1NETHACK(6)                       Games Manual                       NETHACK(6)
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NAME

6       nethack - Exploring The Mazes of Menace
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SYNOPSIS

9       nethack [ -d directory ] [ -n ] [ -p profession ] [ -r race ] [ -[DX] ]
10       [ -u playername ] [ -dec ] [ -ibm ] [ --version[:paste] ]
11
12       nethack [ -d directory ] -s [ -v ] [ -p profession ] [ -r race ] [
13       playernames ]
14

DESCRIPTION

16       NetHack  is a display oriented Dungeons & Dragons(tm) - like game.  The
17       standard tty display and command structure resemble rogue.
18
19       Other, more graphical display options exist for most platforms.
20
21       To get started you really only need to know two commands.  The  command
22       ?   will  give  you  a list of the available commands (as well as other
23       information) and the command / will identify the things you see on  the
24       screen.
25
26       To  win  the  game (as opposed to merely playing to beat other people's
27       high scores) you must locate the Amulet of Yendor  which  is  somewhere
28       below the 20th level of the dungeon and get it out.  Few people achieve
29       this; most never do.  Those who have go down in history as heroes among
30       heroes  -  and then they find ways of making the game even harder.  See
31       the Guidebook section on Conduct if this game has gotten too  easy  for
32       you.
33
34       When  the  game ends, whether by your dying, quitting, or escaping from
35       the caves, NetHack will give you (a fragment of) the list of top  scor‐
36       ers.   The  scoring  is  based  on many aspects of your behavior, but a
37       rough estimate is obtained by taking the amount of gold you've found in
38       the  cave  plus four times your (real) experience.  Precious stones may
39       be worth a lot of gold when brought  to  the  exit.   There  is  a  10%
40       penalty for getting yourself killed.
41
42       The  environment variable NETHACKOPTIONS can be used to initialize many
43       run-time options.  The  ?  command  provides  a  description  of  these
44       options and syntax.  (The -dec and -ibm command line options are equiv‐
45       alent to the decgraphics and  ibmgraphics  run-time  options  described
46       there,  and  are  provided purely for convenience on systems supporting
47       multiple types of terminals.)
48
49       Because the option list can be very long (particularly when  specifying
50       graphics  characters),  options may also be included in a configuration
51       file.  The  default  is  located  in  your  home  directory  and  named
52       .nethackrc  on Unix systems.  On other systems, the default may be dif‐
53       ferent,  usually  NetHack.cnf.   On  DOS  or  Windows,  the   name   is
54       defaults.nh,  while  on  the Macintosh or BeOS, it is NetHack Defaults.
55       The configuration file's location may be specified by setting  NETHACK‐
56       OPTIONS  to a string consisting of an @ character followed by the file‐
57       name.
58
59       The -u playername option supplies the answer to the question  "Who  are
60       you?".   It  overrides any name from the options or configuration file,
61       USER, LOGNAME, or getlogin(), which will otherwise be tried  in  order.
62       If  none  of these provides a useful name, the player will be asked for
63       one.  Player names (in conjunction with uids) are used to identify save
64       files, so you can have several saved games under different names.  Con‐
65       versely, you must use the appropriate player name to  restore  a  saved
66       game.
67
68       A playername suffix can be used to specify the profession, race, align‐
69       ment and/or gender of the character.  The full syntax of the playername
70       that  includes  a suffix is "name-ppp-rrr-aaa-ggg".  "ppp" are at least
71       the first three letters of the profession (this can also  be  specified
72       using  a  separate -p profession option).  "rrr" are at least the first
73       three letters of the character's race (this can also be specified using
74       a  separate -r race option).  "aaa" are at last the first three letters
75       of the character's alignment, and "ggg" are at least  the  first  three
76       letters  of the character's gender.  Any of the parts of the suffix may
77       be left out.
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79       -p profession can be used to determine the character  profession,  also
80       known  as the role.  You can specify either the male or female name for
81       the character role, or the first three characters of  the  role  as  an
82       abbreviation.  -p @ has been retained to explicitly request that a ran‐
83       dom role be chosen.  It may need to be quoted with a backslash (\@)  if
84       @  is  the  "kill" character (see "stty") for the terminal, in order to
85       prevent the current input line from being cleared.
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87       Likewise, -r race can be used to explicitly request that a race be cho‐
88       sen.
89
90       Leaving  out  any  of  these  characteristics  will result in you being
91       prompted during the game startup for the information.
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93       The -s option alone will print out the list of your scores on the  cur‐
94       rent  version.   An  immediately  following  -v reports on all versions
95       present in the score file.  The -s may also be followed by arguments -p
96       and  -r to print the scores of particular roles and races only.  It may
97       also be followed by one or more player names to print the scores of the
98       players  mentioned, by 'all' to print out all scores, or by a number to
99       print that many top scores.
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101       The -n option suppresses printing of any news from the game administra‐
102       tor.
103
104       The  -D  or -X option will start the game in a special non-scoring dis‐
105       covery mode.  -D will, if the player is the game  administrator,  start
106       in debugging (wizard) mode instead.
107
108       The -d option, which must be the first argument if it appears, supplies
109       a directory which is to serve as  the  playground.   It  overrides  the
110       value  from NETHACKDIR, HACKDIR, or the directory specified by the game
111       administrator during compilation  (usually  /usr/games/nethack).   This
112       option  is  usually  only  useful to the game administrator.  The play‐
113       ground must contain several auxiliary files such  as  help  files,  the
114       list of top scorers, and a subdirectory save where games are saved.
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116       --version  can be used to cause NetHack to show the version information
117       it was compiled with, then exit. That will include the git commit  hash
118       if  the  information was available when the game was compiled.  On some
119       platforms, such as windows and macosx, a variation --version:paste  can
120       be  used  to  cause NetHack to show the version information, then exit,
121       while also leaving a copy of the version information in the paste  buf‐
122       fer or clipboard for potential insertion into things like bug reports.
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AUTHORS

125       Jay  Fenlason  (+  Kenny  Woodland, Mike Thome and Jon Payne) wrote the
126       original hack, very much like rogue (but full of bugs).
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128       Andries Brouwer continuously deformed their sources  into  an  entirely
129       different game.
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131       Mike Stephenson has continued the perversion of sources, adding various
132       warped character classes and sadistic  traps  with  the  help  of  many
133       strange  people who reside in that place between the worlds, the Usenet
134       Zone.  A number of these miscreants are immortalized in the  historical
135       roll of dishonor and various other places.
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137       The  resulting mess is now called NetHack, to denote its development by
138       the Usenet.  Andries Brouwer has made this request for the distinction,
139       as he may eventually release a new version of his own.
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FILES

142       Run-time  configuration options were discussed above and use a platform
143       specific name for a file in a platform specific  location.   For  Unix,
144       the name is '.nethackrc' in the user's home directory.
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146       All   other   files   are   in   the   playground  directory,  normally
147       /usr/games/nethack.  If DLB was defined during the  compile,  the  data
148       files  and special levels will be inside a larger file, normally nhdat,
149       instead of being separate files.
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151       nethack                     The program itself.
152       data, oracles, rumors       Data files used by NetHack.
153       quest.dat, bogusmon         More data files.
154       engrave, epitaph, tribute   Still more data files.
155       symbols                     Data file holding sets of specifications
156                                   for how to display monsters, objects, and
157                                   map features.
158       options                     Data file containing a description  of  the
159                                   build-time option settings.
160       help, hh                    Help data files.
161       cmdhelp, opthelp, wizhelp   More help data files.
162       *.lev                       Predefined special levels.
163       dungeon                     Control file for special levels.
164       history                     A short history of NetHack.
165       license                     Rules governing redistribution.
166       record                      The list of top scorers.
167       logfile                     An extended list of games played
168                                   (optional).
169       xlogfile                    A more detailed version of 'logfile'
170                                   (also optional).
171       paniclog                    Record of exceptional conditions
172                                   discovered during program execution.
173       xlock.nn                    Description of dungeon level 'nn' of
174                                   active game 'x' if there's a limit on the
175                                   number of simultaneously active games.
176       UUcccccc.nn                 Alternate form for dungeon level 'nn'
177                                   of active game by user 'UU' playing
178                                   character named 'cccccc' when there's no
179                                   limit on number of active games.
180       perm                        Lock file for xlock.0 or UUcccccc.0.
181       bonesDD.nn                  Descriptions of the ghost and belongings
182                                   of a deceased adventurer who met his
183                                   or her demise on level 'nn'.
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185       save/                       A subdirectory containing saved games.
186
187       sysconf                     System-wide options.  Required if
188                                   program is built with 'SYSCF' option
189                                   enabled, ignored if not.
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191       The  location  of  'sysconf'  is  specified  at build time and can't be
192       changed except by updating source file "config.h"  and  rebuilding  the
193       program.
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195       In a perfect world, 'paniclog' would remain empty.
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ENVIRONMENT

198       USER or LOGNAME         Your login name.
199       HOME                    Your home directory.
200       SHELL                   Your shell.
201       TERM                    The type of your terminal.
202       HACKPAGER or PAGER      Replacement for default pager.
203       MAIL                    Mailbox file.
204       MAILREADER              Replacement for default reader
205                               (probably /bin/mail or /usr/ucb/mail).
206       NETHACKDIR or HACKDIR   Playground.
207       NETHACKOPTIONS          String predefining several NetHack
208                               options.
209
210       If  the same option is specified in both NETHACKOPTIONS and .nethackrc,
211       the value assigned in NETHACKOPTIONS takes precedence.
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213       SHOPTYPE and SPLEVTYPE can be used in debugging (wizard) mode.
214       DEBUGFILES can be used if the program was built with 'DEBUG' enabled.
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SEE ALSO

217       dgn_comp(6), lev_comp(6), recover(6)
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BUGS

220       Probably infinite.
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223       This file is Copyright (C) Robert Patrick Rankin and was last  modified
224       2018/04/25  (version NetHack-3.6.0:1.14).  NetHack may be freely redis‐
225       tributed.  See license for details.
226
227       Dungeons & Dragons is a Trademark of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
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231NETHACK                         2 February 2018                     NETHACK(6)
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