last update: 28-Mar-2002

At this page I collect some of the (IMO) funniest comments and stories about nethack that are posted to the newsgroup rec.games.roguelike.nethack

Please don't blame me if your screen get's full of coffee ;)

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I'm not so sure about pets having good taste.
Here's a little cut'n'paste from my current game:

W
"What do you want to wear? [hTZ] T
Your cat objects: --more--
You're going to wear that tshirt? [yn] y
I wouldn't let my grandma wear that tshirt! --more--
Could you walk on the other side of the dungeon please? --more--
I could introduce you to my tailor, --more--
he made me this pink suit, isn't it great!? [yn] ESC

--later--

There are many objects here.
,
Pick up what? [abcdefg] e
You pick up M, a mace. --more--
Your dog asks, --more--
Hey, is that a ball on the end of that thing? [yn] y
Hey, take the ball off, you throw it, I'll fetch it. --more--
Come on, it'll be fun! Throw the ball, ok? [yn] n
a
What do you want to apply? [alBL] B
What do you want to put into your bag? [aeltBLMXYZ] M
Your dog objects --more--
Hey! Don't hide that thing. I wanna chase it! --more--
You throw the ball, I fetch it. Come on, throw the ball! --more--
I wanna chase the ball! Throw the ball, willya? [yn] n
Aw come on, throw the ball. Throw the ball! --more--
Please, please, please throw the ball? [yn] n
Aw come on, it'll be fun! Throw the ball! --more--
You hear a voice like thunder --more--
THROW THE DAMN BALL!

>>Think that's good? Here is my recipe for Oracle burrito wrap:
>>
>>Take one Oracle of Delphi
>>Deep-fry her (see earlier message)
>>Let your pet gelatinous cube absorb the tin of Oracle meat, as
>>well as other sundry seasonings, like garlic and wolvesbane.
>>Kill the cube.
>>Polymorph the corpse until it turns into a food ration
>>And voila! Oracle burrito. Best eaten when hallucinating.
>
>Yum! Yum! I must try that recipe with a hobbit or yeti filling. It
>would keep me from getting the fur stuck in my teeth! Sounds like
>mighty fine eating washed down with a potion of booze.

And you WONDER why this ng has been targeted by the censorship programs...

> Now one day when I was happily hacking I
> suddenly became incredibly irritated by
> the fact that there are no classes for
> letters J, O, X and Z.

X could be "Xylophone". Not very mobile, but you start by knowing the tune to open the Stronghold drawbridge...

> 3. Why can't I mount my pet unicorn?
>

Because it's sick and disgusting?

> I can just see some big, hefty dude with this huge two handed sword
> welded to his hands. And yet, he can still eat, drink,

From the floor.

> cast spells,

Just do it. Perhaps he just has to say the words.

> zap wands,

Umm... Cough... Take the wand in his mouth? Damn, that was the wrong
end of the wand of death

> and dig around in his pack.

Uuuuuuh... Well... Perhaps he is using his feet to kick the items out of
the bag. :)

>>Those who do not fear the mind-flayer have a
>>good reason not to.

> Either that, or they don't yet KNOW that they SHOULD fear it.

Perhaps they just don't REMEMBER that they should fear it.

Your brain is eaten --
The pink creature in front of you looks familiar

>
> Having been playing rogues lately, I find that I have the urge to
> blind myself with a sack. Of course, I would think that wearing a
> bad of holding would be a bad idea...

My. I can just imagine it.

"P"
What do you want to wear? [dez]
"z"
"You pull the Bag of Holding over your head. It sure is dark in here.

"a"
What do you want to use or apply? [cz]
You bag is empty, save for your head.
Do you wish to put something in? [ynq]
"y"
Put in what?
c - a wand of cancellation (6)
Unfortunately, your head was lost with the rest of the contents of the bag.
You die...
Do you want your possessions identified? [ynq]

or -- a bag of tricks

"p"
What do you want to wear? [dez]
"z"
You pull the bag of tricks over your head. It sure is dark in here.
The bag develops teeth and bites you.
You seem to have lost your head.
You die...
Do you want your possessions identified? [ynq]

>>shopkeeper may do - like charge you for the mimic corpse that you killed
>>fair and square - Speaking of which..
>>You would think the shopkeepers would pay YOU for ridding their shop of
>>those pesky mimics that drive away customers.
>
>Maybe the shopkeepers think that mimics are also potential customers, so
>they don't very much like the idea of you killing them?

My name is Yadda-Yadda. I own a lighting store in Minetown. One day some pesky moron with a dog and 2 tripe ration came in and cleaned out my entire stock! 2 Magic lamps I might add!!! Then 2 weeks later, this weird white jelly looking dude comes in and says "I can solve your problem for 10 zorkmids a day." OK - I'll try it out. So he squishes around a bit and blammo! he looks just like a lamp! Soooo...the next day another moron with a cat strides in and says "Mind if I 'look around' a bit? " Well he walks up to the "lamp" with larceny in his eye and the white jelly dude starts whomping on him!!!! That adventuring moron just stood there and took it! (Later I find out the jelly dude actually stuck to him). Well after about 6 or 7 minutes, the adventuring moron dies! I look at the Minetown charter, and it clearly states that I inherit his goods! Well I sold the cat to the pet shop down the street, his equipment to the General Store next door, and used his gold to restock my candles and such. That white jelly looking dude may be a bit gross, but he is definitely part of the family!!!

> Spellbooks need to be Weighted With Authority[TM]. Besides, you can't
> fit a lot of magic in a flimsy paperback...

Yeah, what good would the paperback version of 'Create monster' be? All you would get would be newts...

Or a paperback version of 'Finger of Death', you just lay an obscene gesture on them...

> toilets aren't a nethack feature and i don't know much about them.

Remind me never to visit *your* house <grin-duck-run>

> new feature: make the monster stumble by throwing a wand at it. It
> falls, touches the corpse and petrifies.

Wands are too light. Unless you want to re-introduce different weights depending on the material... trip him with a steel, uranium etc. wand, but not light/fragile wands such as balsa, glass etc.

Oisin	"You throw your oak wand at the gnome. -more-
	The gnome's left leg looks weaker! -more-
	The gnome picks up the oak wand. -more-
	You notice the wand has a handle at one end! -more-
	The gnome is walking with a cane.
	Don't you hate it when that happens?"	Curtin

...if you have a weapon evade a goblin's grasp, will the goblin be smart enough to ever stop trying to grab it?

The goblin tries to pick up Mjollnir. --more--
Mjollnir evades the goblin's grasp. --more--
The goblin tries to pick up Mjollnir. --more--
Mjollnir evades the goblin's grasp. --more--
The goblin tries to pick up Mjollnir. --more--
Mjollnir evades the goblin's grasp. --more--
The goblin tries to pick up Mjollnir. --more--
Mjollnir evades the goblin's grasp. --more--
The goblin tries to pick up Mjollnir. --more--
Mjollnir evades the goblin's grasp. --more--
The goblin starves. Mjollnir seems to be sniggering. --more--

(some clueless regexper):
> Can anyone let me know if it is possible to hack into exchange server on the
> internet if you know the domain/IP? Does Proxi Server 2.0 stand in the way?
> Please let me know how to do this if possible.

I've heard you can do it by engraving "Elbereth" on a Back Office CD using a silver athame blessed by a priest of the Church of Scientology, while chanting "My Soul for Bill Gates" over and over again. You then have to put the CD in a microwave and unplug your computer from the Internet (so the microwaves won't toast your connection). Write the IP address of the Exchange Server and the username you wish to hack on a small piece of paper. Turn on the microwave, then swallow the paper.

The password will magically appear as a small file on your hard drive some time after midnight, but in a random folder, so you'll have to search for it.

Reply by Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan:
Mike, this used to work with 1.4f. Now you have to swallow the microwave.

> I play standard Nethack on two computers: 586/133 (Windows binaries)
> and sometimes 486/66 (Dos binaries). The second computer seems
> much easier than the first. Why is it?

The older computer is more experienced at NetHack.

> You are not permitted to tame a vault guard, because the memory used for
> guards and pets overlap.

hey, I know this phenomenon. Used to share a house with a guy, a budgie and a dog - they each got the brain twice a week, and no-one had it on sundays.

Look at it this way. Nethack is just a sophisticated compiler which converts a string, typically of several kilobytes or even hundreds of kilobytes in length, looking something like:

hh,abchohHwakkkk#pkkey...

Into a string of a few tens of characters which looks something like:

3.2.2 9152 0 8 9 -17 58 1 990107 990106 5162 EM davidr,killed by a dwarf king

>>> Nope, but I tried eating him, and was given cannibal status. My
>>> guess, then, is that the Wiz will count as a human sacrifice.
>>
>> yes, he is of course (?) human.
>
> Well, I learned that he was human, but does he look like one?

Hmm... let's see...

@

Looks more like an Elvenking to me. Is there something that Mrs Yendor didn't tell her husband?

> Someone in another thread alluded to getting wishes by dilluting smoky
> potions. Is this true? What do you do, dillute and then drink, or what?

Deluded dudes alluded to diluted truths?

Once I quaffed a diluted potion, and a diluted genie appeared and gave me a diluted wish. I asked for a diluted poition of water, but he didn't know what to dilute it with, so he gave me a diluted +1.5 GDSM.

My diluted GDSM only gave me half magic resistance, so when I stepped on a polytrap in the mines, only half got polyed, and so I turned into a Valkilith, which was cool because I could throw Mojo six times in one turn, and clear out the Big Room like a machine gun.

"Wow", I said, "diluted wishes are great!" So I gathered up all my empty potion flasks, lit a campfire, held the flasks over the fire to collect the smoke, jumped into a pool, and bingo! bunches of diluted smoky potions! So I sat around the campfire quaffing them and #singing "Ninety-nine posions of smoke in my pack, 99 potions of smoke" (somehow it seemed to act like a scare monster scroll. Guess Valks don't #sing too well?) and another diluted genie appeared to give me another diluted wish. "Oh, I'd like the shtaff of (hic) Asc -- Aeshki -- Eucalyptus!"

Bamf! and there's a Eucalyptus tree where my bag of holding used to be and all on a sudden I get swarmed by Koala bears, and, well, you know, would you like your junk identified? Gosh, the Dev Team really does think of everything!

I think that iceboxes are only there to frustrate you and make you wish that applying a wand of light to an icebox would make it lighter.

Hey, what happens if you put a lit lamp in the icebox? Close the door and the light goes out, open the door and the light goes back on?

> This just comes into my mind...when you wield a camera, you should be able to
> make monsters move in whatever direction you like (just a bit to the back
> please... <sound of dragon falling down a trap door>)

#chat

You tell the master lich to say "Cheese!"
The master lich looks at you with a puzzled expression.
#chat
You tell the master lich to say "Fuzzy pickle!!"
The master lich scratches his head.

or

#chat
You tell the stone giant to move left.
The stone giant moves to the left.
The stone giant bumps into the grey dragon.
The grey dragon bumps into the master lich.
#chat
You tell the master lich to move right.
The master lich bumps into the grey dragon.
The grey dragon growls.
The grey dragon bumps into the stone giant.
#chat
You tell the stone giant to move left.
The stone giant steals your expensive camera!!
The stone giant shoves an expensive camera up your nose!