The Lighter Side of rec.games.roguelike.nethack (original) (raw)

Here are some collected funny posts from The Newsgroup. Most of these are seriously hilarious, but might just require some secret Nethack knowledge to make you laugh. Original authors are mentioned in the posts, collecting these posts and HTMLising by Mikko Saari.

Photography

From: Keolah keolah@hotmail.com Subject: Re: Minetown fountains buglet Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2000 21:53:16 -0800

In article 3885427b.20779727@news.mindspring.com, lparkinson@mindspring.com (Laura M. Parkinson) wrote:

Along with the monsters genocided, etc etc lists that you get at the end of the game, if you've used a camera you should also get a list of pictures you've taken. ;) A picture of a startled rothe A picture of an angry forest centaur A picture of a statue of Perseus grins well, just an idea ;p

Picture of a pretty fountain. Picture of a water nymph trying on a very familiar looking Hawaiian shirt. Picture of angry water demon. Picture accidently snapped of corridor while running from said water demon.

ASCII sheep...

From: Nick Number number@sirius.com Subject: Re: question about Ascension Posts (YAAP) Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 14:15:12 -0800

Dave Whiteside wrote:

The question is now :- Do nethackers dream in ASCII or in tile mode ? I had an ASCII dream last night [must of played too much NH recently]..

Do flesh golems dream of ASCII sheep?

-- ...Nick Number, sea lawyer

"I know what you're thinking about," said Tweedledum: "but it isn't so, nohow."
"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic."

Sauce diving

From: alixandor00@ohnoyoudontnetscapeonline.co.uk (Alix And/Or) Subject: Re: Spoiler - spells and #enhancing for 3.3.0 Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 18:36:43 GMT

On Tue, 18 Jan 2000 11:23:30 +1300, Josh Boardman j.boardman@auckland.ac.nz wrote:

[ I don't even know where to begin with sauce diving, ^^^^^ Start with something fairly mild like mayonnaise or blue cheese, then move on to the acidic ones like ketchup and brown sauce. Only when you are really confident in your skills should you attempt the hot sauces like mustard or Tobasco, and always make sure you get a really tight seal around your mask. That stuff will burn!

Hope this helps :-)

More photography

From: lparkinson@mindspring.com (Laura M. Parkinson) Subject: Re: Minetown fountains buglet Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 16:40:16 GMT

manauser@aol.com.nuke (Mana user) pondered for a while, then blurted out:

Picture of a pretty fountain. Picture of a water nymph trying on a very familiar looking Hawaiian shirt. Picture of angry water demon. Picture accidently snapped of corridor while running from said water demon.

Picture of floor...

That would be very cute. A bit big perhaps though. If they did though, Turists could get points for each unique thing they to a picture of.

Heh...

Picture of floor--more-- You can make out tiny bugs in the picture--more-- They are on strike against unsafe wand testing!

(Hey, maybe a side-effect of testing a cursed wand of striking on the floor could be that the "bugs" that give the helpful messages all go on strike and no longer give any messages?)

snicker

-'-,-'-<<0 Trickster 0>>-'-,-'- lparkinson@mindspring.com http://lparkinson.home.mindspring.com

"Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed." -Richard Adams, Watership Down

Fjords

From: "D. Bingham Brown" dbrown1@stny.lrun.com Subject: Re: Yearn for distant homeland? Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 09:08:32 -0500

David Goldfarb wrote in message 863fd5$ed0$1@agate.berkeley.edu...

In article 3asnzu3jqp.fsf@roundtable.cif.rochester.edu, Noah Samuel Lesgold nlesgold@roundtable.cif.rochester.edu wrote: )James Daily jdaily@drew.edu writes: ) )> I step on a magic-trap and get the message "You suddenly yearn for )> your distant homeland" ) )It means you yearn for your distant homeland. [1] ) )Noah ) )[1] which has no in-game effect

If you step on one while on your Quest portal level, you will yearn for "your nearby homeland".

I always thought hallucinating valkyries should pine for the fjords.

Bingham Brown

Cooking skills?

From: David Damerell damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk Subject: Re: Never cease to be surprised! Date: 19 Jan 2000 17:32:55 +0000 (GMT)

Eva R. Myers erm1001@phy.cam.ac.uk wrote:

mentioned here, and I wonder about "Your healing skills tell you that Ashikaga Takauji's wounds are mortal" when you've killed him with a wand of death or by disintegration or stoning.

zap bkoom "Your cooking skills tell you that the cloud of greasy smoke was once Ashikaga Takauji. You deduce his wounds were mortal."

David/Kirsty Damerell. damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~damerell/ w.sp.lic.#pi.2106 || Any sufficiently technologically advanced music || | | | is indistinguishable from line noise. | | |

Nethack through the mirrorshades

From: alixandor00@ohnoyoudontnetscapeonline.co.uk (Alix And/Or) Subject: Re: Would you hit a guy with glasses? Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2000 18:17:13 GMT

On Sat, 22 Jan 2000 12:29:58 +0000, mormegil mormegil@mormegil.demon.co.uk wrote:

(IMO they missed a trick there; they could have created different kinds of lenses...)

You wear the Silver MirrorShades of Gibson -more- You feel charismatic!

-- Alix And/Or

'We are number one. All others are number two - or lower.'

Chunks of meat

From: Justin Sexton jsexton@olivebranch.hotbot.com Subject: Re: Explosive Jump (was Re: new idea for 3.3.1) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2000 08:50:52 -0800

Virgo Vardja wrote:

John Kale wrote:

On Sat, 15 Jan 2000 06:36:32 GMT, Don Quixote josev@home.com wrote:

cast a spell of fireball or a wand of fire (magic missile?) at the floor and you will be able to jump. Of course you would take damage-- maybe about half damage as if you pointed the spell/wand at yourself. This idea my have been brought up before, but I thought it was necessary.

Exploding land mines throw objects on the square around the room; seems like they ought to throw the player too...

At least bits of the player :-)

You see here 2 small chunks of meat. --more-- You can't feel your legs. --more-- You feel yourself slow down.

-- Justin Sexton "Heavens! The Scarlet Puh-puh-puh-pumpernickel!" -Sylvester

address munged - prune foliage to reply

Quantum Nethack

From: rpresser@NOSPAMimtek.com.invalid (Ross Presser) Subject: Re: Schrodingers cat Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2000 20:48:51 GMT

alt.distinguished.jzeitlin@cyburban.com (Jeff Zeitlin).wrote.posted.offered:

On second thought, the DevTeam already included "Your position suddenly seems uncertain", which kinda rules out any special tunnelling.

Bell's inequality effects would be covered under telepathy.

How about turning yourself into a Bose-Einstein condensate?

[quaff a potion of coherence] You feel cold! -more- You begin to slow down. -more- You begin to spread out. -more- You have achieved coherence. -more- [at this point the player "@" has spread to cover a random number of squares] You decohere. -more- You begin to speed up. -more- You feel warmer again. -more- You notice that you have moved for some reason. [at this point the "@"s have disappeared and your location is randomly displaced]

-- Ross Presser ross_presser@imtek.com "And if you're the kind of person who parties with a bathtub full of pasta, I suspect you don't care much about cholesterol anyway."

Real Life meets Nethack

From: startide33@aol.com (Startide33) Subject: New Monster Idea Date: 25 Jan 2000 00:01:42 GMT

I have Ideas for some Nasty Non Playing Characters; doctors, lawyers, etc.

a new item: pager, which can call up doctors or lawyers.

Doctors will cure you blindness, sickness, sliming, etc in a ziffy, but charge an enormous bill. Carries stethoscope, scalpel, and several scroll of charging. They are peaceful and very hard to dispatch. You can visit them at the randomly generated hospitals, or summon doctor by using pager. They charge you more for being summoned.

The doctor read a scroll of charging. Your money is sucked into the doctor's purse.

Lawyers will be very convenient if you enraged some peaceful and vital characters, such as priests, shopkeepers, or quest leader. (or doctor). Lawyers will carry a bag of holding full of fortune cookie. (Rationale: all law student study for 3 years is the "holdings" of the case, which is one sentence summary of the relevant law.) Lawyer's fee is also very expensive, and they have really nasty collecting methods, such as foreclosing on your articles. If foreclosed, you cannot use the article, you cannot ditch it, but have to carry it all the way till you pay up. For example;

You hit Y-Card. Y-Card is angry. Y-Card hit, Y-Card hit, Y-Card hit. You pages for a lawyer. Lawyer settles with Y-Card for 1,000 zomkid. You pay Y-Card 1000. Lawyer charges you for 10,000. Lawyer foreclosures on you Mjollnir, grey dragon scale mail, gauntlet of power, speed boots, bag of holding, etc.

Get the idea? Maybe lawyer can help you when you are overtaxed, if he did not flunk tax law course at law school.

From: MAT7RS@leeds.ac.spamuk.leeds.ac.uk (Bagpuss) Subject: Re: New Monster Idea Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 11:35:36 +0000 (GMT)

Or for those with less money: The doctor says you'll have to get this operation done on the NHS. --More-- Please come back three months next Tuesday. --More-- In the meantime here's a prescription for some pills to stop the infection spreading. --More-- d - an illegible scroll.

-- Richard Smeltzer But it can still be a brighter day, all I need are some cooking utensils and my special party hat...

You can look but you can't touch

From: Joel Gluth joel@n-space.com.au Subject: Re: YASD cockatrice #$!@#!!!! Date: 27 Jan 2000 11:04:55 +1030

"John Kale" jwk@nospam.en.com writes:

What? Why did I have to touch the thing to #offer it? I wasn't blind. I've played this game years and I never knew that...

Hmm.

I'm having interesting mental images trying to imaging not touching something when #offering.

"You poke the cockatrice corpse with a stick. --more--" "The Lady looks the other way."

"You drum your fingers next to the cockatrice corpse. --more--" "The Lady seems uninterested."

"You pick up the cockatrice corpse on the end of your sword. --more--" "You zoom the cockatrice corpse around the room on the end of your sword. --more--" "You make zooming noises. --more--" "The Lady turns up her nose."

Hack on hack on hack on,

Joel Gluth // Software Engineer, N-space. http://www.n-space.com.au "The way to a man's heart is through his chest." -- Diziet Sma

Now, some commercials...

From: Tommi Syrjanen tssyrjan@alpha.hut.fi Subject: Want to have a safe trip through the Plane of Air? Date: 27 Jan 2000 15:31:25 +0200

Are You tired of being swallowed and pummeled to your death by those pesky air elementals? Wouldn't You want, just for once have a peaceful picnic admiring the scenery of the world famous Cloud Bank (tm)?

Well, now You can fulfill your dreams with only 200 zorkmids. Just buy one of our brand-new Wands of Polymorph (tm) and Your happiness (and survival) is just one zap away. Whenever an irritating air elemental tries to bother You, just zap at it once or twice and Your peace is guaranteed.

You can also extend the useful lifetime of Your Wand of Polymorph (tm) by purchasing our Blessed Scroll of Charging (tm) extension kits for only 300 zorkmids apiece.

Here are some testimonials from our satisfied customers:

Order Your Wand of Polymorph (tm) now, for just 200 zorkmids, and we guarantee that You won't run out of Your Amulets of Life Saving (tm) again or double Your money back.

Slash'EM or S&M

From: lparkinson@mindspring.com (Laura M. Parkinson) Subject: Re: A group for S'EMers? Was: Re: Best thing for a lucky adventurer... Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 06:48:59 GMT

da728@torfree.net (Karl Knechtel) pondered for a while, then blurted out:

BTW, to the original poster, "long subject line - SLASH'EM" is not a good way to indicate that your post is about S'EM, since some newsreaders will clip long subject lines to various lengths for screen formatting - the usual, and I think preferred, style is "[SLASH'EM] long subject line..."

And as a note, "S'Emers" isn't a good thing in the subject, either. ;) I first parsed it as "S&Mers" and was expecting this post to either A) have been sent to the wrong newsgroup (spam), or B) have something to do with a bullwhip, foocubi, seductive nymphs, scrolls of punishment, the #ride command, or some/all of the above.

-- -'-,-'-<<0 Trickster 0>>-'-,-'- lparkinson@mindspring.com http://lparkinson.home.mindspring.com

"Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed." -Richard Adams, Watership Down

Snowball in Hell

From: Joel Gluth joel@n-space.com.au Subject: Re: YAAP-Tourist Date: 30 Jan 2000 15:04:44 +1030

jjbrown@ucsu.colorado.edu.nospam (Jason Brown) writes:

About the same chance of a snowball surviving Gehennom :)

Funny you should mention that. Snowball was a large cat of mine a while back, who polymorphed into a Silver Dragon. With me most of the game, maxed out levels, stamping all over everything. And you know what?

She didn't survive Gehennom.

Hack on hack on hack on,

Joel Gluth // Software Engineer, N-space. http://www.n-space.com.au Burl not. Poing, or Clag. There is no Burl.

Browsers

From: Virgo Vardja wwwardja+usenet@rasi.lr.ttu.ee Subject: Re: Some strangeness... Date: 31 Jan 2000 14:02:42 GMT

Keolah keolahNOkeSPAM@hotmail.com.invalid writes:

The ice-cold blade freezes the lynx! The lynx just misses! The lynx hits! You're covered in frost! The frost doesn't seem cold!

Lynx just misses! Lynx hits! Lynx summons Netscape! --More-- Netscape hits! Netscape hits! Netscape hits! Netscape hits! --More-- Netscape summons IE! --More-- IE hits! IE eats your brain! IE eats your brain! --More-- You die... --More--

Virgo

-- Sig? What sig?

From: da728@torfree.net (Karl Knechtel) Subject: Re: Some strangeness... Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2000 02:22:02 GMT

Virgo Vardja (wwwardja+usenet@rasi.lr.ttu.ee) wrote: : Lynx just misses! Lynx hits! Lynx summons Netscape! --More-- : Netscape hits! Netscape hits! Netscape hits! Netscape hits! --More-- : Netscape summons IE! --More-- : IE hits! IE eats your brain! IE eats your brain! --More-- : You die... --More--

Of course, you could have protected yourself with an opera cloak :)

: -- : Sig? What sig? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

That sig. Karl Knechtel {:-#> da728 at torfree dot net Zahlman -S hits! You die... --more--

Money money money

Subject: Re: Some strangeness... From: Keolah keolahNOkeSPAM@hotmail.com.invalid Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 10:01:34 -0800

In article m3ya961p3y.fsf@curmudgeon.home.miggy.org, dylanw@demon.net (Dylan O'Donnell) wrote:

Keolah keolahNOkeSPAM@hotmail.com.invalid writes:

The ice-cold blade freezes the gold golem!

(This I'd like to see:P)

Cold, hard cash :-)

So if you drop a gold golem in a moat, does that make it "liquid assets"?

Then if you freeze the moat, does it become "frozen assets"? :-)

Night of the Living Dead

From: sim-yut-san@home.com (Chris Foley) Subject: Re: Bizzare occurance... Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2000 05:08:01 GMT

On Wed, 02 Feb 2000 00:12:37 GMT, Don Quixote josev@home.com wrote:

I was a Xp Level 10 human barbarian, so I liked to smite things. I had telepathy, a blindfold and Cleaver. I was wandering along in the mines and found a magic trap-- alright! free stuff, and maybe charisma. So I put on m blindfold and jumped in. No prob, creatures were easy to kill, and I was smiteing left and right. All of a sudden I get the message:

"The dwarf zombie hits!"

I couldn't see anything (except the "I" where the zombie was) I was blind and zombies don't have brains. So I hit back.

"You smite the dwarf zombie!" "You destroy the dwarf zombie."

This thing happened with quite a few more undead creatures. But why? there is no way I should have known what kind of undead creature was attacking me!

Easy.

It said "Beeeer..." instead of the classic "Braiiiins..."

-- Chris Foley, catching spam at sim-yut-san@home.com.

Ego weapons

From: sim-yut-san@home.com (Chris Foley) Subject: Re: more fun questions Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2000 05:13:32 GMT

On Tue, 08 Feb 2000 21:39:05 -0500, James Daily jdaily@drew.edu wrote:

Can you equip any pair of Artifacts?

If you were a famous artifact, would you like to be held second to another weapon?

"Mornin', Snick!"

"Hey, Mornin', Excalibur, how're things?"

"Oh, not bad like. I should be happy this yob remembered to wash his hands after his morning latrine, I guess."

"Yeah, not easy being a named artifact in this game, that's for sure. What are we up to today?"

"Not much -- looks like some more slaughter 'n' sacrifice. Oops, hold on a sec."

"Whoa, nice one, X."

"Thanks. Another day, another four rothes!"

"And here they go on the altar..."

"USE THIS GIFT WISELY, MORTAL!"

"Whooooooah! See that?"

"Yeah, Snick. Always gives me a shiver right down to my hilt. Wonder what..."

"Whoops, looks like I'm getting put in the bag for a bit. Here I come!"

: "Herro!!!" "Oh hey, Tsurugi, what's up?"

"Wow, wonder who the new guy is... what the? Hey, pal, this ain't Emeril Live..."

"H1 D00D!!11! 1 AM 5T1N6!!11! THE 3L33T W3AP0N 0F CH01C3!!1!!11"

"What the? STING? Instead of Snickersnee or Tsurugi? Er, isn't it wrongly aligned anyway?"

"U CANN0T B3AT TH3 M16HT OF 5T1N6!!1!"

"Oh crap... HEY YOU! Yeah, you, buddy. Look, drop me off at the next fountain, will ya? Yeah, that Lady is a lot easier on the eyes than your moldy corpse will be..."

-- Chris Foley, catching spam at sim-yut-san@home.com.

Spellbook of Summon Help

From: JPV jpvNOjpSPAM@looksmart.net.invalid Subject: Re: Might as well ask Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 15:50:17 -0800

deborahrg@aol.com (DeborahRG) wrote:

New idea: spellbook of summon help.

You summon the demon Dylan, who will answer one question for you before disappearing!

"Dylan O'Donnell appears! He speaks! -more-" "'I will answer one question!' -more-" "You may ask one question of Dylan. -more-" "What do you want to ask?"

What's the probability of quaffing a blessed smoky potion, getting a djinn to grant me a wish, and then successfully wishing for and (W)earing a blessed +2 SDSM before that black dragon gets into range? "Dylan frowns. 'That's really several questions, you realize.'" "Dylan pulls a rangefinder from his bag. -more-" "Dylan wields a rangefinder!" "Dylan sizes up the distance to the black dragon. -more-" "Dylan reads a scroll of source! Dylan looks authoritative! -more-" "Dylan speaks! -more-" "'Not bloody likely.' Dylan disappears in a puff of source! -more-" "The disintegration ray hits you!"

:-)

Hidden source code

From: "Trebor A. Rude" trebor@bwn.net Subject: Re: YAFD Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 22:55:41 -0700

Ulf Sj�stedt wrote:

akuo wrote:

28 69 akuo-Arc-Gno-Mal-Neu died in The Dungeons of Doom on level 1. Killed by a kitten called Tom. - [12]

antti

Tell me this: why is it that whenever you get yourself paralyzed or slept or whatever, the critter that finally does you in is always the weakest on the level? Is there an extra check for this in the code? It's always "Nisse the 10th level so-and-so killed by a newt". A newt? Isn't that insult to injury?

Yeah, there is a check for it in the code... it's in .sadism.c in the

doc directory (you wouldn't look for a source file in the doc directory, would you?). This is also the source of the code that puts monsters in the hallway when you're in Sokoban, and the code that makes sure you find whatever you wish for/buy with your own money on the next level generated. I'll bet the DevTeam thought they could hide it forever in the doc directory, but now their dirty little secret is out. It's an interesting read, too. You should see some of the comments...

:), if you couldn't tell.

-- Trebor A. Rude trebor@bwn.net Registered Linux User #89308 http://counter.li.org/

Rosetta Stone

From: lparkinson@mindspring.com (Laura M. Parkinson) Subject: Re: Food For pets Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 22:20:23 GMT

tztuomin@cc.helsinki.fi (Tuuli Tuominen) pondered for a while, then blurted out:

On 21 Feb 2000 21:16:45 GMT, Raisse the Thaumaturge wrote:

Raisse, killed by a kitten called Rosetta

It'd be funnier if it were

Raisse, killed by a stone called Rosetta

Or how about...

The cockatrice hits Rosetta! Rosetta turns to stone. You begin to make more sense of the odd symbols in your spellbooks...

-- -'-,-'-<<0 Trickster 0>>-'-,-'- lparkinson@mindspring.com http://lparkinson.home.mindspring.com

"Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed." -Richard Adams, Watership Down

Meddling with time

From: ocurtin@NOSPAM.usa.net (Curly++) Newsgroups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack Subject: Re: YANI - Potion of Time

On 23 Feb 2000 using part of 17 Jan 1876, David Grenier wrote:

On Tue, 22 Feb 2000 19:55:56 -0500, ocurtin@NOSPAM.usa.net (Curly++) wrote:

Visit Mr. Emanenifrehtona's potion shop on DL666, he can sell you time in a bottle. Or I'm going to be very upset...

Time for another new idea... Namely, the Potion of Time.

Potion of Time Takes you back 10 turns in time.

Nonononono... The potions I was speaking of give you more time now, not other time! You're not describing a potion, that's a scroll effect.

Imagine you find a scroll a DL7 and decide to read it...

r "What do you want to read [hGW *?]" W "This is blessed scroll of turn-teleport! --more--" "to what turn would you like to teleport? [0-999999]" 234567 "Your game ended on turn 157492. --more--" "Do you want your possessions identified? [yn]"

Oh look! I wonder where I found that extra wand of wishing?

-- Oisin "Killed in a crash with the `other' Enterprise" Curtin ocurtin@SPAM.usa.net Surface Liaison, Minetown Digger Send no SPAM. http://pages.infinit.net/curlypp/

Pet name fun

From: goldfarb@OCF.Berkeley.EDU (David Goldfarb) Subject: Re: Pet Names? Date: 2 Mar 2000 10:25:06 GMT

In article 38be250d.16811497@news.pinn.net, Wingnut jry@pinn.net wrote:

You can get some good laughs from naming pets weird things like "The invisible Wizard of Yendor" or "Asmodeus." But the game doesn't care what your pets are named.

The really nasty thing to do is to name your pet, Invisible Asmodeus hits! The dog

so that (if you're on a multi-user system) when someone gets your bones file and your pet attacks them, they see,

Invisible Asmodeus hits! The dog bites!

Also you could name your fruit "war hammer named Mjollnir" and keep exactly one of them around at all times.

If you're into that kind of thing.

-- David Goldfarb <*>|"To summarize the summary of the summary: goldfarb@ocf.berkeley.edu | People are a problem." goldfarb@csua.berkeley.edu | asteroid@slip.net | -- Douglas Adams

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