What the heck is a troll?

Folks,

What the heck is a troll? The only ones I know are about 8 hit dice, gotta use fire to gak them, and they want to eat me. I don’t remember seeing in their stats about them lurking in internet forums. :shock:

Thanks in advance.

DB

They’re tricky unless you’re a Paladin with 20 Charisma points and have a double-edged sword.

I beleive the post itself is the troll, not the poster.

No, really…I’m not sure what a troll is. I do know that it isn’t good. I’m guessing that it is someone who posts a false message.

I put this up in all honesty.

DB

Beware the Troll

Alien: what’s that website? I couldn’t figure out where to find the homepage.

Iris

Okay,okay forget I even asked. Maybe someone at work will know or I will find some sort of list of definitions of on-line slang.

Thanks.

troll: a person who posts a deliberately false or inflammatory message in order to draw responses, or in worse cases, to provoke a flame war. Usually considered almost as low as form of life as a spammer. The term is believed to come from the action of drawing a bait through an expanse of water, rather than being a reference to under-bridge dwellers. In some forums some forms of trolling are accepted, but the typical troll is an attention seeking nuisance, whilst the worst cases are hooligans and vandals.

Thanks Alien, that’s exactly what I was looking for.

There are also a few cultists, clubies and wibblers around here… :?

Funny you should mention trolls. Last night I had this email exchange with a friend of mine from the states:

Friend: I, too, saw Two Towers while baked and was depressed and confused. Still, it was pretty awesome. I like the lizard guy best. I let my older boys watch the first movie on video, but there’s no way I’m letting them watch this one until they’re older. Gollum scared the shit out of me. You and I agree on the fairies. It’s like roller-blading–there’s no way you can be an elf or roller blade and not look gay. And since when have trolls been giants? The first Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter both had giant trolls. I don’t get it–I always thought trolls were slightly smaller than humans, but just really mean and nasty. Ogres, they can be big. But trolls aren’t. They’re also not supposed to be as stupid as the LOTR and Harry Potter trolls. Perhaps a fan of fantasy novels can explain …

Chainsmoker: All right, jeez, I’ll put on my geek hat just for you. Next, you’ll be asking me about comic books. I like to think I left that dark period of my life behind. I think you are thinking of goblins, kobolds, gremlins or maybe Joe Blackman (small friend of ours). Trolls are always pretty big and bad, but they’re almost always different in every movie or book incarnation. I guess that means that there wasn’t too much specific info in the legends or fairy tales. There doesn’t seem to be too much difference between ogres and trolls if you ask me?

F: Maybe I’m just thinking of the bridge-guarding trolls. The troll in the Billy Goats Gruff story is not big at all, just mean. Anyway, you can’t say trolls are “always” big. The bridge trolls are Blackman-size?

CS: I don’t know which version of Billy Goat Gruff you are reading, but I always thought of that troll (or was it trolls?) as pretty big. Remember it took the big goat to knock him off the bridge. I guess I should have said that trolls SHOULD always be big (not too big or they would be giants like in LOTR).

F: I have a Fairy Tales book, and there’s a drawing of the troll on Billy Goats Gruff, and he’s Blackman (our small friend) size but more wirey. Or wiry.

CS: Well, this picture supports your position. members.rogers.com/archjrc3/gruff.html but logically it doesn’t add up. If the troll was small, how did he fall for that line “wait for my brother who’s bigger” line. Wouldn’t he have just eaten the first goat? I mean just how stupid are trolls supposed to be? Also, we have to assume that he had some success stopping people from trip-trapping across his bridge in the past. If he were small, he would have kept getting his ass kicked. Wouldn

I almost pissed myself laughing on that one! Thanks for sharing.

iowaclinic.com/cgi-bin/physi … ce/4260552

To the one or two people who might be interested, I think my friend was right about the trolls. In Scandanavian mythology, a troll is the same thing as a dwarf. I think the confusion comes from the fact that sometimes the word “troll” is used to mean “dwarf” and sometimes it is used to mean “giant”.

troll stuff