# 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

1 Disclaimer
2 How to play (The short version)

2.1 Helpful drinking game terminology
2.2 The ante (Creating a character)
2.3 Conducts
2.4 Incentives and penalties
2.5 Newbie
2.6 Common
2.7 Professional
2.8 Hardcore
2.9 The end?
2.10 Play again? [ynq]
2.11 Mayor McCheese

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:

Foodless
Pacifist
Illiterate
Atheist
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 death

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
Dragon hatches from an egg in your inventory

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 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.