YouTube Friday: 300

300 posts, that is!

I love milestones like this. I get to take the easy way out and thank all our readers instead of giving you some real information.

Maybe we'll do another contest. On the cusp of some delicious discussion about game design (some between our friends, some on a recording of LARPcast soon to be posted, and some on various forums), I though I'd pose a challenge for our readers.

Your quest, should you choose to accept it, is to come up with a LARP rules set for Frank Miller's 300. Here are the guidelines.

- Must be Focused Around Frank Miller's 300.
I'm terrible at history (Jenn covers that pretty well). I only care about stabbing dudes with spears. Historical accuracy be damned.

- Must be Boffer Combat.
I know it goes without saying, but I really don't see Gerard Butler running around rock-paper-scissoring immortals.

- Rule Set Can be No Longer than 10 Pages.
I know you want to make it as complex and intricate as possible, but let's not put more thought into the ruleset than was put into the actual plotline of the movie. This is an action game. Beat ass.

- Make It Look Nice.
If you send me a 10 page wall of text, you won't win. I suggest you make the formatting look nice and include pictures if possible*. If you don't have pictures of your friends in Spartan gear, just draw some shit is MS paint. Mad points for MS paint.

- Deadline: Sept. 12th.
You've got 1 month to put your stuff together. Anything that hasn't been submitted to us by then won't have a chance to win (but we'd gladly look at your work anyways and hit each other by the rules you have dictated!)

To submit your entry to this contest, send an email to larp.ohio@gmail.com with the subject "This is Sparta" including the following:
- Your Name
- What LARPs you currently play
- Your favorite moment in the movie 300
- The rule set (preferred delivery is in Google Docs, but .doc or .txt
- A paragraph, no longer than 100 words, on what makes your ruleset the best and/or what makes it unique.

The winner will get:
- Their ruleset publicly posted on Google Docs and be forever shared throughout the land**.
- Our buddies will play at least one session of a game using your rules, and write a bitchin' review on it.
- Mad bragging rights.
- Maybe some giveaways if we can get some free stuff (this was spur of the moment)

GAME ON.

Finally, for those of you here to see a video, don't worry. Since I couldn't find any good Sparta LARPs, I had two possible choices that fit the 300 theme. The first one was the scene from 300 where he kicks the Persian in the chest. The other option was a campy "This is Sparta remix." Guess which one I chose!



Now that I've offended all our readers with this video, I won't have to worry about what to do at 500 posts.

*Any copyrighted pictures included in rulesets will be removed and won't add value in regards to the contest. You won't be disqualified, but original pictures will get you further.

**You give us the limited right to post the ruleset online and to play the game personally. We will not profit from your work, and should you choose to try and sell it, you will retain full rights (but please send us a copy of your rules!).

And the Winners Are...

Thanks go out to everyone who sent in their information for drawings last week. I've had time to process the results and have come up with the list using a sophisticated method to determine the winners *cough*excelrandfunction*cough*. And here is the list, with the order of the winners!

1. Michael Jones - Free WAR Weekend
2. Eric Kociecki - Free Cinci Weekend
3. Mark Henry - Free WAR Gameday
4. Ben Mathis - Free NCN Weekend
5. Chrsitine Bair - Free Cinci Gameday
6. Vincent Errico - Free WAR Gameday
7. David Jurns - Free Exiles Weekend
8. Tera Boster - Free NCN Gameday
9. Angela Kroger - Free Cinci Gameday
10. Mark Mora - Free NCN Gameday
11. Sarah Canton - Pass
12. Jordan Selch - Free Wastelands Weekend (New Player)
Alternate: John Siemon - 10 Free Rads (Wastelands)

Congratulations to our winners!

Here's the way we're going to do this thing.

I'm sending an email out to all the winners to let them know that they've won, and each person will have 24 hours to pick their prize before I move on to the next person. Once a person selects their prize, I'll move on to the next, while editing this post with what that person selected.

In the case that the people at the bottom of the list do not want any of the remaining prizes, I have selected alternates to receive prizes, who will be contacted separately.

For reference, here is the list of prizes (which will be edited as prizes are selected.

- Free weekend at Cinci - Taken by Eric
- Free weekend at NCN (Non-transferable) - Taken by Ben
- Free weekend at WAR - Taken by Michael
- Free weekend at Exiles - Taken by Dave
- Free weekend at Wastelands (New Player Only) - Taken by Jordan
- Free game day at Cinci (2) - Taken by Christine, Angela
- Free game day at NCN (2) - Taken by Tera, Mark M.
- Free game day at WAR (2) - Taken by Mark H., Vincent
- 10 Rads at Wastelands (Non-transferable) - Taken by John

Anniversary! Prizes! No Tuberculosis!

Today, we're celebrating the Spirit Journey Formation Anniversary for the LARP Ohio blog. Sunday will be 1 year for the blog, making it official that this blog lasted at least 10 months longer than expected.

We've had our ups and our downs. Discussions a plenty. Maybe an argument here or there.

Tim asked me "Now that you've done a year of LARP blogging, what do you plan on doing next?" To which I responded, "I'm going to Disney World." But seriously. I am. And I leave on Sunday.

ENOUGH ABOUT MY AWESOME VACATION.

So, here's some statistics for the blog.

Posts: 254
Posts/Week: 4.875 (pretty close to the goal of 5 per week)
Views: 35,000+ (since Google started tracking it in July)
Comments: 1025+
Quantity of Rock: Too much rock for one hand.


But seriously, none of this could be possible without the support of the local players and especially the local games.

The local games,
The ones who are going to give you stuff,
For free,
Free stuff,
Free stuff for you,
Get it?

We're giving 12 prizes away, courtesy of the local games. 12 prizes! Total value is worth more than $350! Interested? Better read on!

YouTube Friday: Do You Smell That?

But really, do you smell that? Smell's like something big is coming. For those of you that have been reading for a while now, you might want to glance back and look in the archives for when this all started. Looks like we're getting pretty darn close to one year on this blog. That only calls for one thing. As Rick James would say:

It's a Celebration, Bitches!


Anyways, we're going to be giving away some totally sweet prizes, so all of our readers should get ready for a contest!

In another note, I will be out of pocket the week of June 13th, so I'm putting the call out for guest posts. If you've got something you've always wanted to say regarding LARP, but didn't want to go through all the hassle of finding a readership, setting up a blog, and getting your name forever associated with LARP, now's your chance. Send all drafts of your posts to larp.ohio@gmail.com. Keep them clean without malicious content and your post might very well be posted on this very blog.

Finally, since it's Friday, I guess I should do a YouTube video. However, quality videos have been really scarce as of late, so I thought I'd go off the board for a thousand. This video even makes the title of this post make sense!

Enjoy your porkchop sandwiches!

And the Winner is...

Thank you to everyone who entered in the contest for the latex weapon. The lucky winner is...

Stephen L.

Congratulations on your new weapon! Send me an email at LARP.Ohio@gmail.com and we'll figure out the best way to get you your prize.

Thank you to everyone who entered the contest. This won't be the last contest we run, so keep on reading!

PS: We still need a LARP Ohio Logo that could be used for the blog and for shirts. If we pick your logo, you'll get a free shirt! Send all proposed designs (or design questions) to LARP.Ohio@gmail.com!

Contest Time!

Thanks to our dedicated readers, we broke the threshold of 4000 hits in 100 posts. As promised, we're going to have a little contest.

A while back, I was given a few weapons to review from LRPSTORE.com. At the time, I had been writing for Alltern8.com regularly, and he wanted to know what I thought of their weapons. All in all, I like the foam they use. It's dense enough to prevent damage from the core, but at the same time, they're soft enough that they don't hurt. What really impressed me was the Axe they sent, which some of you may have seen, as Tim used them for his Golems in this year's Lumberton plot.

It just so happens that one of the swords saw no more than preliminary use, and we're going to give that away to one of our lucky readers.

Here are the rules:

- Anyone who is not a writer for the blog or a relative of a writer for the blog may enter.
- Entries can come in one of two ways

1. Send an email to larp.ohio.contest@gmail.com that includes your name, LARPs that you play, and how you found the blog.
2. Like us on facebook.

- Each person can have up to two entries (one from email, one from Facebook)
- Entries must be made by Midnight on Sunday, Novermber 7th.

From those entries, a winner will be drawn at random (or pseudo-random for you computer nerds). If you win, we'll contact you and figure out the best way to get you the sword, whether it's shipping or having it hand delivered by one of the bloggers.

But there's more!

In addition, we're looking for some sort of Logo/Graphic for LARP Ohio that could be used for the banner as well as for a T-shirt. The logo could be multiple colors, but for the sake of T-shirts would need to have a black/white design. If we pick your logo, we'll give you a shout-out and you'll get a free shirt (once they become available).

Logos can be sent to larp.ohio@gmail.com with the word "Logo" in the subject.

Good Luck and have a great weekend. Hope to see you out at NCN!

Webstats, Contest, Attention Whoring, Oh My!

So I've got this counter on the bottom of the page that is run by www.statcounter.com, which gives me some good feedback about the health of the blog. It gives me information such as how many page loads I get, how many unique visitors, how many returning visitors, search engine keywords... blah, blah, blah.

But what is most interesting is search engine hits I get. Most of the recent ones were searching for larp ohio blog, but one in particular from the UK caught my fancy.

"Avatar Live Role Play Equipment"

If you're looking for L.A.R.P. Equipment, I'm sorry that I couldn't be of more help. We'll endeavor to get some in the future. But maybe Mr. Costume can help!



Anyways, I appreciate all the vistors we're getting and all the great feedback we're seeing through the comments. In fact, if this keeps up, I think we might have to have a give-away.

Let's make a deal. If we've got 4000 unique page views by our 100th post, we'll do a contest and give some gear away.

Not sure what the contest will be yet nor what the prizes will be, but it's going to be awesome. So tell your friends and start linking this blog on forums - especially you Alliance players!

Edit: For the record, unique page views are tracked via the counter at the bottom of the page. So that needs to read at least 4000 before the 100th post is up. I expect it to be about a month and a half, but it might be less, since we've got Russ contributing now.

Edit 2: I just realized that we're now on the first page if you search for LARP Blog. Good job!