NETHACK(6)                       Games Manual                       NETHACK(6)



NAME
       nethack - Exploring The Mazes of Menace

SYNOPSIS
       nethack [ -d directory ] [ -n ] [ -p profession ] [ -r race ] [ -[DX] ]
       [ -u playername ] [ -dec ] [ -ibm ] [ --showpaths ] [ --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 done so go down in history as he-
       roes 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 least 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.

       --showpaths can be used to cause NetHack to show where it is  expecting
       to find various configuration files.

       --version  can be used to cause NetHack to show the version information
       it was compiled with, then exit. That will include the git commit  hash
       if  the  information was available when the game was compiled.  On some
       platforms, such as windows and macosx, a variation --version:paste  can
       be  used  to  cause NetHack to show the version information, then exit,
       while also leaving a copy of the version information in the paste  buf-
       fer or clipboard for potential insertion into things like bug reports.

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.
       bogusmon                    another data file.
       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.
       *.lua                       Predefined  special levels, dungeon control
       for                             special levels, quest texts
       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
       recover(6)

BUGS
       Probably infinite.

COPYRIGHT
       This  file is Copyright (C) Robert Patrick Rankin and was last modified
       2019/09/15 (version NetHack-3.6:1.16).  NetHack may  be  freely  redis-
       tributed.  See license for details.

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



NETHACK                         2 February 2018                     NETHACK(6)
