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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

       SLASHEM 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,  SLASHEM  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  configuration
       file.   The  default  is  located  in  your  home  directory  and named
       .slashemrc on Unix systems.  On  other  systems,  the  default  may  be
       different,  usually  SLASHEM.cnf.   On  DOS  or  Windows,  the  name is
       defaults.nh, while on the Macintosh or BeOS, it  is  SlashEM  Defaults.
       The   configuration   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
       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 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 seperately 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
       particular  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  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.

       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.