At the INJU Con, I Suddenly Became the Godfather

There was a giant dulce de leche cake to celebrate 2d4orcos' first year of successes as a forum, there were some 16 or 17 gaming tables, all full, a very heavily-attended (and impressively cosplayed) Vampire larp, and lots of other fun stuff.

I ran The Tomb Under Castle Murdoch, the adventure co-written by myself and Dominique Crouzet for the upcoming "Dark Albion: The Rose War" OSR setting book.  It was very well received, and it ran very well (albeit with a near total-party kill).  The players all liked the "Appendix P" houserules, but since only one out of the 6 players was an experienced D&D gamer (and only two out of six were actually experienced RPG gamers at all) that doesn't necessarily say much from an objective perspective.  What it does say is that thanks to events like these at the INJU (The "INstituto de Juventud Uruguaya", or institute for Uruguayan youth), the already-large RPG community in Montevideo is growing.

Another thing that's changed and that always knocks me a little for a loop is my level of local fame.  For the longest time, I wasn't really anyone special here.  Despite the blog, despite having theRPGsite, none of that meant much and those Uruguayan gamers who knew me just knew me in person from the local scene.  This did not changed when "Forward... to Adventure!" came out, or its sourcebook FtA!GN!, or Gnomemurdered. 

But then Lords of Olympus came out.

See, I'd already brought Amber to Uruguay when I first arrived and it caught on like wildfire.  There is something about the game (and its inter-family intrigues) that seems to really work with Uruguayans in particular, or maybe Latin culture in general.   And I knew when Lords of Olympus came out that some people here had gotten it.

But when I went to my first con after LoO came out, which as it turned out was nearly a year after LoO came out, I didn't expect much to be different.  Instead, everyone was batshit nuts.  I had teenagers I never met coming up to me and thanking me profusely for the game, I had everyone talking about it.

Suddenly, people here actually gave a fuck.

This time, it was the first time I'd been to a Con since 5e had really started to be played in Montevideo.  And again, it was another level.  To the community here I'd always been known by my 'real name'.  But all of a sudden, in pretty much everything and except to those who already knew me intimately, I was now "El Pundit".   I got praise and congratulation from all quarters, showing that Uruguayans very clearly do like the new edition (certainly better than the last one); and behaviour to the point that you would think I'd written, hand-illustrated, sewn and shipped the 5e PHB myself!  And on more than one occasion last night I had to explain just what my role was in 5e.

It was nuts.  I am suddenly a gaming celebrity here, after 10 years of very much not having been one in spite of celebrity elsewhere.  I would guess being the spiritual godfather of 2d4orcos, having advised and encouraged its creator (who modeled his website's success on the same practices that made theRPGsite a success) was also a help in that.

Anyways, like any good egomaniac, I had a hell of a fun time.

Congrats to 2d4orcos for the excellent con (a skill they are fast mastering) and for this image:

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Moretti Rhodesian + Gawith's Squadron Leader