SLASHEM(6)							   Games Manual 							SLASHEM(6)

NAME

       slashem - Exploring The Mazes of Menace

SYNOPSIS

       slashem [ -d directory ] [ -n ] [ -p profession (role) ] [ -r race ] [ -g gender ] [ -a alignment ] [ -[DX] ] [ -u playername ] [ -dec ] [
       -ibm ]

       slashem [ -d directory ] -s [ -v ] [ -p profession (role) ] [ -r race ] [ -g gender ] [ -a alignment ] [ maxrank ] [ playernames ]

DESCRIPTION

       SLASH'EM is a display oriented Dungeons & Dragons(tm) - like game.  The standard tty display and command structure resemble rogue.   It	is
       an extension of SLASH which is an extension of NetHack.

       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, SLASH'EM 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  SLASHEMOPTIONS  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 configura-
       tion file.  The default is located in your home directory and named .slashemrc on Unix systems.	On other systems, the default may be  dif-
       ferent, usually SLASHEM.cnf.  On DOS or Windows, the name is defaults.nh, while on the Macintosh or BeOS, it is SlashEM Defaults.  The con-
       figuration file's location may be specified by setting SLASHEMOPTIONS 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 can be used to specify the profession, race, alignment and/or gender of the character.  The full syntax of the player-
       name 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 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, -g gender the gender of the chareacter and finally -a  alignment
       to chose the alignment of the character.

       Leaving out any of these characteristics will result in you being prompted during the game startup for the information.

       Instead of chosing the above separately you can add them as suffixes to the playername: -u playername-race-gender-alignment

       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 be also be followed by player type arguments ( -p , -r , -g and -a ) to print the scores of particu-
       lar  types  of players 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/local/slashemdir).
       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 histori-
       cal 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  distinc-
       tion, as he may eventually release a new version of his own.

       Tom  Proudfoot  took NetHack and rendered it into SLASH - SuperLotsaAddedStuffHack,  adding more character classes, levels monsters and all
       manner of changes.

       Warren Cheung took SLASH and rendered it into SLASHEM - SuperLotsaAddedStuffHack - Extended Magic,  with more improvements to  the  bloated
       behemoth.

FILES

       All  files are in the playground, normally /usr/local/slashemdir.  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.
       slashem			   The program itself.
       data, oracles, rumors	   Data files used by SLASH'EM.
       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 SLASH'EM.
       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.
       SLASHEMOPTIONS	    String predefining several SLASH'EM
			    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 Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

4th Berkeley Distribution					   24 March 2002							SLASHEM(6)