Gamer: Good morning.

Gamer grrl: Oh good morning. (sexily) Do you want to go out back?

Gamer: What?

Gamer grrl: (sexily) Do you want to go upstairs? (brightly)Or have you come to purchase an RPG?

Gamer: Er ... to purchase an RPG.

Gamer grrl: Oh, sorry.

Gamer: What's all this about going out back?

Gamer grrl: Oh, nothing, nothing. Now, what were you thinking of playing?

Gamer: Over the Edge.

Gamer grrl: Ah one of our freeform systems!

Gamer: Yes!

Gamer grrl: Well you'd better speak to Mr Player about that. Mr Player, this gentleman is interested in Over the Edge. (Gamer walks over to Player's desk where he is greeted by Player.)

Player: Ah. Good morning. I'm Player of Adventure Games.

Gamer: My name is Cat-Piss-Man.

Player: What?

Gamer: My name is Cat-Piss-Man. Mr Cat-Piss-Man.

Player: Well, you'd better wash more often, then!

Gamer: What?

Player: You'd better wash more often, then!

Gamer: Oh I see! wash more often, for Cat-Piss-Man.

Player: Yes, ha ha ... I expect you get people making jokes about your name all the time, eh?

Gamer: No, no actually. Actually, it never struck me before. Cat...Piss...Man!

Player: Anyway, you're interested in one of our freeform systems, eh?

Gamer: Yes. I saw your banner ad on RPG.net on my bomputer.

Player: On what?

Gamer: My bomputer.

Player: Bomputer?

Gamer: Yes. I'm sorry I can't say the letter 'B'.

Player: 'C'?

Gamer: Yes, that's right. It's all due to a trauma I suffered when I was playing a blerib. I was attacked by a batoplepas’.

Player: A catoplebas?

Gamer: No a batoplepas’.

Player: Can you say the letter 'K'?

Gamer: Oh yes. Animal Ken, king, Krenshar, Kraken, Kuo-toa, Magibk.

Player: Why don't you use the letter 'K' instead of the letter 'C'?

Gamer: What you mean ... spell bomputer with a 'K'?

Player: Yes.

Gamer: Komputer. Oh, that's very good, I never thought of that.

Player: Anyway, about the game.

Gamer: Well I saw your banners on the internet and I've been on dungeon brawls several times, you see, and I decided that this was for me.

Player: Ah good.

Gamer: Yes I quite agree with you, I mean what's the point of being treated like a cardboard cutout, I mean I'm fed up playing role-playing games and being treated like a class-and-race combination, what's the point of going to conventions, surrounded by sweaty mindless munchkins from Greyhawk and Waterdeep in their +2 magic plate-mails and elven cloaks and their vorpal blades and their 'Dungeon Magazines', complaining about the rules, 'Oh they don't do it properly here do they not like we do at home' stopping at dealer booths, selling Dungeons & Dragons and 3rd party d20 products and d20 modern and polyhedral dice and sitting around in black t-shirts popping caffeine pills untill they rattle when they walk cos they 'overdid it on the first game'!

Player: (agreeing patiently) Yes. Absolutely, yes, I quite agree...

Gamer: And being herded into endless 10 by 10 stone borridors with their death traps and their secret doors and their wandering monsters - whose presence there make no sense whatsoever - attacking anything on sight for no good reason and ruining the suspension of disbelief and if you're not at the game table spot on seven you miss the chance to fight a bloody gelatinous cube, the first monster on the list of stuff to encounter in dungeons, and every other session there's a bloody “epic battle” featuring some monster of the week that looks like Marilyn Manson with a squid glued to his face...

Player: (beginning to get fed up) Yes, yes, now...

Gamer: And then some angsty goth-boy from the suburbs with malkavian PC with a katana and smelly, halitosis-plagued munchkins named Colin, and then, every so often there's an “intrigue-laden game” where the PCs get to stab each other in the back while the players are chugging Mountain Dew, and then one session you get to play in a roleplaying-intensive game with color and a coherent setting and you show up for the game and you get to play with a party of people straight from Gygax-land who keeps singing 'We’re off to slay the orcies', and complaining about the rules, 'Oh! It's so unrealistic, isn't it?' and then you get cornered by some foul-smelling fanboy with a dice-bag and a 3.5 PHB and last months “Dungeon/Polyhedron” and he drones on and on about how Mr Smith should be running this game and how many prestige classes his character has and then he spills mountain dew all over the minis and the battle map.

Player: Will you be quiet please.

Gamer: And ragging on game systems they’ve never even played, “all dise pool systems suck and it’s totally unrealistic and instead of writing numbers on your character sheet you have to mark off dots.”

Player: Shut up.

Gamer: 'There’s no classes or levels but we hear there’s a d20 version coming out soon.'

Player: Shut up!

Gamer: 'Where you can even get prestige classes and metamagic feats...'

Player: Shut up!!!

Gamer: '...twenty-siders and the gamemaster says “maybe it’s because I’m a Simulationist with Gamist leanings...

Player: Shut your bloody gob! I've had enough of this, I'm going to ring the police. (He dials and waits. Cut to a corner of a police station. One policeman is knitting, another is making a palm tree out of old newspapers. The phone rings....)