I agree. Evil goblin haiku is definitely a major sign of insanity. However, it's like cholesterol: you have bad cholesterol and you have good cholesterol.
I have good insanity.
Which lets me come to another point about gaming.
I mess up. As in the case of not using the right language for the goblin, I forget monster abilities, I forget events that I had planned to happen, and I lose track of stuff.
For that reason, I prefer to give NPCs feats and magic items that are passive, that is that apply to something like AC or stats all the time and don't require me to pay attention to them. when you're handling 5-20 characters per encounter, it's just easier.
Planning out the first couple of rounds of combat helps, too. Round 1, villain casts haste from a scroll. Round 2, he drinks a potion of invisibility and moves to the wizard. Round 3, he sneak attacks the snot out of the wizard. That helps summarize the key abilities and assets that I might forget during a battle.
