NETHACK(6)                                                          NETHACK(6)



NAME
       nethack - Exploring The Mazes of Menace

SYNOPSIS
       nethack [ -d directory ] [ -n ] [ -p profession ] [ -r race ] [ -[DX] ]
       [ -u playername ] [ -dec ] [ -ibm ] [ --version[:paste] ]

       nethack [ -d directory ] -s [ -v ] [ -p profession ] [ -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 for most platforms.

       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.  Few people achieve
       this; most never do.  Those who have go down in history as heros  among
       heroes  -  and then they find ways of making the game even harder.  See
       the Guidebook section on Conduct if this game has gotten too  easy  for
       you.

       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  scor-
       ers.   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 equiv-
       alent 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 dif-
       ferent,  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 specified by setting  NETHACK-
       OPTIONS  to a string consisting of an @ character followed by the file-
       name.

       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.  Con-
       versely, you must use the appropriate player name to  restore  a  saved
       game.

       A playername suffix can be used to specify the profession, race, align-
       ment 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 letters 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 alignment, 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  profession,  also
       known  as the 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 ran-
       dom 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 cho-
       sen.

       Leaving  out  any  of  these  characteristics  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  cur-
       rent  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 administra-
       tor.

       The  -D  or -X option will start the game in a special non-scoring dis-
       covery 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
       Run-time  configuration options were discussed above and use a platform
       specific name for a file in a platform specific  location.   For  Unix,
       the name is '.nethackrc' in the user's home directory.

       All   other   files   are   in   the   playground  directory,  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.
       quest.dat, bogusmon         More data files.
       engrave, epitaph, tribute   Still more data files.
       symbols                     Data file holding sets of specifications
                                   for how to display monsters, objects, and
                                   map features.
       options                     Data file containing a description  of  the
                                   build-time option settings.
       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
                                   (optional).
       xlogfile                    A more detailed version of 'logfile'
                                   (also optional).
       paniclog                    Record of exceptional conditions
                                   discovered during program execution.
       xlock.nn                    Description of dungeon level 'nn' of
                                   active game 'x' if there's a limit on the
                                   number of simultaneously active games.
       UUcccccc.nn                 Alternate form for dungeon level 'nn'
                                   of active game by user 'UU' playing
                                   character named 'cccccc' when there's no
                                   limit on number of active games.
       perm                        Lock file for xlock.0 or UUcccccc.0.
       bonesDD.nn                  Descriptions of the ghost and belongings
                                   of a deceased adventurer who met his
                                   or her demise on level 'nn'.

       save/                       A subdirectory containing saved games.

       sysconf                     System-wide options.  Required if
                                   program is built with 'SYSCF' option
                                   enabled, ignored if not.

       The  location  of  'sysconf'  is  specified  at build time and can't be
       changed except by updating source file "config.h"  and  rebuilding  the
       program.

       In a perfect world, 'paniclog' would remain empty.

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 or HACKDIR   Playground.
       NETHACKOPTIONS          String predefining several NetHack
                               options.

       If  the same option is specified in both NETHACKOPTIONS and .nethackrc,
       the value assigned in NETHACKOPTIONS takes precedence.

       SHOPTYPE and SPLEVTYPE can be used in debugging (wizard) mode.
       DEBUGFILES can be used if the program was built with 'DEBUG' enabled.

SEE ALSO
       dgn_comp(6), lev_comp(6), recover(6)

BUGS
       Probably infinite.



       Dungeons & Dragons is a Trademark of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.



                                7 December 2015                     NETHACK(6)
