* AcceptableTargets: Hippies, frat boys, snooty artists, furries, Canadians, Goths... this game makes fun of everyone.
* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: The Council of Loathing. Are they just the simple standins for the king who give you your quests or an evil group of individuals in league with the Naughty Sorceress. They start off simply getting you to do some of their dirty work (What do they use that mosquito larva for?) and as you get stronger try to send you to your death. (I mean come on go and start and finish a war all by yourself, bonus points if you kill both sides.) And when your finally defeat the Sorceress and free the King they pretty much outright tell you to go kill yourself, as soon as you oblige the Sorceress suspiciously comes back and steals the King again.
** Actually, the "evil" interpretation seems to be canon. See [[http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/The_History_of_the_Penguin_Mafia The History of the Penguin Mafia]], where the Mafia at one point actually looked like the preferable alternative. At the very least, if they aren't evil, they're incredibly incompetent.
* AnticlimaxBoss: The one major disappointment players have with the Avatar of Jarlsberg path is that the final boss, [[spoiler:the Avatar of Boris]], is far too weak. You're actually more likely to be killed by ''[[spoiler:Clancy]]!''
* BaseBreaker: The Level 9 revamp (see ThatOneLevel below). Some players found the new content hilarious and original; others, however, found it tedious, the Smut Orcs area puerile, and the peaks boring and full of spiteful bashing of the StarWars prequels and re-edits. Speedrunners are generally united in their hatred of the revamp, meanwhile, as an area that could (with proper preparation) be completed in one turn has given way to one that cannot be solved in less than several dozen.
* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: One has to feel sorry for Jick and Skullhead. They put so much time and effort into designing the Bugbear Invasion path, and the response from most of the playerbase? "It's not Boris 2.0? Screw it."
** Some people hated the Boris path and refused to play it because it was too different from the normal game. And when the Boris season ended, many people who had been playing Boris a lot found that the ''normal game'' had become confusing and unfamiliar. The problem wasn't that Bugbear Invasion was too different... it was that [[MindScrew it wasn't different enough to seem familiar]].
* GameBreaker: Arguably, the Hodgman's imaginary hamster familiar. It raises all your attributes by 20 and converts Hobo power to more Meat drops, item drops and HP[=/=]MP regeneration. You get it from beating Hodgman, The Hoboverlord, but only if Hobopolis (a clan-only dungeon) was [[TimedMission cleared in a single day using no more than 1100 adventures]] (and even then only if your clan leader feels like giving it to you), making it a bit of an InfinityPlusOneSword as well.
* GoddamnedBats: The Irritating Series of Random Encounters are a homage to the annoying bats of yore, as can be told by their name, and their annoyingness. Not to mention the irritating adventuring you have to do in lower-level regions to find an adventure or item you missed or didn't know of earlier.
** Also, played literally in an early area of the game, the Bat Hole. As you may guess the place is full of the annoying beasts, in any flavor and shape.
* HoYay: It's extremely easy to interpret Boris and his minstrel Clancy as being in a relationship, especially given Clancy's various compliments given when addressing Boris.
* MemeticMutation: In the game's forums, "X makes [[SelfImposedChallenge hardcore]] easier" was a meme regarding the [[BribingYourWayToVictory Mr. Store]] familiars. This was, of course, before the addition of a "Bad Moon" option which prevented the use of such items.
** Also, killing the hermit. For the record, it's impossible, despite many rumours. Nowadays, "killing the hermit" is a euphemism among players of the game for [[ADateWithRosiePalms masturbation]].
* ScrappyMechanic: The one they may yet remove is ()delay (which deliberately makes it take longer for you to get quest items). The one they'll probably never remove is Ronin (which cuts off any outside support for 1,000 turns in Normal ascension runs).
* SidetrackedByTheGoldSaucer: Money Making Game. Also any kind of one-time special content (such as the Crimbo events), partly because everyone wants to grind as much of the limited-issue items as possible before they are gone forever.
** The introduction of the Rogue Program familiar, and the Game Grid Arcade, added even more mini-games that are even more time-consuming. Essentially added turn-based versions of Sinistar, Metroid, Street Fighter, Gauntlet, and Star Control II. Partially averted as you can just turn your tokens into tickets for prizes at a steady rate that doesn't take much time... but you don't get nearly as many tickets that way.
* StopHavingFunGuys: Lord help us, but even this comedy-based MMORPG has developed a core of hardcore speed/powerrunners who have all the traits of the SHFG. You can recognize them by their use of the word "optimal" and their hatred of anything they view as frivolous, even though frivolity is the ''point'' of the game. Jick doesn't seem to mind them, but Mr. Skullhead ''fucking hates'' these guys, to the point the [[JokeCharacter O.A.F.]] familiar was made to give them the finger.
* ThatOneBoss: The Enraged Cow requires you to use a barbed-wire fence, which rarely and randomly drops at the Shore vacation. This was thankfully patched to make it guaranteed to drop.
** In its place are the fried egg (requires black pepper, a random drop from ''another'' random drop) and the giant globe (requires an NG, which you cannot just stumble upon - and which is a reference to an obscure TheyMightBeGiants song, making it hard to guess).
* ThatOneLevel:
** The Orc Chasm quest. Just about every step ranges from GuideDangIt to InsaneTrollLogic. The quest itself isn't hard to do if you know WHAT to do, but for someone trying to figure it out on their own, it's crazy. Most notably, to complete the quest you need to find a way across the Orc Chasm, your only hint being that the pirates might be able to help you somehow (As a sidenote, you might not actually have access to the Obligatory Pirate Cove, and the game offers no hint on how to get there.) [[spoiler: The pirates can help you by selling you an Abridged Dictionary. You take this to the Untinkerer (who you may not have visited at all before this), and have him untinker it into a dictionary and a bridge.]]
*** And how do you get access to the Pirate Cove? The one [[spoiler:on the island]] that no one tells you about? You must [[spoiler:go on ''five'' "vacations" (costing you 2,500 meat and 15 adventures) to get the blueprints for a boat, then build it using planks from the hermit. The travel agency mentions a reward for going on 5 vacations... after you take the first one. They also don't tell you what the prize is, and you don't get much out of the first 4 vacations.]] In mid-2012 this was made a bit simpler, as you no longer need to [[spoiler: visit the Hermit]].
** On November 14, 2012, the Level 9 quest was entirely replaced, making the old Orc Chasm quest optional... and in the minds of many players, the new one is even worse. Now you no longer need any outside items to complete it, but it's much longer, consisting of four mini-quests. Much of the fan ire centered on the Twin Peak sub-quest: see ThatOnePuzzle, below. And (YMMV) in a rare case for Jick and Skullhead, a lot of the jokes are less funny and more fanboy whining.
*** The quest is somehow even ''more'' frustrating in Bees Hate You. It's ''impossible'' to complete Twin Peak the fast way, since you cannot obtain a key item (it's a quest item and thus untradable, and you can't use the items that make it). Oil Peak is just as bad, as almost every monster-level-increasing item has at least one B in its name, forcing you to suffer damage each fight. Mysticality classes (which don't have Muscle's HP or Moxie's high dodge rate) are in for a rough time. As of February 18th, 2013, A-Boo Clues, which help speed up A-Boo Peak, are now also unusuable in this challenge run (they were changed from automatically triggering their adventures into needing to be used first), meaning that ''all three peaks'' are especially hard in Bees Hate You.
** The Quest for the Holy MacGuffin. An exceptionally long quest made up of five mini-quests. As a reward, you get [[spoiler: [[AWinnerIsYou a ticker-tape parade in your honor, and some confetti.]]]] Also, before you can complete one of the mini-quests you have to unlock the aforementioned Pirate's Cove and do a couple sub-quests ''there''.
*** The [[spoiler:pyramid]] portion is extra-nasty. You have to get a certain noncombat adventure (or farm or buy a particular item) several times to change the contents of the lower floors, so that you can get a token, buy a bomb with the token, and blow up a pile of rocks with the bomb. If you go to the bottom area at the wrong time, [[BanditMook rats will steal your token before you get to use it]], or [[GuideDangIt the bomb will be wasted on the wrong rubble pile]]. Once you finally blow up the correct rock pile, you can fight the boss...[[spoiler:''seven times'', using up an adventure for each iteration. The boss has less health each time, but always has full attack power; if he beats you up, you have to go through all seven forms of him again]].
* ThatOnePuzzle: The lava maze during the Nemesis quest, a deliberate, lampshaded example. Fail it (losing HP in the process) enough times and you get the option to skip it [[EasyModeMockery at the cost of 10 adventures and a lessened reward]].
** Twin Peak. The level of stat boosts required can be difficult for new or Hardcore players to achieve, and you aren't told how to make the item you need for the third part of the puzzle. There is an AntiFrustrationFeature in the form of an adventure that skips the section, but it only triggers after ''fifty adventures'' in the zone- more than the base amount you receive at rollover.
* ThatOneSidequest:
** Building the Misshapen Animal Skeleton. It's not so much that it's long, but that the only way to get all the bones for it without spending meat is to quest for a long time in an area where the monsters drop weak items and are so weak themselves that you get almost no XP for beating them. The item that you get the bones from frequently gives you ''nothing''.
** The Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot familiar. It needs a pineal gland! They don't even drop anymore. The only way to get one is to spend hundreds of thousands in the mall.
** Or getting the Silver Wossname. To get it, you have to kill exactly 999 hippies and 999 frat boys during the Hippy vs. Frat Boy war until there's only one warrior of each side left. And use an item that drops in a different area entirely in the ensuing boss fight. Which is inaccessible during the war. The process has its own strategy guide. Yes, there are side-sidequests to kill more warriors per adventure, but if you do ''that'' wrong...
** The ever-dreaded "Kittycore" mode, a run where the player must use the Black Cat familiar (which, as opposed to helping out in some way like most familiars, [[SelfImposedChallenge will instead hinder you at nearly every opportunity]]) for almost the entire run. The point of this is to allow you to do a Bad Moon run whenever you want (ordinarily, you need to have not used a single ten leaf clover in the previous run to do a BM run). Fight a single battle without the cat at your side, and you can kiss your reward goodbye. To make this worse, there are a few points in the game where you NEED to use another familiar to proceed with the game (namely, finding the Black Market, and 2 spots in the Sorceress' Lair). There are horror stories of players switching to the necessary familiar, only to forget to switch BACK to the cat before they engage a monster, thereby ruining their entire run (especially vexing because aforementioned points in the lair are immediately before the FinalBoss herself).
*** The running joke: nobody has a 99.9% Black Cat run because they all drop Bad Moon as soon as they realize what they did.
** The dwarven factory puzzle. Dear God. You have to translate dwarven runes, then convert numbers from base ''seven.''
** Hobopolis. If you want a shot at "beating" it, you'll need to join a clan, and some clans additionally require you to donate meat and items just to get access to their basement. Then, you have to spend large amounts of meat to get the practically necessary adventure turn increasers and optimal gear, and unless you have permed several skills really well-suited for that purpose or levelled up a lot, healing items and buff potions. If you somehow manage to do all this, you'll likely still have to organize several other players to assist, approve said request with a clan leader and (if you're going for Hodgman's best loot) coordinate your actions with near-pinpoint accuracy. Mess it up? You're be out millions for the cost of reflooding the area. All of the prior steps don't even take into account the fact that you need to collect "hobo glyphs" (special signs) over several ascensions just to read the signs in the zone.
*** ...But at least Hobopolis has varied zones and flavor. Its sister dungeon, the Slime Tube, is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin pretty much just a tube of slime]] with repetitious slime enemies and a slime boss at the end. It has no real strategy besides [[PathOfMostResistance pumping up the monsters to maximum toughness so you get better prizes]]. But you have to do it, because those prizes are really useful. Did we mention you only get a few prizes per run, and some of them [[DismantledMacGuffin are just one-tenth of the whole thing]], so you'll have to do the Tube dozens of times to get everything?
** The Accordion Thief Tropical Island. Search a hacienda for several keys to the boss's room. One of these must be pickpocketed from mariachis - and if you don't get it in one try, you must one-shot the mariachi or you will be killed. Accordion Thieves aren't good at one-shotting enemies, the mariachis are a lot stronger than the enemies you're prepared to fight at the level you can get to the Tropical Island, and the pickpocket rate is REALLY low.
* UglyCute: The Pet Cheezling, a disgustingly adorable grinning blob of cheese, which makes disgustingly adorable burbly noises, and heals you by melting your enemies and pumping you full of an unknown substance, which is pretty disgustingly... [[GrotesqueCute disgusting.]]
* UnfortunateImplications: One of the factoids for the Erudite Gremlin basically describes it as being autistic. Yes, Jick and Skully make fun of everyone, but the ''disabled''?