First time I tried adventure mode I was totally lost. A couple of quick tips.
(r)emoving something from your inventory (or while you wear it) will put it in your hand. That's how you equip things.
you can hold an infinite number of items as of this version. To drop something, you have to hit 'd', but you can't drop something you're wearing, so you'll have to remove it first.
If you find boogeymen, run. Don't sleep alone at night outside, and if possible don't sleep outside even during the day, wild animals could come wandering, or you could be ambushed.
When you'll be geared/skilled enough, you can consider fighting bogeyman. It's easier with a slashing weapon or with a good wrestling skills.
With slashing weapons, just slash at their lower body, and if you're skileld anough (and actually hit them), you'll most probably split them in half.
If you have a good wrestling skill, bite them in the lower body until "you latch on firmly" and then shake them and you'll most probably rip them in half.
The way to do this last thing is: Aimed attack (uppercase A when you're near an enemy), press b for lower body, press whatever letter to bite.
Repeat until you get the message "you latch on firmly". If it takes too long, stop. Don't get surrounded.
After the message, perform another (A)imed attack, press Enter to wrestle, press 'a' to select the bogeyman, press Enter to select "Wrestle using your upper right tooth" (or whatever tooth that is), then press Enter to select "Shake ... bla bla".
Also, you can consider training to increase your skills and chance of survival, if you want.
Also also: Speed is important. And shields. Without a shield, you'll be dead meat sooner than later, with it (and good shield user skill) you're basically a tank.
You can also equip more than a shield, but most consider it cheating. It's a single player game though, you can do whatever you want.
Report back for any problem, question, idea or whatever. Just remember that you WILL incur some of the most gruesome deaths (both in adventurer and fortress mode) you could imagine, but that's part of the fun.
And finally a forum related advice. "fun" is the usual meaning of fun, while "Fun" is
FunYay wall of text x_x