NETHACK(6)                 OpenBSD Reference Manual                 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 commands (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 dungeon and get it out.  Nobody has
       achieved this yet; anybody 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 decgraphics 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 systems.  On other systems, the default may be
       different, usually NetHack.cnf.  On DOS the name is defaults.nh, while
       on the Macintosh or BeOS, it is NetHack Defaults.  The configuration
       file's location may be specified by setting NETHACKOPTIONS to a string
       consisting of an @ character followed by the filename.

       The -u playername option supplies the answer to the question "Who are
       you?".  It overrides any name from the options or configuration file,
       USER, LOGNAME, or getlogin(), 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 or a separate option, -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 either of these will result in you being prompted during
       the game startup for the information.

       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, HACKDIR, or the directory specified by the game
       administrator during compilation (usually /usr/games/lib/nethackdir).
       This option is usually only useful to the game administrator.  The
       playground must contain several auxiliary files such as help files, the
       list of top scorers, and a subdirectory 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 levels.
       history                     A short history of NetHack.
       license                     Rules governing redistribution.
       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.



4th Berkeley Distribution      17 November 1999                     NETHACK(6)
