Dungeons & Dragons

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Dungeons & Dragons (or D&D for short) was the first modern tabletop roleplaying game, co-created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The original edition was published in 1974, and NetHack draws from it a huge number of monsters, items and concepts, as well as the turn-based probabilistic gameplay style - core game concepts taken into NetHack from D&D include hit points, armor class, the six basic attributes, and alignment. While NetHack draws from many, many sources, the D&D games may well have been its biggest single influence.

Monsters and items

Much of the NetHack bestiary originates as creations for the D&D games, such as gelatinous cubes and mind flayers. Much of the taxonomy of magical items is familiar to D&D players as well: potions with (mostly) temporary effects, scrolls that disappear when read, rings that modify statistics or give intrinsic powers when worn (and only one can be worn per hand), wands with charges, and so forth.

D&D (and by extension NetHack) has always been wildly eclectic, drawing on ancient folklores, contemporary fantasy literature, and the occasional bad pun from our modern world. One example of this is Vorpal Blade, which is a magical item in D&D (with the same 5% probability of decapitation), but is a reference to the Lewis Carroll poem "Jabberwocky". D&D once featured a pair of published game adventures set in a world based on Carroll's works, with mad hatters and cheshire cats as well as jabberwocks.

Spell-casting

One of the many key differences between D&D and NetHack is the spellcasting system:

  • In D&D, spellcasters are able to learn a fixed number of spells each day, based on experience level, and must specify the spells in advance. For instance, a magic user might specify magic missile, wizard lock, knock, and lightning bolt, and that would be it for the day—no refunds, no exchanges. Class-based restrictions are much more of an issue in D&D as well - magic users (wizards) and clerics (priests) are the primary spellcasters, and other classes have little to no ability to do any casting at all (and can't even read most scrolls). On the other hand, magic users are not even permitted to wear armor or use all but a few weapons (notably dagger and staff), and clerics are not allowed to use pointed or edged weapons.
  • In NetHack 3.2.3 and prior versions, spell-casting was closer to a "Vancian" system. Starting with NetHack 3.3.0, spell-casting is based on a combination of magical energy points and occasional re-memorization of spells.

List of D&D monsters

The following is a non-exhaustive list of monsters from various Dungeons & Dragons media that appear in NetHack, arranged roughly in order of monster class; some monsters derived from other works of fantasy and related fiction (e.g., the orcs of J. R. R. Tolkien) may not be included. NetHack has generally adapted monsters directly from the Monster Manuals of the early editions, with adjustments made to their AC and hit dice accordingly.

List of D&D items and spells

The following list is non-exhaustive and describes items in NetHack that are primarily or entirely derived from Dungeons & Dragons.

Variants

Multiple variants take varying amounts of additional inspiration from Dungeons & Dragons, depending on that variant's design philosophies; non-exhaustive lists of inspired monsters and features are shown below.

SLASH'EM

SLASH'EM includes several additional monsters derived from or inspired by Dungeons & Dragons:

dNetHack

dNetHack draws heavily from various editions of Dungeons & Dragons and mixes them with the Cthulhu Mythos among other influences.

EvilHack

EvilHack draws more specifically from earlier editions of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons for its updated bestiary, additional items, and existing item changes.

See also

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