is obtained by taking the amount of gold you've found in the cave plus four
107 times your (real) experience.
108 Precious stones may be worth a lot of gold when brought to the exit.
109 There is a 10% penalty for getting yourself killed.
111 The environment variable NETHACKOPTIONS can be used to initialize many
113 The ? command provides a description of these options and syntax.
118 command line options are equivalent to the
122 run-time options described there,
123 and are provided purely for convenience on systems
124 supporting multiple types of terminals.)
126 Because the option list can be very long (particularly when specifying
127 graphics characters), options may also be included in a configuration
129 The default is located in your home directory and
130 named .nethackrc on Unix systems. On other systems, the default may be
131 different, usually NetHack.cnf. On DOS or Windows, the name is
132 defaults.nh, while on the Macintosh or BeOS, it is NetHack Defaults.
133 The configuration file's location may be specified by setting NETHACKOPTIONS
134 to a string consisting of an @ character followed by the filename.
139 option supplies the answer to the question "Who are you?".
140 It overrides any name from the options or configuration file, USER, LOGNAME,
141 or getlogin(), which will otherwise be tried in order.
142 If none of these provides a useful name, the player will be asked for one.
143 Player names (in conjunction with uids) are used to identify save files,
144 so you can have several saved games under different names.
145 Conversely, you must use the appropriate player name to restore a saved game.
149 suffix can be used to specify the profession, race, alignment and/or gender
150 of the character. The full syntax of the playername that includes a
151 suffix is "name-ppp-rrr-aaa-ggg". "ppp" are at least the first three letters
152 of the profession (this can also be specified using a separate
155 option). "rrr" are at least the first three letters of the character's
156 race (this can also be specified using a separate
159 option). "aaa" are at last the first three letters of the character's
160 alignment, and "ggg" are at least the first three letters of the
161 character's gender. Any of the parts of the suffix may be left out.
165 can be used to determine the character profession, also known as the role.
166 You can specify either the male or female name for the character role, or
167 the first three characters of the role as an abbreviation.
169 has been retained to explicitly request that a random role be chosen.
170 It may need to be quoted with a backslash (\\@) if @
171 is the "kill" character (see "stty") for the terminal, in order
172 to prevent the current input line from being cleared.
177 can be used to explicitly request that a race be chosen.
179 Leaving out any of these characteristics will result in you being prompted
180 during the game startup for the information.
185 option alone will print out the list of your scores on the current version.
186 An immediately following
188 reports on all versions present in the score file.
191 may also be followed by arguments
195 to print the scores of particular roles and races only.
196 It may also be followed by one or more player names to print the scores of the
197 players mentioned, by 'all' to print out all scores, or by a number to print
198 that many top scores.
202 option suppresses printing of any news from the game administrator.
208 option will start the game in a special non-scoring discovery mode.
210 will, if the player is the game administrator, start in debugging (wizard)
215 option, which must be the first argument if it appears,
216 supplies a directory which is to serve as the playground.
217 It overrides the value from NETHACKDIR, HACKDIR,
218 or the directory specified by the game administrator during compilation
219 (usually /usr/games/lib/nethackdir).
220 This option is usually only useful to the game administrator.
221 The playground must contain several auxiliary files such as help files,
222 the list of top scorers, and a subdirectory
224 where games are saved.
227 can be used to cause NetHack to show the version information it
228 was compiled with, then exit. That will include the
230 commit hash if the information was available when the game was compiled.
231 On some platforms, such as windows and macosx, a variation
233 can be used to cause NetHack to show the version information, then exit,
234 while also leaving a copy of the version information in the paste buffer
235 or clipboard for potential insertion into things like bug reports.
238 Jay Fenlason (+ Kenny Woodland, Mike Thome and Jon Payne) wrote the
239 original hack, very much like rogue (but full of bugs).
241 Andries Brouwer continuously deformed their sources into an entirely
244 Mike Stephenson has continued the perversion of sources, adding various
245 warped character classes and sadistic traps with the help of many strange
246 people who reside in that place between the worlds, the Usenet Zone.
247 A number of these miscreants are immortalized in the historical
248 roll of dishonor and various other places.
250 The resulting mess is now called NetHack, to denote its
251 development by the Usenet. Andries Brouwer has made this request for the
252 distinction, as he may eventually release a new version of his own.
255 Run-time configuration options were discussed above and use a platform
256 specific name for a file in a platform specific location. For Unix, the
257 name is '.nethackrc' in the user's home directory.
260 All other files are in the playground directory,
261 normally /usr/games/lib/nethackdir.
262 If DLB was defined during the compile, the data files and special levels
263 will be inside a larger file, normally nhdat, instead of being separate
268 .ta \w'cmdhelp, opthelp, wizhelp\ \ \ 'u
269 nethack The program itself.
271 data, oracles, rumors Data files used by NetHack.
273 quest.dat, bogusmon More data files.
275 engrave, epitaph, tribute Still more data files.
277 symbols Data file holding sets of specifications
279 for how to display monsters, objects, and
283 options Data file containing a description of the
284 build-time option settings.
286 help, hh Help data files.
288 cmdhelp, opthelp, wizhelp More help data files.
290 *.lev Predefined special levels.
292 dungeon Control file for special levels.
294 history A short history of NetHack.
296 license Rules governing redistribution.
298 record The list of top scorers.
300 logfile An extended list of games played
304 xlogfile A more detailed version of 'logfile'
308 paniclog Record of exceptional conditions
310 discovered during program execution.
312 xlock.nn Description of dungeon level 'nn' of
314 active game 'x' if there's a limit on the
316 number of simultaneously active games.
318 UUcccccc.nn Alternate form for dungeon level 'nn'
320 of active game by user 'UU' playing
322 character named 'cccccc' when there's no
324 limit on number of active games.
326 perm Lock file for xlock.0 or UUcccccc.0.
328 bonesDD.nn Descriptions of the ghost and belongings
330 of a deceased adventurer who met his
332 or her demise on level 'nn'.
334 .\"following line should contain <space><tab>
337 save/ A subdirectory containing saved games.
339 .\"following line should contain <space><tab>
342 sysconf System-wide options. Required if
344 program is built with 'SYSCF' option
346 enabled, ignored if not.
349 The location of 'sysconf' is specified at build time and can't be changed
350 except by updating source file "config.h" and rebuilding the program.
353 In a perfect world, 'paniclog' would remain empty.
356 .ta \w'NETHACKDIR or HACKDIR\ \ \ 'u
357 USER or LOGNAME Your login name.
359 HOME Your home directory.
363 TERM The type of your terminal.
365 HACKPAGER or PAGER Replacement for default pager.
369 MAILREADER Replacement for default reader
371 (probably /bin/mail or /usr/ucb/mail).
373 NETHACKDIR or HACKDIR Playground.
375 NETHACKOPTIONS String predefining several NetHack
380 If the same option is specified in both NETHACKOPTIONS and .nethackrc,
381 the value assigned in NETHACKOPTIONS takes precedence.
384 SHOPTYPE and SPLEVTYPE can be used in debugging (wizard) mode.
386 DEBUGFILES can be used if the program was built with 'DEBUG' enabled.
389 dgn_comp(6), lev_comp(6), recover(6)
394 This file is Copyright (C) \*(Na and was last modified \*(Nd (version
396 NetHack may be freely redistributed. See license for details.
398 Dungeons & Dragons is a Trademark of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.