Stigmas proved true...

I love role-playing or rping whichever you prefer. The title of GameMaster comes from role-playing games where one of the players is the referee so to speak and and plays the part of the monsters and non-player characters the other players come across. It is a fun exercise of imagination and a great way to hang out as typically more talking than playing seems to get done in an average session. It is a great activity and yet it seems more stigmas are attached to people who play role-playing games than most activities I know about. Just because there are a few weird people involved in rping doesn't mean we all are psychos. Just because OJ Simpson was a football player doesn't mean all football players are murderous creeps.

One such terrible stigma is that all role players live in their mother's basement. Seriously how many gamers live in thier parent's basement... besides me... haha.

So its true. How Terrible. I could go through all my lame excuses like being a junior in college and still in college, or that I am poor in this terrible economy, but it would all be useless. How lame I am.

Hey it could be worse? I could be as oblivious as these gamers in this true following story...

(Side Note Ed is the Gamemaster and Eric is one of the characters)

ED: You see a well groomed garden. In the middle, on a small hill, you see a gazebo.

ERIC: A gazebo? What color is it?

ED: (Pause) It's white, Eric.

ERIC: How far away is it?

ED: About fifty yards.

ERIC: How big is it?

ED: (Pause) It's about thirty feet across, fifteen feet high, with a pointed top.

ERIC: I use my sword to detect good on it.

ED: It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo!

ERIC: (Pause) I call out to it.

ED: It won't answer. It's a gazebo!

ERIC: (Pause) I sheathe my sword and draw my bow and arrows. Does it respond in any way?

ED: No, Eric, it's a gazebo!

ERIC: I shoot it with my bow (roll to hit). What happened?

ED: There is now a gazebo with an arrow sticking out of it.

ERIC: (Pause) Wasn't it wounded?

ED: Of course not, Eric! It's a gazebo!

ERIC: (Whimper) But that was a plus three arrow!

ED: It's a gazebo, Eric, a gazebo! If you really want to try to destroy it, you could try to chop it with an axe, I suppose, or you could try to burn it, but I don't know why anybody would even try. It's a *)@#! gazebo!

ERIC: (Long pause. He has no axe or fire spells.) I run away.

ED: (Thoroughly frustrated) It's too late. You've woken up the gazebo, and it catches you and eats you.

ERIC: (Reaching for his dice) Maybe I'll roll up a fire-using mage so I can avenge my Paladin.

At this point, the increasingly amused fellow party members restored a modicum of order by explaining what a gazebo is. It is solely an afterthought, of course, but Eric is doubly lucky that the gazebo was not situated on a grassy gnoll...

So in closing I think I am doing a lot better than some people and that makes it alright... I think. I know elves and dwarfs are not real, and I cannot conjure any spells no matter how hard I try, so I have a good head on my shoulders despite what all the naysayers would have you believe. Well before I go... could anyone tell me what a gazebo is?