My Players Want to Eat Flumphs, and it Makes Me Sad Inside [Archive]

mr_odd

2014-12-23, 10:27 PM

None of my players knew what a Flumph was, but after showing them, they all grew a desire to brutally murder and possibly devour any of the creature they met. Thankfully, I have yet to present one before them, but I just don't understand why or how they cannot just absolutely adore these things. I mean, they are the most good and pure creatures of D&D. Even Pelor himself would just want to hug them.

Rfkannen

2014-12-23, 10:46 PM

I mean I woudnt go kill a flumph. But if someone offered me some flumph I would tottaly eat it. Like, I woudnt go out of my way to find someone who would offer it, but if I was in such a situation I would take advantage of it.

Lonely Tylenol

2014-12-23, 10:55 PM

RedMage125

2014-12-24, 01:18 AM

Today I learned: flumph is the duck of the D&D world.

I fail to see the connection. I know LOTS of people who intentionally go out into the lakes and ponds around them, sit in knee-deep water for hours at a time, JUST to shoot ducks. They LOVE killing ducks. The time of year when the state says "duck killing is ok!" is the time they save up their leave (like vacation time for non-military types) for.

Also, duck is delicious.

ghost_warlock

2014-12-24, 09:24 AM

Flumphs look like a cross between a mushroom and an octopus. Everything about that sounds delicious to me.

Feldarove

2014-12-24, 10:43 AM

They look very murderable to me. Like, my axe would easily chop that thing up.

Then its calamari time!

Slipperychicken

2014-12-24, 12:54 PM

I'd be pretty into it, but then I'd imagine a bunch of adorable flumphs weeping over their dead relatives, and then I couldn't bring myself to do it.

oxybe

2014-12-24, 01:19 PM

I can see myself after hacking at a Flumph, chopping it up into bits and frying it up in a skillet with some oil/butter and garlic thrown in, then serving the tentacle bits in a nice tempura batter and deep fried in oil.

Maybe a nice spinach salad to put the chopped up bits on top of, then dribble-drabble the garlic oil stuff on top of it.

Flumph is like a floating entree tray just waiting to be prepared...

miburo

2014-12-24, 02:03 PM

Flumph: It's what's for dinner.

JAL_1138

2014-12-24, 02:33 PM

Bogleech has a bunch of good articles on rarely-used or often-derided monsters in D&D, including one on the poor flumph: http://www.bogleech.com/dnd/flumph.html

D.U.P.A.

2014-12-24, 10:40 PM

Flumphs look like a cross between a mushroom and an octopus. Everything about that sounds delicious to me.

More like jellyfish than octopus. You have other octopi-like creatures in Underdark. Maybe they are delicious too. But it is more likely they will eat you instead.

Hytheter

2014-12-24, 10:43 PM

"What is a flumph?"
*googles*

Holy crap that looks delicious

Inevitability

2014-12-25, 02:10 AM

"What is a flumph?"
*googles*

Someone here needs to read more OOTS.

themaque

2014-12-25, 03:35 AM

I see Flumphs and I think "Mom and Dad Saved the World".

They look like they would be chewy and greasy.

Inchoroi

2014-12-25, 03:42 AM

God in heaven, how can you eat a flumph!? They're adorable!

Hytheter

2014-12-25, 04:55 AM

God in heaven, how can you eat a flumph!? They're adorable!

So are rabbits. But plenty of people eat those because they're delicious. And flumphs look like they would be too.

Svata

2014-12-25, 06:19 AM

Flumph: It's what's for dinner.

May I sig this?

JAL_1138

2014-12-25, 07:40 AM

So are rabbits. But plenty of people eat those because they're delicious. And flumphs look like they would be too.

Rabbits aren't Lawful Good and sapient.

Svata

2014-12-25, 08:09 AM

Rabbits aren't Lawful Good and sapient.

So? I'm Chaotic Hungry.

oxybe

2014-12-25, 09:17 AM

Rabbits aren't Lawful Good and sapient.

Sapience be darned: If you're delicious and it's not cannibalism, it's good enough for me.

Goblin Goulash, anyone? Orcish Hors D'oeuvres? Flumph Flapjacks?

Anyone?

JAL_1138

2014-12-25, 09:20 AM

Sapience be darned: If you're delicious and it's not cannibalism, it's good enough for me.

Goblin Goulash, anyone? Orcish Hors D'oeuvres? Flumph Flapjacks?

Anyone?

Why is consuming one's own species worse than eating anything else sapient? It's no different than a human eating, say, a halfling or an elf. You even mention goblins and orcs. So why is cannibalism, in particular, a problem, if THAT isn't? It's all bad, IMO. They're all people, after all...

oxybe

2014-12-25, 09:48 AM

Silly goose.

Humans are people.

Everyone else is delicious.

JAL_1138

2014-12-25, 09:50 AM

To OP: Time to bust out some older editions and houserule in XP penalties for alignment changes. If your players go through with it and fry up some poor innocent flumph, bust 'em all to Chaotic Evil with all the XP loss and slowed leveling that entails. As for the deed itself, make it grim. Describe it begging with tears in its eyestalks and pleading with them for its life. Describe its frantic attempts to escape. Leave out no excruciating detail of its shrieks in pain and fear and betrayal and horror as they attack it. Give its children a Lion King moment over its body ("Please wake up...!") and so on. Make the players feel horrible, because they should. (If they seem like they're having too much sadistic fun with that, might be time to consider finding new players...) If there's a good-aligned paladin or cleric in the group, take their spellcasting away until they atone. For that matter, a good-aligned Great Old One warlock, yoink their casting and pact boons too (say their patron opposes the illithids, aboleths, etc. and they've just attacked its favored emissaries and spies).

Hamste

2014-12-25, 09:57 AM

Silly goose.

Humans are people.

Everyone else is delicious.

Soylent Green is people.

Fumble Jack

2014-12-25, 10:08 AM

Sapience be darned: If you're delicious and it's not cannibalism, it's good enough for me.

Goblin Goulash, anyone? Orcish Hors D'oeuvres? Flumph Flapjacks?

Anyone?

Now an idea for a game comes to mind where the PC's are monster hunters for a restaurant with highly exotic cuisine.

Bullywug legs, Cockatrice Omelettes,Griffon wings, Owlbear ribs. Pending on where they are slain & how they arrived there could give a whole new meaning to Devil baked goods.

Slipperychicken

2014-12-25, 11:54 AM

Soylent Green is people.

And it is not delicious, so it is not fair game.

oxybe

2014-12-25, 12:44 PM

Now an idea for a game comes to mind where the PC's are monster hunters for a restaurant with highly exotic cuisine.

Bullywug legs, Cockatrice Omelettes,Griffon wings, Owlbear ribs. Pending on where they are slain & how they arrived there could give a whole new meaning to Devil baked goods.

So Toriko (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toriko), the TTRPG huh?

Fumble Jack

2014-12-25, 06:51 PM

So Toriko (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toriko), the TTRPG huh?

Lol yes, so much this

AbyssStalker

2014-12-26, 01:48 AM

Rabbits aren't Lawful Good and sapient.

So I can True-morph somebody into a rabbit, have a tasty dinner, AND have a clear conscience, I like the way you think.

AbyssStalker

2014-12-26, 01:53 AM

Now an idea for a game comes to mind where the PC's are monster hunters for a restaurant with highly exotic cuisine.

Bullywug legs, Cockatrice Omelettes,Griffon wings, Owlbear ribs. Pending on where they are slain & how they arrived there could give a whole new meaning to Devil baked goods.

OH, now I understand the deviance behind Angel food cake, explains why it tastes so heavenly...

Lonely Tylenol

2014-12-26, 04:05 AM

I fail to see the connection. I know LOTS of people who intentionally go out into the lakes and ponds around them, sit in knee-deep water for hours at a time, JUST to shoot ducks. They LOVE killing ducks. The time of year when the state says "duck killing is ok!" is the time they save up their leave (like vacation time for non-military types) for.

Also, duck is delicious.

It's different where I live, mostly because duck isn't a thing we have here (we have nene geese, but they are an endangered species).

Then flumph are the... Escargot of the world?

Themrys

2014-12-26, 04:48 AM

Today I learned: flumph is the duck of the D&D world.

Nah. (Male) ducks are chaotic evil. It is totally okay to kill them. Look it up.

Flumph are, as I learned today, lawful good, and also, they are so cute, and the OotS are sooo mean to them. :smallfrown:

Flumph are more like the bonobos: Cute, somewhat sentient, more or less good-aligned, and people still kill them for food. (I think. I kinow other apes are eaten. Bonobos too, I guess.)

Cazero

2014-12-26, 06:50 AM

Flumph are more like the bonobos: Cute, somewhat sentient, more or less good-aligned, and people still kill them for food.

Bonobos are bisexual, incestuous and getting it on all the time. Wether or not this is compatible with your statement is left as an exercise to the reader.

Spacehamster

2014-12-26, 09:49 AM

RedMage125

2014-12-26, 02:10 PM

Makes me want to play a character with expertise in cooking tools. That is a traveling master chef adventurer that cooks all enemies the party slays, and makes delicious foods out of them cause he were brought up to the belief of not wasting materials and foodstuffs!

It's a little silly, but I actually dig this idea. Especially for a lighthearted/semi-serious game, it would be a fantastic addition to any group.

I can see a Ranger who tracks down his prey and knows a lot about them (including how to prepare them). A Rogue who uses his precise striking (Sneak Attack) to tray and avoid ruining the best cuts of meat. Or a Wizard whose Spellbook is also a Cookbook (Got Magic Missile on one page, and a recipe for Griffon Tar Tare on the next).

Lonely Tylenol

2014-12-26, 05:20 PM

Nah. (Male) ducks are chaotic evil. It is totally okay to kill them. Look it up.

Flumph are, as I learned today, lawful good, and also, they are so cute, and the OotS are sooo mean to them. :smallfrown:

Flumph are more like the bonobos: Cute, somewhat sentient, more or less good-aligned, and people still kill them for food. (I think. I kinow other apes are eaten. Bonobos too, I guess.)

What about snails? Surely snails can't be Chaotic Evil, and the things are so helpless and yet so determined to complete their slow crawl across the sidewalk that you can't help but root for them, even when the niggling little voice in the back of your mind wants to salt them.

Yet they are a delicacy in France: one that I, for one, would not go out of my way to eat, but might try, if I found myself in France, being offered escargot.

Hytheter

2014-12-26, 08:43 PM

the things are so helpless and yet so determined to complete their slow crawl across the sidewalk that you can't help but root for them

I used to pick them up and throw them into the path of incoming cars.

Maybe I'm just a bad person?

Slipperychicken

2014-12-26, 10:11 PM

What about snails? Surely snails can't be Chaotic Evil, and the things are so helpless and yet so determined to complete their slow crawl across the sidewalk that you can't help but root for them, even when the niggling little voice in the back of your mind wants to salt them.

Yet they are a delicacy in France: one that I, for one, would not go out of my way to eat, but might try, if I found myself in France, being offered escargot.

I had some a long time ago. I think they're delicious, but have an odd texture.

Personally, I don't like killing anything IRL. When I see something helpless like an insect, which I wield such tremendous power over, I can't help but see the situation from its eyes. It's just looking for food in this bizarre alien environment, wherein it runs into a towering colossus of elder flesh whose strength is beyond reckoning, whose intellect is beyond comprehension, which has watched countless generations come and go, and whose enormous bulk could stamp the poor traveler into paste without thinking, to say nothing of the tools and devices it commands. In the context of the power I have to decide the creature's fate, I feel responsible, and I feel like the only morally acceptable option is to help save it, or at least peaceably move it to safety.

Auramis

2014-12-27, 11:19 AM

I had some a long time ago. I think they're delicious, but have an odd texture.

Personally, I don't like killing anything IRL. When I see something helpless like an insect, which I wield such tremendous power over, I can't help but see the situation from its eyes. It's just looking for food in this bizarre alien environment, wherein it runs into a towering colossus of elder flesh whose strength is beyond reckoning, whose intellect is beyond comprehension, which has watched countless generations come and go, and whose enormous bulk could stamp the poor traveler into paste without thinking, to say nothing of the tools and devices it commands. In the context of the power I have to decide the creature's fate, I feel responsible, and I feel like the only morally acceptable option is to help save it, or at least peaceably move it to safety.

I almost want to quote that for my sig starting at "When I see..."

That said, cool as that imagery is, no fly may persist in my habitat... I allow a spider or two because of how much I hate pest insects.

On topic, I can see why some people look at flumph and think about eating them... but I don't understand how they could retain that idea when they could literally hear a flumph speaking to them and pleading for its life. Whether or not it's humanoid, I think anyone who could listen to someone beg for mercy and then have the gall to eat that helpless being after brutally mudering it should be thrown RIGHT under the Chaotic Evil bus and hunted by angry dwarves.

Lonely Tylenol

2014-12-27, 06:36 PM

I used to pick them up and throw them into the path of incoming cars.

Maybe I'm just a bad person?

...Yes.

Yes, you are.

MadGrady

2014-12-29, 03:49 PM

So as someone who is against eating Flumphs, are we to now coin the term: Flugatarian?

Or, are you even more extreme to the point where you won't eat any other foods made with any Flumph products - a Flugan?

MadGrady

2014-12-29, 03:52 PM

Nah. (Male) ducks are chaotic evil. It is totally okay to kill them. Look it up.

Flumph are, as I learned today, lawful good, and also, they are so cute, and the OotS are sooo mean to them. :smallfrown:

Flumph are more like the bonobos: Cute, somewhat sentient, more or less good-aligned, and people still kill them for food. (I think. I kinow other apes are eaten. Bonobos too, I guess.)

Bonobos are bisexual, incestuous and getting it on all the time. Wether or not this is compatible with your statement is left as an exercise to the reader.

This is absolute forum gold right here.

It's amazing how we can go from discussing the ethicality (sp?...word?) of killing/eating a harmless sentient being, to the sexual practices of various primates

themaque

2014-12-29, 05:42 PM

I think we fried up some dragon steaks back when I was in High School, but we changed our dining practices when we remembered the "Anything that's tasty" rule equally applies to PC's.

Food That Talks Is Not Food.
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2003-11-30

Auramis

2014-12-30, 07:29 AM

Food That Talks Is Not Food.

Gonna write that down on a sticky for the food section in our notes.

Spacehamster

2014-12-30, 10:02 AM

Would it be considered evil to cook and eat orcs? Or is that okays since they are evil raiding bastards?

MadGrady

2014-12-30, 11:56 AM

Would it be considered evil to cook and eat orcs? Or is that okays since they are evil raiding bastards?

If you believe you can pass that Con save to not just up and die from eating an Orc......

themaque

2014-12-30, 12:34 PM

Would it be considered evil to cook and eat orcs? Or is that okays since they are evil raiding bastards?

I would again have to say, yeah it's evil. Just because they are jerks doesn't mean it's suddenly okay to start serving Orc-Kababs. No matter how tasty the fries.

Spacehamster

2014-12-30, 01:40 PM

I would again have to say, yeah it's evil. Just because they are jerks doesn't mean it's suddenly okay to start serving Orc-Kababs. No matter how tasty the fries.

But say you kill 20 orcs, freeze them down with a spell, travel to a large city, cook them up into delicious food and serve it to the poor and to the orphans? Then it would be a good act no? :D

Spacehamster

2014-12-30, 01:46 PM

If you believe you can pass that Con save to not just up and die from eating an Orc......

Does it say somewhere that Orc meat is poisonous? O_o

Inevitability

2014-12-30, 04:10 PM

Does it say somewhere that Orc meat is poisonous? O_o

Not the meat itself, just the thick layers of filth on the outside and the questionable food on the inside. Oh, and the fact that every Evil Overlord should feed all guards in a sector that will be inevitably attacked by the heroes soon a slow-acting poison, so that even if they survive (highly unlikely), the heroes won't be able to interrogate them.

Okay, I need to stop reading the Evil Overlord list. :smalleek: