Quote from: Elliot Wilen:cool:--searching for info on it, I see that Viggo is starring in a film version that's in production, for release later this year. Maybe the RPG will make it over here after all.

Quote from: mattormegOkay folks -
What are some of the non-American games that I should absolutely know about? Preferably, those either written in English or with English translations readily available.

Quote from: fonkaygarryI remember a Mutant Chronicles boardgame from when I was a little shaver. How's the RPG?

Quote from: Elliot WilenSo does Viggo speak Spanish or is he dubbed in Spain?

Quote from: JongWKViggo speaks Spanish. He lived in Argentina and Venezuela when young. He also drinks Mate!

Quote from: RPGPunditYes, but its probably Argentine Mate.

RPGPundit

Quote from: mattormegFill me in, Pundit, what's mate?

Quote from: RPGPundit's BlogI've just woken up after a measly three and a half hours of sleep. My players can certainly go the distance, even in a Thursday night Traveller D20 game.  Before Uruguay, the last time I managed 3 nights of gaming a week was in high school.
 
But this place is different, a whole other vibe. There is a mentality here where any work should be done as little as possible, any play should be done to the furthest degree allowable by man and law.
 
The gamers here are the real deal; human beings, not walking freak factories, not rejects from the marginalia of society but fairly regular guys or gals (most of them) who somehow manage to dedicate huge hours to the game and yet still pursue other lives. But everyone in this country is like that, they somehow manage to get up at eight in the morning, work till eight p.m., then party till four a.m.
 
Personally, I blame the "yerba mate". I'm drinking it right now. One sip of this stuff and your eyes light up like christmas flares.  And I'm drinking the ultra light stuff ("la selva, para hepaticos", for those who know such things), I dare not try to drink the real deal ("canarias"). Trying that is just begging for my heart to start pounding and my limbs to shake to the point where actually typing would become a sharp impossibility, as much due to the loss of motor functions as to psychological issues; my mind just wouldn't be in it, never minding that my body would not be able to handle it from the trembling.
 
Mate is the southern end of South America's answer to coca leaves. Made from herbs originally native to the jungles of paraguay, yerba mate has been drunk by the indians for untold centuries, and has wholeheartedly been adopted by spanish culture. In particular the Uruguayans. I mean, the Argentinians drink it, with a bit of sugar to cut the intense bitterness, during tea time; but that sort of thing is for wimps and failed investors, Uruguayans are made of sterner stuff than that. They parade down the street with great honking gourds (argentinians often make their gourds of metal, while Uruguayan gourds are always real gourds, twice the size of Argentina's, sometimes encased in the ballsack of a bull), filled to the brim with mate so there's just enough space to stick the metal "bombilla" straw, in one hand and a thermos filled with almost-boiling water in the other. They drink the damned stuff virtually 24 hours a day, steeping the leaves with boiling water then sucking the infusion through the metal straw.
Yes, they drink near-boiling water through a metal straw. Figure out the physics, people..
And they drink it straight. No sugar for them; to a Uruguayan, only the somehow incapacitated (old women, little children and Argentinians) drink it with sugar.
 
Yerba mate is filled with vitamins, minerals, and energy. Lots and lots of energy. When I was up in Canada I'd found some ignorant fools, new-age health-nuts with more hemp underwear than brains, pimping yerba mate as "the health drink for the new millenium"... only problem is that they were selling them in little one-gram teabags. The health freaks were right, but that level of commitment is totally inadequate. Any Uruguayan could tell them: for yerba mate to have any healthy benefits at all, it must be drunk in a huge gourd filled with about a 50 grams of yerba, with boiling water and a metal straw and a bull's ballsack if at all possible. Anything less is just a placebo. Drink one gourdful every three minutes for every waking hour of your day, and call me in the morning.
 
I have wholeheartedly adopted the custom of mate, which between work and roleplay is the only factor, in combination with an ungodly quantity of nicotine (I have as much pipe tobacco in my house as some small tobacconists do), that keeps me from the brink of total collapse.