6 nethack - Exploring The Mazes of Menace
9 nethack [ -d directory ] [ -n ] [ -p profession (role) ] [
10 -r race ] [ -[DX] ] [ -u playername ] [ -dec ] [ -ibm ]
12 nethack [ -d directory ] -s [ -v ] [ -p profession (role)
13 ] [ -r race ] [ playernames ]
16 NetHack is a display oriented Dungeons & Dragons(tm) -
17 like game. The standard tty display and command structure
20 Other, more graphical display options exist if you are
21 using either a PC, or an X11 interface.
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.
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
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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
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.
95 Likewise, -r race can be used to explicitly request that a
98 Leaving out any of these characteristics will result in
99 you being prompted during the game startup for the infor-
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.
112 The -n option suppresses printing of any news from the
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
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.
131 Jay Fenlason (+ Kenny Woodland, Mike Thome and Jon Payne)
132 wrote the original hack, very much like rogue (but full of
135 Andries Brouwer continuously deformed their sources into
136 an entirely different game.
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.
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.
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
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-
164 history A short history of NetHack.
165 license Rules governing redistribu-
167 record The list of top scorers.
168 logfile An extended list of games
170 xlock.nnn Description of a dungeon
172 perm Lock file for xlock.dd.
173 bonesDD.nn Descriptions of the ghost and
174 belongings of a deceased
176 save A subdirectory containing the
180 USER or LOGNAME Your login name.
181 HOME Your home directory.
183 TERM The type of your terminal.
184 HACKPAGER or PAGER Replacement for default pager.
186 MAILREADER Replacement for default reader
187 (probably /bin/mail or
189 NETHACKDIR Playground.
190 NETHACKOPTIONS String predefining several NetHack
193 In addition, SHOPTYPE is used in debugging (wizard) mode.
196 dgn_comp(6), lev_comp(6), recover(6)
203 Dungeons & Dragons is a Trademark of Wizards of the Coast,
208 9 August 2002 NETHACK(6)