NetHack quaffing game
The NetHack (and SLASH'EM!) Quaffing Game is a simple and enjoyable method to share the experience of the utterly delightful trials and tribulations of a solid game of NetHack with a group, locally, online and/or both!
Contents
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this article are not the opinions of the NetHackWiki administration. Always play with potions of fruit juice.
How to play (The short version)
- Start a game of NetHack or Slash'EM (or any other Hack variant) by letting RNG choose your character for you ("y" at the prompt).
- Take one drink of your beverage.
- Take two more drinks of your beverage for not choosing a conduct to follow and announce that you're a turnip.
- Whenever your character quaffs something, take a drink.
- Whenever your character gains a level, say "paxed!" and give out one drink.
- For additional fun, use the newbie level incentives and penalties.
- Strive for a high score! When "You die..." pay the penalty, reminisce for a few, and play again!
- When you're ready, look into the more difficult incentives and penalties!
RNG Speed, young hacker!
Helpful drinking game terminology
If you are unfamiliar with the average rules of a drinking game, the following terminology will benefit you greatly.
- Drink: A sip of your beverage. Not an entire container of beverage, or even an entire glass (large or small) of beverage. Just a solid sip.
- Give drink: Politely request that someone else playing the game take a drink of the beverage they are drinking.
- Take drink: Take a drink of your beverage.
That's not so hard, is it? Ante up, McCheese.
The ante (Creating a character)
To play the NetHack quaffing game, you must take 1 drink of your beverage. Do so now, just to get in the habit. You'll be required to take your official drink when you actually start the game.
If you let RNG choose your character for you, continue to the next section without drinking any further. If you choose your own character, drink 5 times, plus the 1 drink for playing. That's 6 drinks McCheese. These character creation drinks are referred to as your "ante". Remember your ante!
Conducts
Now that you have appeared in the dungeon, take a look at your inventory before moving. Decide which conducts and unofficial conducts you wish to participate in. If you choose not to participate in any conducts or unofficial conducts, take two drinks and announce to the room that you are a turnip.
For each level gained while retaining any unofficial conducts besides Survivor and Celibacy, give out one drink. This only applies to levels gained for the first time each game (see the level drain penalty).
Only the following official conducts apply to this rule:
If a player ever violates a conduct he has given drinks to other players for pursuing, he must immediately take five drinks and pursue the Inventoryless unofficial conduct for the remainder of that game in addition to other conducts he/she is pursuing. (Yes, this means dropping everything you are carrying, except your blindfold if Zen.) Any further conduct violations result in 5+v drinks, where v is the number of total violations that game.
Incentives and penalties
During the course of a game, interesting events will befall every hacker. In honor of these events, the NetHack quaffing game seeks to reward and punish the recipients and perpetrators of said events by allowing them to give out drinks or suggesting kindly that they take drinks based on the actual event that transpires. The most basic, easiest to remember and thus mandatory of these rules is that when your character quaffs, you must quaff. As for the rest, examine the tables below! If something interesting happens to you that isn't on the list, please mention it in #slashem so future quaffing hackers can "benefit" from your experience!
Newbie
| Newbie incentives | Result |
|---|---|
| Say "paxed!" immediately after you level up | Give 1 drink |
| Eat a hobbit corpse, or a tin of hobbit meat | Give 1 drink |
| You feel a mild buzz | Give 1 drink |
| Discover the BUC status of an item by having it curse you | Give 1 drink |
| Narrowly avoid dying | Give 1 drink |
| Zap yourself with an unidentified wand (once per wand) | Give 1 drink |
| Wear an unidentified amulet (once per amulet) | Give 1 drink |
| Newbie penalties | Result |
|---|---|
| Choosing your own character | Take 5 drinks |
| You die... | Take 2 drinks |
| Quaff something | Take 1 drink |
| Faint from hunger | Take 1 drink |
| Hurt your pet | Take 1 drink |
| Cast Identify | Take 1 drink |
| Drink from a fountain | Take 1 drink |
| Zap a beneficial wand | Take 1 drink |
| Heal yourself with a wand, spell, potion, ring of regeneration or prayer | Take 1 drink |
Common
| Common incentives | Result |
|---|---|
| Quaff a potion of booze | Give 1 drink to everyone |
| Gain a level while following a conduct | Give 1 drink |
| Throw a potion of healing at a monster | Give 2 drinks |
| Purposefully wear a cursed blindfold (or towel) | Give 2 drinks |
| Destroy a player's ghost | Give 1 drink |
| Eat a tin that smells unfamiliar | Give 2 drinks |
| Get frozen by a floating eye | Give 1 drink |
| Dig up a grave | Give 1 drink |
| Start hallucinating | Give 1 drink |
| Anger your deity | Give 2 drinks |
| Kill your pet | Give 3 drinks |
| Involuntarily get lycanthropy | Give 1 drink |
| Common penalties | Result |
|---|---|
| Steal from a shop | Take 2 drinks |
| Cure hallucination | Take 1 drink |
| Have one of your items stolen | Take 1 drink |
| Accidental cannibalism | Take 2 drinks |
| Pray | Take 2 drinks |
| Die while passing turns quickly | Take 1 (additional) drink |
| Take anything from a bones level | Take 1 drink |
| Enchant an item | Take 3 drinks |
| Realize you've got something wrong as (weapon in hand) | Take 2 drinks |
| Quaff a fountain and thereby adjust your statistics | Take 3 drinks |
| Kill a unicorn | Take 2 drinks |
| Quaff a potion of oil | Take 2 drinks |
| Become engulfed | Take 2 drinks |
Professional
| "Professional" incentives | Result |
|---|---|
| Equip an amulet of strangulation and survive | Give 1 drink |
| Dry up a Minetown fountain | Give 2 drinks |
| Donate items to a shop without receiving payment from the shopkeeper | Give 1 drink (maximum 1 drink per shop per game) |
| Aggravate a shopkeeper | Give 1 drink |
| Aggravate the Oracle | Give 2 drinks |
| Aggravate an aligned priest | Give 2 drinks |
| Purposeful cannibalism | Give 1 drink |
| Purposefully faint from hunger | Give 1 drink |
| Purposefully get food poisoning | Give 2 drinks |
| Destroy your own ghost | Give 2 drinks |
| Kill a special monster | Give 5 drinks |
| Purposefully fail Sokoban | Give 4 drinks |
| Professional penalties | Result |
|---|---|
| Engrave Elbereth | Take 2 drinks |
| Find an artifact | Take 2 drinks |
| Find a useful artifact | Take 2 (additional) drinks |
| Sit on a throne | Take 2 drinks |
| Polymorph yourself | Take 2 drinks |
| Offer at an altar | Take 1 drink |
| Encounter a wraith | Take 1 drink |
| Convert an altar to your alignment | Take 2 drinks |
| Monster hatches from an egg in your inventory | Take 1 drink |
| Pet | Take 3 drinks |
| Polymorph into something that can walk through walls | Take 3 drinks |
| Murder an NPC (Oracle, priests, shopkeepers and watchmen) | Take 5 drinks |
| Get blasted by an artifact | Take 2 drinks |
| Lose a level | Take 2 drinks |
| Get Sokoban Spoilers | Take 5 drinks |
Hardcore
| Hardcore incentives | Result |
|---|---|
| Kill a co-aligned unicorn | Give 1 drink |
| Purposefully pray when your god is angry | Give 1 drink |
| Abandon your entire inventory (only applicable after experience level 10 and only once) | Give 10 drinks |
| Wish for something useless | Give 10 drinks |
| Ascend naked and inventoryless (aside from the Amulet of Yendor) | Give 10 drinks |
| Ascend on a public server | Give 10 drinks |
| Hardcore penalties | Result |
|---|---|
| Pudding farm | Take 10 drinks |
| Use a macro | Take 2 drinks |
| Wish for something useful | Take 10 drinks |
| Write an unknown scroll or spellbook | Take 5 drinks |
| Finish the Quest | Take 10 drinks |
| Ask for help | Take 5 drinks |
| Ascend "properly geared" | Take 10 drinks |
| Ascend as Mayor McCheese | Take 10 drinks |
| Ascend on a local game | Take 10 drinks |
The end?
Die (or win)! If you've fallen in battle (even if your life gets saved somehow) you drink twice to mourn your loss. Feel free to drink more than twice, dying can be rough.
For each conduct (official or unofficial) retained unbroken upon death or ascension, give out 1 drink.
If an ascension occurs, the ascending player first pays triple their ante fee, plus any other drinks deemed reasonable/necessary by the other players (non-negotiable). Then, for the remainder of the evening, the ascended player may want only deliver drinks to anyone, as they are a demigod and that's how it goes.
To play again, simply pay your previous ante cost plus your new ante cost. To clarify, if you paid 5 drinks on your first character and are paying 1 drink on your next character (more common than you might think) you take 6 drinks, but your ante for this round is 1. Next run, you pay 1 for your last ante and whatever your current ante cost might be. That way we don't have too many Mayors McCheese strolling around and upsetting the citizenry.
Play again? [ynq]
To play again, simply pay your previous ante cost plus your new ante cost. To clarify, if you paid 6 on your first character and are getting ready to pay 1 for your second character (more common than you might think) you take 7 drinks, but your ante for the second round is 1. Round 3, you pay 1 for your last ante and whatever your current ante cost might be.
Mayor McCheese
The term "Mayor McCheese" designates someone who plays the NetHack Quaffing Game (or even NetHack itself) with the intent to bend the odds in their own favor to some degree, large or small. Perhaps because the NetHack Quaffing Game is nothing short of RNG worship, even selecting your own race/role/gender/alignment is action considered grounds for instant mayoral election. "Mayors McCheese" (as they are called plurally) pay quite a bit more drinks to play than your average nameless hacker as a consequence of the burdens of cheesy office. See the ante section for more information on the costs (in drinks quaffed, silly!) to play the NetHack Quaffing Game.
