Welcome to Nethack, one of the most complex role-playing games ever devised. Your goal is simple. delve into the dungeon's depths, retrieve the Amulet of Yendor at great peril, escape and offer up the amulet to your God and become an immortal.

One simple goal...and a thousand random ways to die trying to achieve it aka YASD, Yet Another Stupid Death.

To get started, enter a name for your character. If you save and exit the game, you'll need to re-enter the name to continue your game later.

You can allow the game to choose a random race/role/alignment for you or select your own. All these choices, including gender can have various effects, e.g. there may be consequences for acting out of your alignment, doing evil things if you're lawful, doing good things if you're evil, etc.

Some roles/races/alignments/genders are restricted to certain combinations.

Barbarians and Valkyries are often recommended to beginning players because they offer greater survivability for players new to the game.

To familiarize yourself with the basics of Vulture and Nethack, there is a manual in your Steam installation folder.
Simply right click on Vulture in Steam and select view game manual or alternatively you can find the manual in: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Vulture for Nethack\manual

the official Nethack Guidebook[www.nethack.org] is a also a recommended read. It contains one light spoiler. While this guidebook was written for the original ASCII interface for Nethack, most of it is relevant to Vulture as well.

For stats, Nethack uses a system similar to D&D. Str/Dex/Con/Int/Wis/Cha are your base stats. HP is your health. Power is your spell points or mana. AC (Armor Class) is the effectiveness of your armor, the lower your AC, the better.

Note: Through experience or data-mining the source code, players have obtained a large amount of knowledge about the game and ways to win. These are referred to as spoilers.

Remember that Nethack is a turn-based game. Many players die because they become impatient and try to rush through parts of the game. You have all the time in the world to plan your next death.

In many ways, Nethack is very much a sandbox type game. "The Dev Team thinks of everything" is a phrase that has been popularized by players of Nethack. Think outside the box. Have an unidentified potion? Drinking it isn't the only way to find out what it is. Try throwing it a monster or perhaps you could dip your weapon into it and see what happens.

Look around you. Keep an eye on status messages and sounds. They can give you clues about monsters, traps, object identification, shops and more. If you see something on the floor, you don't have to pick it up immediately. In fact, it is advisable not to pick up everything you see. Some items can be interacted with, without touching them.

A large part of Nethack revolves around identifying objects. Besides the items you start the game with, most items in the game will be unidentified. They could be beneficial or dangerous. Even cursed items can be useful although equipment can be difficult to remove once worn or put on.

Objects such as potions, scrolls, etc. are assigned random names. You can name them yourself by right clicking on an item in your inventory and selecting name or you may have an option to name it after using it.

If you find yourself at a dead-end, try searching 's' Look at the end of corridors or hallways that end unexpectedly. You may have to search more than once. You may have to search many times. Just don't spend so much time searching in a dead-end that you start starving.

Locked door? Try kicking it open. Locked box or chest? Try forcing it open or kicking it open. Be careful though as this can potentially destroy items inside the container. Also, kicking can potentially hurt you as well. There are also other ways to remove obstacles from your path. Perhaps a spell? Or a thrown weapon?

Speaking of throwing things...you can throw just about anything in your inventory. Got an apple? You can throw it at a monster. It might not be effective but hey...you can.

Be careful around your pet. If you kill your pet or allow it to die, your God may be angered. Spellcasters should be especially careful and not just of your pet. Sometimes spells can backfire in more ways than one.

Manage your hunger. Don't overeat or you might choke. Be careful what you do eat. Some corpses are very inadvisable to eat. Some corpses are very advisable to eat. Some things may very well kill you instantly.

You can drink from fountains by pressing 'q' to quaff. Be careful as fountains can have ill effects too.

As you play the game and die, you'll discover various conducts. Ascending (winning the game) with specific conducts are challenges that can make the game more difficult. For instance, it is possible to win without eating.

If you find yourself on the verge of death due to any number of factors, try praying to your God. If you have not angered him recently, he may help you. If you pray too much, you may lose a level...or worse.

Nethack offers two additional modes of gameplay.

Explore Mode gives you a choice when your player is about to be killed, whether to accept defeat or continue.

Wizard Mode grants your player access to a number of special powers such as teleporting, wishing, identifying items, etc.

How to set Explore/Wizard mode:
http://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=384990541

Just remember that you can't charge blindly into everything in normal mode without being killed repeatedly.

Scores and ascensions are not deemed legitimate when using these modes.

If you do break down and read the spoilers, don't feel bad. Many ascended players have. Try to limit yourself though. You may want to consider taking your own notes as you play and progress through the game.

Here are some links that provide more information and may contain a varying degree of spoilers. Certain spoilers can warn your of certain dangers you will face and some can give you a supreme advantage. Even armed with this knowledge, many players will continue to die repeatedly anyway.

It's up to you to determine how much you want to "spoil" yourself.

Nethack Wiki (basic information about Nethack including items, monsters, spells, gameplay, strategies, etc., spoilers vary from page to page)
http://nethackwiki.com

Nethack: Lessons learned the hard way (spoilers)
http://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Lessons_learned_the_hard_way

Nethack Spoiler List/Guide Collection: (pretty much all the spoilers)
http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~eva/nethack/spoilerlist.html

Have some feedback or suggestions for this guide? Post your comments and share! Please note, this guide is for very basic advice playing Nethack. It is not intended to be a spoiler guide on how to win Nethack.

Thanks for reading!