* {{Adorkable}}: Tendry certainly qualifies, ''especially'' in Tendry's Tale, where it becomes apparent he is a giant, passionate dork; he has a pet roach he affectionately calls "Roachie" and loves like a friend, openly states he feels dinosaurs are adorable, and mistakes the DAA's logo for a Pirate symbol.
* AnticlimaxBoss: [[spoiler:First Archivist]] in ''The Second Sky''. Despite being the main antagonist, he's fought halfway through in a short and not especially difficult level.
* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic:
** ''Journey to Rooted Hold'''s music is all excellent, but particular stand-outs are "Brood" and "Uncovered".
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCmRwx7cWLA "The Architect's Oath"]], the title screen theme of ''Journey to Rooted Hold'', with a stunning harpsichord instrumental section.
** ''The City Beneath'' onward feature a soundtrack by Travelogue, which consists of very beautiful ambient music tracks. Some highlights would be the very aptly named "Ambient No. " tracks spread across the albums, "On Every Shore" and "Today is a New Day" from [=TCB=], "Rise and Fall" and "Sines Galore" from [=GatEB=], and "Life in a Cloud" and "Mixed Signals" from [=TSS=].
** ''The Second Sky'' has a number of pieces by Emmett Plant that play during story segments. Particularly awesome tunes include "Within These Swingin' Halls" (Halph's theme), "Waltz Recombinant" (First Archivist's theme), "An Architect's Dream of Geometry" (the [[spoiler:Farrow Child]]'s theme) and "A Sympathetic Bartendry" (Tendry's theme).
** Occasionally, there's a full-on musical number. Usually, these crop up in Smitemaster's Selections, but there area few examples in the main games. They are all awesome, except "Use the Fuse" which royally succeeded at StylisticSuck.
*** For example, the one at the end of Smitemastery 101, "Please Don't Name Your Sword", is a fun little tune about [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin not naming your sword]]. It's actually a really catchy ditty, too!
* BreatherLevel: ''The Second Sky'' has a few. "Chronometric Ruins" is deliberately toned down, as it introduces a potentially confusing new mechanic, the temporal split token. "Caught in an Eddy" gives the player a chance to recover after some extremely hard levels, and allows them to explore [[spoiler:the other surface]]. "The Scorching Path" is a breather level... for no particular reason.
* CatharsisFactor: Dropping that last trapdoor to collapse the bridge the whole room was taking place on, sending all those [[MookMaker roach queens]], tarstuff, snakes, etc. that gave you so much frustration to their death is ''very'' satisfying.
* DemonicSpiders: [[MookMaker Roach queens]] to some extent, but ''especially'' [[MookMaker tarstuff mothers]]. When one (or if you're even unluckier, several) of those are in the room, you know it's going to be very, very messy no matter what. The programmers are aware of this - an empty room with just one tarstuff mother in it causes the Attack music (which normally plays when there's a lot of monsters in the room) to play.
* EnsembleDarkhorse: In ''The Second Sky'', Arky and the Critic are very popular with fans.
* GoddamnedBats: ''Anything'' in the hands of a competent architect. Wraithwings typically get the most hatred, though, since they can fly, will run away from the player if alone (typically over pits) but in hordes, will swarm the player in a hard-to-predict fashion (since their movement is dependent upon the location of other wraithwings and the movement order of the whole horde).
* MagicFranchiseWord: "Linchpin", referring to the central insight that a solution depends on. Rooms that involve these are generally considered the most satisfying type. It's always misspelled "lynchpin", both in the games and by the fandom.
* MemeticMutation: The fanbase itself has a lot of its own personal inside jokes that certainly behave like this in the community.
** The Mothingness. Originally coined by complete accident to describe [=KDD=] Level 13 2N2W, which was inaccessible in the 1.0 version of the hold, the Mothingness was eventually [[AscendedMeme used as an official Eighth term, often associated with the Pit Thing]].
** [[MathematiciansAnswer "Kill all the enemies and exit the room"]]. Expect this to crop up any time someone asks how to solve a room in the official Caravel Chat, or anywhere other than the Hints and Solutions board.
** The Raygun, a parody of poorly made suggestions for features in [=DROD=]. [[spoiler:It even got official recognition and Beethro got a Raygun in a bonus level of [=TSS=]; you can even get a bonus assets pack so ''you'' can use it in your holds!]]
** Ketchup & Puppies. For some odd reason, one of the first custom holds was a little creation involving these two objects, with no puzzles in sight. Ever since, the combination of Ketchup & Puppies is not soon to be forgotten.
** The H+S Effect/Curse/Syndrome/Phenomenon. Essentially, any time you post in the Hints and Solutions board on the Caravel Forums, only to figure out the room moments after posting. This can be ''very'' frustrating if you're someone from the future with the same problem and ''don't'' get the curse to hit you. Some people get this chronically; HilarityEnsues then.
* ScrappyMechanic: Percentage damage in ''DROD RPG''. In holds that contain hot tiles or Aumtlich (which remove 5% and 50% of your HP, respectively), you have to keep your HP as low as possible to limit the damage. This means leaving potions untaken and, when you need to regain HP, running round to take exactly as much as necessary. This is not a big problem in the main ''Tendry's Tale'' hold -- it contains only one Aumtlich, directly after a huge FlunkyBoss battle that will leave you very low on HP anyway, so it's more a one-off trap for the unwary than anything else. But some usermade holds contain far more of these elements.
* ThatOneAchievement: With the advent of Challenges come [=TSS=], of course a few of them would cause ire.
** '''[=JtRH=] - Unnecessary Complications''': In Level 2 4E, you have to clear the room and don't move Halph until the western door is open, don't break any crumbly walls, and don't kill any queens until all doors are open. These arbitrary things make the room ''incredibly'' difficult; in fact, most actually rely on a [[GoodBadBug glitch that lets you kill a few select queens]] so they can get the challenge and be done with it.
** '''[=TCB=] - Whodunnit?''': The concept itself is simple: you [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential kill 186th guide]], and then activate a cutscene for it later in The Fork. The problem is, you can't just go ahead and axe her later, and then go to the fork. No, you have to kill her when you're going through her level--she ''disappears'' otherwise. So you're left going ahead and killing her when you finish the level. Except... There's several intermittent levels inbetween when you kill her and when you activate the cutscene for killing her. So unless you did this on your first playthrough, you will be playing both Uncturage levels ''again.'' Made worse because [=TCB=] is not just a "sit back and relax" hold--you need to put brain power into clearing each and every room, so this can very easily become a marathon. It's telling that in a sea of [[ThatOnePuzzle those few puzzles]] and other difficult achievements, including ''mastering the hold this achievement resides in'', ''this'' is one of the least obtained achievements in the Steam version of DROD.
** '''[=GateB=] - Charge First, Think Later''': In Daskeros Tower 4N, you have to clear the room before you lower the blue doors (which drop when you clear the rest of the level). Problem is, this is meant to be ''impossible'' so as to enforce clearing the level before reaching the exit, which is just beyond this room. Of course, it isn't; with expert movement and manipulation, one can clear the room all the same, [[SequenceBreaking letting you skip doing the rest of Daskeros Tower]], but if you happen to be a newbie, the hold's specific target audience, this will be a ''pain.''
* ThatOneLevel: Whichever one you're stuck on.
** Consensus says that Levels 8 and [[{{TheMaze}} 13]] of ''King Dugan's Dungeon'' definitely fall into this state, and there are also particularly nasty rooms spread throughout the series.
** Level 11, at least in Architect's Edition. The level is full of mazes hidden under tar, which can only be revealed through trial and error. Later editions allow you to [[AntiFrustrationFeature turn the tar semi-transparent]], removing most of the difficulty.
** In ''Journey to Rooted Hold'', it's Level 22, an exhausting run through several large horde rooms. Most of these don't require normal completion (i.e. killing all monsters in the same visit) but just getting through them so you can reach a different entrance and set off bombs. Yet somehow, just getting through these rooms is harder than completing rooms on other levels!
** Some user-made holds are infamously difficult. ''Gigantic Jewel Lost'' comes to mind.
** The official level set ''Beethro's Teacher'' consists entirely of Those Six Levels.
** ''The Second Sky'' brings several. Shattered Mine, Experiment of Ages, Rapid Fortification, and Mother of All Roaches all fall under this category, but Temporal Anomaly takes the cake: most rooms here have you use [[TimeTravel timey-wimey temporal clones to branch the time]] and strike where monsters are ''going'' to be, and then wake up the monsters with your normal self or other temporal clones.
** When the ''Treacle Stew'' [=SMS=] released in late 2022, Level 2 very quickly cemented itself as being notedly harder than anything before it and after it, for whatever reason. In particular, a good chunk of the western half of the level consists of deceptively difficult rooms that rely on precise movement of gel babies, most infamously being 2S1W (see ThatOnePuzzle Below).
* ThatOnePuzzle: Each game has one or more rooms that have acquired particular infamy. This list uses DROD's usual coordinate system, e.g. "1E" means the room once east of the level entrance.
** ''King Dugan's Dungeon'': Eighth Level, 7S3E. Just mention "three tar mothers" to any DROD veteran and they'll instantly know which room you mean.
** ''Journey to Rooted Hold'': Sixteenth Level, 2S2E. A grid of obstacles interlaced with rock golems -- enemies that leave piles of rock when you kill them. It's extremely difficult to avoid these clogging up the grid.
** ''The City Beneath'': Abyssian Fortress, 2S. Tarstuff clearing on a small platform, giving Beethro very limited mobility.
** ''The Second Sky'' has quite a few. Shattered Mine 1E, Eye of the Storm 1E, WBCEND/Caber Testing Area 3S1E, Lemming Beach 2S4E, and Rapid Fortification 3S2E have all stumped many players.
** ''Treacle Stew'': Level 2's 2S1W is a room that requires use of the caber and baiting and manipulating ''Wraithwings'' with them to block off gel babies. Wraithwings that are very, very flighty, and would much prefer to ''not'' be in caber range. It's a bad sign that the "harder" solution of only using only one Wraithwing is generally recommended just because having to deal with two of them would be a logistical nightmare.