nethack/doc/nethack.6

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.TH NETHACK 6 "26 April 2026" NETHACK
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.NB $NHDT-Branch: NetHack-5 $
.NR $NHDT-Revision: 1.31 $
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.ds Na Robert Patrick Rankin
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.SH NAME
nethack \- Exploring The Mazes of Menace
.SH SYNOPSIS
.na
.hy 0
.\" Some options ordering is explicit (-d first, -u before -D), others
.\" have been arranged to fit within an 80-column page with nearly full
.\" lines while avoiding splitting "[" and "-opt ]" or "[ -opt" and "]"
.\" across line boundaries.  It would be better to do that with 'roff magic.
.B nethack
[
.BR \-d | \-\-directory
.I directory
]
.\" '.B token newline .I token' will include a space between the two tokens;
.\" '.BI token token' will not.  Likewise for .BR, .RB, &c.
[
.BR \-w | \-\-windowtype
.I interface
]
.br
[
.BI \-\-nethackrc: RC-file
|
.B \-\-no\-nethackrc
]
[
.B \-n
]
[
.BR \-dec " | " \-ibm
]
.br
[
.B \-u
.I playername
]
[
.BR \-X " | " \-D
]
[
.B \-p
.I profession
]
[
.B \-r
.I race
]
[
.B \-@
]
.PP
Also
[
.BR \-A | \-Arc
|
.BR \-B | \-Bar
|
.BR \-C | \-Cav
|
.BR \-H | \-Hea
|
.BR \-K | \-Kni
|
.BR \-M | \-Mon
|
.BR \-P | \-Pri
|
.BR \-R | \-Rog
|
.B \-Ran
|
.BR \-S | \-Sam
|
.BR \-T | \-Tou
|
.BR \-V | \-Val
|
.BR \-W | \-Wiz
]
.PP
.B nethack
[
.BR \-d | \-\-directory
.I directory
]
.BR \-s | \-\-scores
[
.B \-v
]
.br
[
.B \-p
.I profession
]
[
.B \-r
.I race
]
[
.I playernames
]
.PP
.B nethack
[
.B \-\-usage
|
.B \-\-help
]
[
.B \-\-showpaths
]
.\" force line wrap now rather than have that happen after the opening brace
.br
[
.BR \-\-version [ :copy | :dump | :show ]
]
.ad
.hy 14
.\" Make sure path is not hyphenated below
.hw nethackdir
.SH DESCRIPTION
.PP
.I NetHack
is a display oriented Dungeons & Dragons(tm) - like game.
The standard tty display and command structure resemble rogue.
.PP
Other, more graphical display options exist for most platforms.
.PP
To get started you really only need to know two commands.
The command
.B ?
will give you a list of the available commands (as well as other information)
and the command
.B /
will identify the things you see on the screen.
.PP
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 heroes among heroes \(em and then they find ways of making the
game even harder.
See the
.I Guidebook
section on Conduct if this game has gotten too easy for you.
.PP
When the game ends, whether by your dying, quitting, or escaping
from the caves,
.I 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.
.PP
The environment variable NETHACKOPTIONS can be used to initialize many
run-time options.
The ? command provides a description of these options and syntax.
(The
.B \-dec
and
.B \-ibm
command line options are mutually exclusive and are equivalent to the
.B decgraphics
and
.B ibmgraphics
run-time options described there,
and are provided purely for convenience on systems
supporting multiple types of terminals.)
.PP
Because the option list can be very long,
options may also be included in a configuration file.
The default is located in your home directory and
named .nethackrc on UNIX systems (including descendants such as
linux, NetBSD, and macOS).
On Windows, the name is also .nethackrc but the location can vary
(see
.B \-\-showpaths
below).
On other systems, the default may be different, possibly NetHack.cnf.
On MS-DOS, the name is defaults.nh in NetHack's directory (folder),
while
.\" on the Macintosh or BeOS, it is \(lqNetHack Defaults\(rq, and
on VMS|OpenVMS it is nethack.ini in your home directory.
The default configuration file may be overridden via the
.BI \-\-nethackrc: "rc-file"
command line option or by setting NETHACKOPTIONS in your environment
to a string consisting of an @ character followed by the path and filename.
.PP
The
.B \-u
.I 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.
.PP
A
.I playername
suffix can be used to specify the profession, race, alignment 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
.B \-p
.I profession
option).
"rrr" are at least the first three letters of the character's
race (this can also be specified using a separate
.B \-r
.I 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.
.PP
.B \-p
.I 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.
.\" .B "\-p @"
.\" has been retained to explicitly request that a random role be chosen.
.PP
Likewise,
.B \-r
.I race
can be used to explicitly request that a race be chosen.
.PP
.\" Note: 'BR -A | -Arc' produces "-A|-Arc" (no spaces);
.\" '-A | -Arc' newline '|' newline '-B | -Bar' produces "-A|-Arc | -B|-Bar"
The
.BR \-A | \-Arc
|
.BR \-B | \-Bar
|
.BR \-C | \-Cav
|
.BR \-H | \-Hea
|
.BR \-K | \-Kni
|
.BR \-M | \-Mon
|
.BR \-P | \-Pri
|
.BR \-R | \-Rog
|
.B \-Ran
|
.BR \-S | \-Sam
|
.BR \-T | \-Tou
|
.BR \-V | \-Val
|
.BR \-W | \-Wiz
options for role selection are maintained for compatibility with older
versions of the program.
They are mutually exclusive and the single-letter form must be uppercase.
.I Ranger
has no single-letter choice because
.B \-R
is already used for the
.I Rogue
role.
.PP
.B \-@
tells nethack to choose any omitted characteristics (profession/role, race,
gender, alignment) randomly without prompting.
Otherwise, leaving out any of these characteristics will result in you
being prompted during game startup for the information.
.PP
The
.B \-n
option suppresses printing of any news from the game administrator.
.PP
The
.B \-X
option will start the game in a special non-scoring discovery mode
(also known as explore mode).
.B \-D
will start the game in debug mode (also known as wizard mode) after
changing the character name to \(lqwizard\(rq, if the player is allowed.
Otherwise it will switch to
.BR \-X .
Control of who is allowed to use debug mode is done via the
.RI "\(lq" WIZARDS= "\(rq line in nethack's " sysconf " file."
.PP
The
.BR \-d " or " \-\-directory
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
.IR /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
.I save
where games are saved.
.PP
The
.BR \-w " or " \-\-windowtype
.I
interface
option can be used to specify which interface to use if the program
has been built with support for more than one.
Specifying a value on the command line overrides any value
specified in the run-time configuration file.
NetHack's #version command shows available interfaces.
.PP
The
.BI \-\-nethackrc: RC-file
option will use
.I RC-file
instead of the default run-time configuration file
.RI "(typically " \(ti/.nethackrc ")"
and the
.B \-\-no\-nethackrc
option can be used to skip any run-time configuration file.
.PP
.\" extra blank line
.br
.PP
Some options provide feedback and then exit rather than play the game:
.PP
The
.BR \-s " or " \-\-scores
option alone will print out the list of your scores on the current version.
An immediately following
.B \-v
reports on all versions present in the score file.
.RB \(oq \-s | \-s\~\-v \(cq
may also be followed by arguments
.B \-p
.I profession
and
.B \-r
.I race
to print the scores of particular roles and races only.
Either can be specified multiple times to include more than one role
or more than one race.
When both are specified, score entries which match either the role or the
race (or both) are printed rather than just entries which match both.
.RB \(oq \-s | \-s\~\-v \(cq
may 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.
Combining names with role or race or both will report entries which match
any of those rather than just the ones which match all.
.PP
.\" avoid hyphenating "version" in this paragraph (and beyond; don't care)
.hw version
.BR \-\-version " or " \-\-version:show
can be used to cause NetHack to show the version number, the date and
time that the program was built from its source code, and possibly
some auxiliary information about that source code, then exit.
The optional auxiliary information is \fIgit\fP
commit hash (reflecting the source code's most recent modification when
extracted from the \fIgit\fP version control system, if that is in use)
if available when the program was built.
On some platforms such as Windows and macOS, a variation,
.BR \-\-version:copy ,
can be used to cause NetHack to show the version information, then exit,
while also leaving a copy of that information in the paste buffer
or clipboard for potential insertion into things like bug reports.
On any platform,
.B \-\-version:dump
can be used to show most of the data used when checking whether a save
file or bones file is compatible with the program.
The program will display a line containing five numbers expressed in
hexadecimal, then exit.
.PP
.B \-\-showpaths
can be used to cause NetHack to show where it is expecting
to find various files.
Among other things it shows the path to and name for the player's
run-time configuration file, a text file which can be edited to
customize aspects of how the game operates.
.PP
.BR \-\-usage " or " \-\-help
will display information similar to this manual page, then exit.
Use
.RB \(oq "nethack \-\-usage | more" \(cq
to read it a page at a time.
.SH AUTHORS
.PP
Jay Fenlason (+ Kenny Woodland, Mike Thome and Jon Payne) wrote the
original hack, very much like rogue (but full of bugs).
.PP
Andries Brouwer continuously deformed their sources into an entirely
different game.
.PP
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.
.PP
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.
.SH 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
.I .nethackrc
in the user's home directory.
.PP
All other files are in the playground directory,
normally
.IR /usr/\*:games/\*:lib/\*:nethackdir .
If DLB was defined during the compile,
the data files and special levels will be inside a larger file,
normally
.IR nhdat ,
instead of being separate files.
.TP
.I nethack
The program itself.
.TP
.I Guidebook
.TQ
.I Guidebook.txt
NetHack's user manual.
.TP
.I data
.TQ
.I oracles
.TQ
.I rumors
Data files used by NetHack.
.TP
.I bogusmon
Another data file.
.TP
.I engrave
.TQ
.I epitaph
.TQ
.I tribute
Still more data files.
.TP
.I symbols
Data file holding sets of specifications
for how to display monsters, objects, and
map features.
.TP
.I options
Data file containing a description of the
build-time option settings.
.TP
.I help
.TQ
.I hh
.TQ
.I cmdhelp
Help data files.
.RI ( cmdhelp
is obsolete.)
.TP
.I opthelp
.TQ
.I optmenu
.TQ
.I wizhelp
More help data files.
.TP
.I keyhelp
.TQ
.I usagehlp
Even more help data files.
.TP
.RI * .lua
Predefined special levels, dungeon control
for special levels, quest texts.
.TP
.I history
A short history of NetHack.
.TP
.I license
Rules governing redistribution.
.TP
.I record
The list of top scorers.
.TP
.I logfile
An extended list of games played
(optional).
.TP
.I xlogfile
A more detailed version of
.I logfile
(also optional).
.TP
.I paniclog
Record of exceptional conditions
discovered during program execution.
.TP
.RI x lock. nn
Description of dungeon level
.I nn
of active game
.I x
if there's a limit on the
number of simultaneously active games.
.TP
.RI UUcccccc . nn
Alternate form for dungeon level
.I nn
of active game by user
.I UU
playing character named
.I cccccc
when there's no
limit on number of active games.
.TP
.I perm
Lock file for
.RI x lock.0
or
.RI UUcccccc .0 .
.TP
.IR bonD0. nn
Descriptions of the ghost and belongings
of a deceased adventurer who met his or
her demise on level
.IR nn .
A subsequent
character might encounter this old level.
.TP
.I save/
Subdirectory containing saved games.
.TP
.I sysconf
System-wide options.
Required if
program is built with 'SYSCF' option
enabled, ignored if not.
.PP
The location of
.I sysconf
is specified at build time and can't be changed
except by updating source file
.\" We do the following in an ugly and non-idiomatic way to work around
.\" a DWB 3.3 nroff bug.
.\"   troff: if-else overflow.; doc/nethack.6:623
.\"   stack: }S }S }S }S }S }S }S }S }S }S }S }S }S }S }S }S RI
.\" Even at that, DWB insists on setting the period in roman.
"\c
.I config.h\c
"
and rebuilding the program.
.PP
NetHack's Guidebook might not be present if whoever packaged or installed
the program distribution neglected to include it.
.PP
In a perfect world,
.I paniclog
would remain empty.
.SH ENVIRONMENT
.DT
.ta \w'NETHACKDIR or HACKDIR\ \ \ 'u
USER or LOGNAME	Your login name.
.br
HOME		Your home directory.
.br
SHELL		Your shell.
.br
TERM		The type of your terminal.
.br
HACKPAGER or PAGER	Replacement for default pager.
.br
MAIL	Mailbox file.
.br
MAILREADER	Replacement for default reader
.br
\ 	(probably /bin/mail or /usr/ucb/mail).
.br
NETHACKDIR or HACKDIR	Playground.
.br
NETHACKOPTIONS	String predefining several NetHack options.
.PP
If the same option is specified in both NETHACKOPTIONS and .nethackrc,
the value assigned in NETHACKOPTIONS takes precedence.
.PP
SHOPTYPE and SPLEVTYPE can be used in debugging (wizard) mode.
.br
DEBUGFILES can be used if the program was built with 'DEBUG' enabled.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.PP
recover(6)
.SH BUGS
.PP
Probably infinite.
.SH COPYRIGHT
.\" All troffs and nroffs support `\(co` except Plan 9 nroff, but Plan 9
.\" offers no test for special character availability, and its feature
.\" set too closely resembles DWB 3.3 to test for it.  Use a string with
.\" any nroff-mode formatter not claiming groff compatiblity.
.ds co \(co
.if !\n(.g .if n .ds co (C)\" in principle, should be just "c"
This file is Copyright \*(co \*(Na, \*(Nd for version \*(Nb:\*(Nr.
NetHack may be freely redistributed.
See license for details.
.PP
Dungeons & Dragons is a Trademark of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.