I'm really tired. I made a poll. These facts may be related.

[featherynscale]

[Poll #1088505]

Comments

[celtic-elk.livejournal.com]

Pretty much anything from the original *Fiend Folio*, except the drow. I still think they're pretty cool, even after all the Drizzt Do'Urden-inspired fanboi-ing (and yes, I read all of those novels when they were new). It's kinda nifty that the one-page description in FF has grown into a vibrant, reasonably well-fleshed-out game culture. I wouldn't try it with the githyanki, though....

[liquidfun.livejournal.com]

Dumb Monsters: Despite the fun of being able to yell "Land Shark!", bullettes just should not exist.

Actually, I do celebrate winter holidays and enjoy giving yuletide gifts, but I absolutely suck at receiving them. I'm probably pretty bad at giving them to, but I enjoy it. Not sure why the whole gift thing is so difficult for me.

[project-becky.livejournal.com]

Jim has a clown thing. He really doesn't like them at all. When I was decorating the nursery for babies I could do anything but clowns.

I had the sad faced crying Emmett Kelly clown on my wall as a child, so I associate clowns as sad.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Ah, the bulette. I forgot about that one -- it should certainly be on the list. :)

When you say you suck at receiving gifts, what does that mean?

[leiandra.livejournal.com]

D&D - Dood, there's ALWAYS a 10'x10' room for jello!! That was my favorite enemy type when I was playing the Baldur's Gate game for the PS2.

Clowns - I was a clown in college. Even knew a few of the balloon animals. I married someone scared of them. So much for the revival of "Freckles"

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I actually think the githyanki are sort of cool. But then, they are planar pirates. What could be better than that?

[gamera-spinning.livejournal.com]

A clown is good, old-fashioned nightmare fuel.

[gamera-spinning.livejournal.com]

A dire weasel? Seriously? I had no idea someone ever came up with that. It sounds like a contradiction.

[capriciouslass.livejournal.com]

I was an adult before I knew that clowns actually scared people. Huh.

[arkhamrefugee.livejournal.com]

Gibbering mouthers were perhaps the most retarded monster TSR ever came up with.

[liquidfun.livejournal.com]

Anything I want, I go buy ... right then. Not good for my finances and it means I mostly don't leave any room for others to give me anything I "need".

Plus, I then get angsty guilt if somebody gives me something and I hadn't planned on giving them anything or if I feel my gift to them wasn't "good enough" ... which is probably the larger issue, receiving gifts makes me feel guilty, and it really shouldn't.

[ysabel.livejournal.com]

Have I mentioned that Amy was a professional clown for a while?

This might color my opinions somewhat. *grin*

[lordkalkin.livejournal.com]

It has been my opinion for a while that if the Tarrasque were not in the Monster Manual, D&D would be a much less munchkin-friendly game.

[liquidfun.livejournal.com]

I'm a fan of the dire badger, personally. They go berserk when they get hurt ...

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

It's in the book. Dire weasel. One only imagines that there might also be dire wombats, dire ermine and dire nutria. Actually, dire nutria would be kinda terrifying.

[otterkin.livejournal.com]

Are you kidding me? Weasels are nasty little beasts. Small wolverines, biologically speaking. Yar. Dire weasels would scare the crap out of me...

[auraseer.livejournal.com]

The one that bugs me most is the Gas Spore. It's a spherical floating fungus which just happens to look exactly like a beholder. The spore has no attacks, and only one hit point; when harmed, it immediately explodes for Nd6 points of damage. Its only reason for existence is as a joke for the DM to pull on the players. ("Look out, a beholder! Kill it!" *splode* "Ha ha!")

Also, no list of stupid monsters is complete without the Flumph. It's the only Lawful Good monster from the original Fiend Folio, and it is entirely ridiculous.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I never had the Fiend Folio. Clearly I have missed out on whole deep trenches of stupid.

[kittenpants.livejournal.com]

My true answer to #1 is "No, I don't know *the* limerick, but I could write one in a trice. And it would be dirty. So I can probably guess about the original."

[celtic-elk.livejournal.com]

Planar pirates with a better name?

[celtic-elk.livejournal.com]

Oh, please do! =)

[celtic-elk.livejournal.com]

A flumph! So *that's* what those things in OotS are!

Think of the Gas Spore as the specialized evolutionary product of a character-heavy environment. It's sorta the D&D equivalent of a viceroy butterfly crossed with a fire-pollinating plant species. Or maybe I'm just feebly trying to justify it. And wouldn't the more likely reaction be, "Look out, a beholder! Aaaaaagh! Run away!"?

[auraseer.livejournal.com]

Some of the beholder's eye rays have very long range; whenever it can see you, it can probably disintegrate you. Fortunately, it doesn't have very many hit points.

If you run you will only die tired, but if you unload the big damage ASAP, you stand a decent chance of killing it while there's still at least one party member standing.

'Course, if your party is below about 9th level, you're screwed either way. Your best option then is to parley, and hope that your DM planned this as a negotiation encounter rather than a Total Party Kill.

[fionnabhar.livejournal.com]

I would have liked an interim answer between saying homemade gifts are fabulous and fabulous only if well made. Something that says it's the thought that counts but without a cliche.

[dop4.livejournal.com]

Anyone who had encountered one of my grandmother's rutabega-jello salad could understand the TRUE HORROR of a 10' gelatenous cube. Lovecraft ain't got nuthin' on an ill-conceived vorpal jello salad!

[auraseer.livejournal.com]

Yeah. IIRC even Gygax complained that most of the new FF monsters were stupid and useless, and he's the guy who invented bulettes, owlbears, and gelatinous cubes.

A few of the critters were good enough to have stuck around. I think the Drow first showed up in that book, and there's a githyanki (or githzerai?) on the cover.

[celtic-elk.livejournal.com]

See, this is where my lack of actual *playing* experience starts to show. I read too many sourcebooks. =)

[celtic-elk.livejournal.com]

OK, so if you've never read the FF, are you familiar with the githyanki from a later revision? Maybe they *were* better then...

[lexpendragon.livejournal.com]

Here!

[lilia-blackbear.livejournal.com]

The Beholder, because really, it's an over-done cliche -- a giant eyeball? Puhleaze. It would be perfect for Kingdom of Loathing.

And the clown question... that is totally relative to the clown in question. Seeing kids flock around the recycling clown at the Party for the Earth this last Earth Day, fabulous, loved him. Tim Curry... scary as crap as a clown. Losers at the last circus I was dragged to, laim as can be. That guy I used to work with at the bookstore in my previous life who had gone to clown school, sexy.

[dramaticaddict.livejournal.com]

i only know the first two lines of the nantucket one, but there once was a man from alcatraz...
anywhoo, you need a "i know part of it" option...
and for the record, im not scared of clowns, just the creepy clown of fast food.. hes so... greasy...

[dramaticaddict.livejournal.com]

yeah the E3 seems to just buy gifts, wrap them, and leave them in random closets and the end of the hall.... I dunno how many actually get to thier destinations...

[raginsouthasian.livejournal.com]

I've always hated Shambling Mounds. A salad that not only is somewhat intelligent, but also of average wisdom and slightly below average charisma. Maybe I'll ask it for some relationship advice, this thing is apparently better with people and more insightful than I am.

[pete3great.livejournal.com]

the tarrasque: brought to you by rifts... j/k, if it were it's be playable :O