Dice-based "uniform" ideas needed

[Guest darkpiranha]

 

Your ideas wanted!

 

The tl;dr version is that I'm looking for interesting ways to present a six-sided die as the 'player' upon which team-related branding, logos, etc could be created like in any real sport template.  Any items or 'gear' need to incorporate something like the image of the six-sided die above as part of the template.  If there's a 'helmet' it needs to be one that a six-sided die could wear.  But in this sport, dice teams are almost more like thoroughbred horses.  It's a single entity that competes in races.  But they are also considered like a 'team'.  Just no team members or players.  

 

If you have any clever ways a cube could be displayed in a sports template, send them my way.  No idea is too silly.  But I'm taking this very seriously.  I'm not wanting actual templates sent to me, as that's something I plan on creating myself, but I'll gladly accept any visualizations you might have.  

 

Thanks in advance!

 

 

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For those of you who find this sort of sport/league creation interesting (like me), here's the way too longer version of what I'm looking for.  

 

 

After years of lurking and commenting on this forum, with only a few actual bits of content posted, I'm finally ready to have some fun with my Magnum Opus series.  It's going to be probably uninteresting to the vast majority of the people here, but it's something I'm going to have fun with for the next several years.  It's going to combine many of my little hobbies and things that aesthetically or sportistically please me, from logo design, to league history, to stadium creation, to uniform design, to simulating sports, to creating team merchandise, to cool data visualization, to trading cards, to book design.  Yes, it's ridiculously ambitious.  I've got it all more or less lined out, there's just one aspect that's giving me fits right now.  And that's the way I can present a uniform or jersey in this fictional sport I'm creating.

 

From the subject and header graphic above, you have probably guessed it has something to do with dice.  You are correct.  But it's not just using dice to simulate the results of this sport.  The dice ARE the sport.   

 

The generic term for my fake sport is "Dice Racing", and it's as basic as that.  I roll a lot of dice (or simulate it using a complex spreadsheet) and tabulate the results.  Yes, I realize this is stupid, but you just have to go with me on this.  I first created this game/league/hobby/antfarm 30 years ago, back in 1986, as something to do while I was waiting for my turn in role-playing games.  It started off as just rolling dice while bored (that RPG used as many as 30 dice at a time, so I always had a big pile of them to fiddle with), but then I started getting interested in which number came up most out of that thirty dice.  And then keeping track of which numbers did better over time.  And then creating a 'standings'.  And then codifying a league structure.  And then assigning team names to the numbers.  Etc.  As these things go, it's evolved and grown over the years until it's become the ridiculous entity it is today, which you will see.  In fact, back in 2005, it was looking for cool team names and logos to use for some of the teams in my league that first led me here to Sportslogos.net. (it all comes back around).  

 

So, what I need YOU to help with:

 

In the world of this sport, there are basically sponsored Dice Teams or Dice Clubs.  A typical race or game has 54 dice being rolled, with the numbers (1-6) being placed in their column and tabulated at the end.  Each number in that race will have a team assigned to it, such as the Piranhas assigned to the number 6.  

 

So in essence, there are no "players" in this sport.  There's just the entity of the Dice Club.  This club has an identity of some kind, which is basically the team name.  Generally these were real sports team names, especially at the beginning, such as the original named lineup including "Bears", "Dolphins", "Canadiens" and "Celtics", but have evolved to be made-up team names (such as many created here in SportsLogos) as well as more soccer-style non-mascot names such as "1836" (the Houston-based team, 1836 being the year of Texas Independence), "Bedrock DT" (the Flinstsones-based team, with the DT standing for Dice Team, in soccer "FC" parlance).  There's nearly 1000 teams making up this massive association at this point, so there are styles of names all over the map, based on a nearly infinite number of things.

With the team being a vague "entity", they've generally fallen under the basic concept of being like a thoroughbred race horse.  Which is appropriate, as they are racing.  

 

So that's where things have clogged up for me.  I want to create something filling in for what is normally a jersey or uniform or helmet in other sports.  In this sport, there's just the dice.  No people.  

 

The graphic of the die posted above is how I visually see a die being represented in most instances.  I like that angle because it makes a basic hexagonal shape, which flows nicely with everything in the league being based on the number six.  

 

My first thought is to just color the dice in team colors, but that's kind of limiting.  You have the faces of the die, and the number pips on the sides.  That's two colors.  You could have each face of the die be a different one of the teams' dominant colors, but you'll only see three faces at any given time, which is visually boring really quickly.  Plus there's the matter of logos being needed to be represented.  

 

My second thought is to double-down on the horse-racing metaphor, and introduce "Racing Silks" as part of the visual presentation.  In my team template, this could be in the form of a banner behind the featured die, or maybe it's draping a pedestal that the die is sitting on.  

 

My third thought is to really embrace the silliness of the entire league (the big inter-league championship game is called the Super Roll.  Every few seasons, a massive gathering of teams compete in the Rollympics.  Another regular tournament is the Rolled Cup.  You get the idea.  I've got dozens of similar dice/rolling puns).  So maybe create a square-ish "helmet" or cap or something that sits on top of the die's 'head'. Or maybe it's a square or hexagonal thing that hangs below the die.  All while incorporating a racing silk or banner.  I don't want to make the dice into people, with arms and legs, though.  The square/cube aesthetic will be the driving force at all times.  

 

Bottom line, from a graphic design perspective, I want something that provides an interesting shape or container in which to place logos and stripes and color combos and such.  One of my favorite parts of this Concepts Forum is seeing all the unique ways people fill the shape of a football helmet, or a baseball uniform, everything from minimalistic to gaudy.  I'd like the basic idea of this "uniform" to be simple, but also versatile.  I want it to be instantly recognizable as the 'gear' that this sport uses, but I don't want it to necessarily look like anything that already exists for other sports.  That's what I love so much about Yakball and the other made-up sports.  It's just fun to see different types of containers and constraints placed on a design.  

 

Some Iconography, visuals, and themes connected to this sport that could be mined for ideas.  

Cubes.  

Hexagons.  

Dots (like on a die).  

The number six.  

The various facings on a die (the fact that there are six sides/faces on a die)

Tracks/lanes (like a track and field track).  

Horse racing.

Auto racing (especially sponsorship/branding of cars)

Racing of any kind.

Stables or Racing Teams (such as Bob Baffert's Racing Stable, or Team Penske auto racing.)

Lineages (such as thoroughbreds having offspring that go on to race).   (yes, in this sport, teams can go out to 'stud' and have offspring that bring further glory to the family name).

 

 

The sport of Dice Racing also attempts to incorporate nearly every other sport into its world, at least thematically.  The kickoff to any season is the Roll Call, which is like a cross between the FA Cups in national soccer leagues and with the NCAA basketball tournament, meaning that every single team in the entire sport (nearly a thousand at this point) gets a chance to compete every season (all done through computers, obviously).  The winners move on to the Big Leagues, filling the spots of the newly-relegated teams from the previous season.  Each of the Big Leagues (there are two leagues, one historic, and one upstart) features three divisions in which there is soccer-style Promotion/Relegation.  Three teams in each league get Relegate out of the league entirely and sent to Exile (which is a sort of "Phantom Zone" where all the exiled teams compete for a chance to earn a single slot in the Roll Call, hoping to make it back to the Big Leagues.)  The winner of the A Division is named the Champion of that league.  The two champions then compete in the special Super Roll, much like the original Super Bowl featured the winners of the AFL and NFL.  The winners of the six divisions (three in each of the two Big Leagues) compete in the Rolled Series.  How we get there is that each season has ten races/games, which determines the champion.  In each 54-dice race, any team/number that accumulates 10 or more dice is credited with a Win.  Wins are worth two points in the standings.  If that team also happens to be the highest-scoring team, it's awarded a First, which counts as an additional point in the standings.  Getting exactly 9 in a race counts as a Tie, which is based on the idea that if all six numbers (1-6) all roll the exact same number of dice out of 54 dice, it comes out to 9.  A typical winning points total in a ten-race season is 15, based on around six Wins and three Firsts.  

 

Over time, the concept of "Six" has become one of the primary ideas in the league.  It starts with their being six sides on a die, of course, so six teams compete in a typical race.  The "Six" motif continues in that the world of the sport isn't based on nations, but six "Kingdoms", which is a general theme-based grouping of teams.  These six are "Genre", which incorporates all teams themed around sci-fi, fantasy, animation, comic books (all stuff I love and felt it deserved its own unique grouping.), "Entertainment", which is based on all other non-genre movies, TV shows, music, etc, "Nature", which is where all animal-based teams go if they aren't affiliated with any other genre, "Historical", which is where all monarchy-based team names (like "Pharaohs") go, as well as military-based team names, crime-based team names, and future tech-based team names.  "Sports" is where all actual sports teams go, which is anything that's based on an existing real team (such as the "Midway Monsters" being an offspring of the Chicago Bears).  Around a third of the 1000 teams are directly affiliated with one of these five Kingdoms.  The remainder are Free Agents, and are affiliated with the sixth Kingdom, the "Independent States".  The membership of this particular Kingdom varies from year to year, based on which Free Agents earn the right to represent the Independent States.  In a nutshell, in the final Roll Call lineup each season, the 1000 teams are whittled down to 216 who are invited to the Roll Call.  This 216 is made up of each Kingdom sending 36 teams which are drawn from their directly-affiliated teams.  The Independent States has a separate giant race where the 700 or so Free Agent teams are whittled down to 36.  Two of the Independent States' 36 slots are made up of Exiles.  Each of the six Kingdoms crowns a single winner in Roll Call, of which those are promoted into the Big Leagues filling the six (three in each League) slots that were just relegated.  Furthering the "Six" motif, each Kingdom is made up of Six "Houses", which are basically themed sub-divisions within that themed Kingdom, such as "Scales" in the Nature Kingdom for all reptile-based team names or "Humor" within the Entertainment Kingdom, or "Football" within the Sports Kingdom.  Houses can be further sub-divided into six "Minor Houses" where each of these even more focused themings will compete to represent one slot in a House.

 

(following all this, those of you who bravely kept reading?)

 

The beauty of this sport is that allows me to continually add new teams as I come across them.  There are several dozen teams based on logos or ideas presented here in the Concept Forums.  The most recent team name I came up with and added to the database is "Space Pants", based on the recent SNL skit.  Any real or fictional team, or animal, or fake organization in a comic book, or anything you can think of is eligible for being added to the list.  It's always exciting to see one of these random teams emerge from the quagmire that is the yearly Roll Call event, and get called up to the Big Leagues, where they have a chance to work their way up from Division C to Division A.  Many teams get immediately relegated right back out into Exile (three of six Division C teams get relegated each season), so it's a pretty big deal when a team moves up the ladder and starts making a name for itself.  

 

While most fake sport or league creators ask that people not send in their ideas for team names, I actually hunger for them!  If it's not one that's already in the database, I'm happy to add any cool new team name to the Free Agent pool.  Even if it's an existing name, it can be easily modified (usually) to make it unique.  So, much like Ethiopian food relief, if you send me a team name you'd like to add to the database, every season, I'll send you a virtual postcard letting you know how your team did.  At minimum, every team competes in the Free Agent Draft Race and/or Roll Call.  My fun dream is that enough people submit teams that I can create a Minor House (The Creamer League) where all these teams compete directly against each other.  And if anyone wants to run their own "Big League", I can send over the giant spreadsheet file that serves as the backbone of this entire bloated mess.  Those teams can even be added to my giant statistical results database, where all teams can be evenly and fairly ranked.

 

The reason why an even/fair ranking is even possible is because at its heart, Dice Racing is utterly and perfectly random.  No team has any strengths or weaknesses that modify a result like in all other sports simulations.  In any 54 dice race, every number (1,2,3,4,5,6) has an equal chance at being rolled as any other.  Therefore, a score of 19 being rolled is a big deal, no matter what level of competition it was rolled in.  So a team on the absolute lowest level of the Roll Call ladder scoring 20 in a single race (and breaking the record) is as valid and arguably more important than a team scoring 19 in a League Championship game.  It's all even.  The only thing changing the 'value' of the result is the context.  All things being equal, any accomplishment made in Division A is more impressive than the same thing being done in Division B or C or in a Roll Call.  All sports is just numbers.  It's only the contextual value we place on those numbers where the epic stories and figures of sports emerges.   Dice Racing allows for a relatively simple way to simulate the entire scope of sports stories.  Who's going to be the first Roll Call winner to advance all the way and win a League Championship?  Which teams will emerge as the Yankees or Patriots or UConn Women's Basketball Team?  Or which team will emerge as the Secretariat, being the fastest team of all time and beating all comers?  Which team will emerge from Exile and make it back to the Roll Call and then back to the Big Leagues and then WIN the League Championship?  Which Offspring will carry on their family's legacy and bring new glory to the family?   Which Kingdom will somehow dominate among the six?  Which House among the 36?  Which teams will Retire and move on to the Roll of Fame?  Which teams will do well enough over a period of seasons to get invited to the big inter-season events such as the Rollympics, the Rolled Cup, the Face-Off, or the Champion's League?  

 

At it's absolute basic level, Dice Racing is really nothing more than Cool Logo Racing.  Which one will emerge as the best?

 

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So if you have any fun ideas for how I can make a D6 feel like it's a member of a team, send them my way!

 

 

[timberwolf]

This was a long read. I can't think of any ideas on the spot, never really thought of this before. So this is similar to Windell's Dodgeball Coalition, right? With some minor tweaks.

 

I'll be following this around, seems interesting and I sure haven't seen anything like it before.

[Guest darkpiranha]

Dodgeball Coalition is probably the closest thing to what i want to do.  However, I'm not intending to design 1000 logos.  Some, but its not a focus.  League logos, yes.  

 

I'm also wanting to incorporate merchandise like Sparky Chewbarky.  I'm also wanting to do a yearbook like some have done, so I can develop my in design skills.

 

Because its based on actual dice rolling, I want to have fun with making physical components,  such as an elaborate dice track.

[chcarlson23]

I KINDA read all of that, and it seems like you need some team names? How about some dice game names? My favorite is Farkle. 

 

EDIT: I GOT IT! The Fresno Farkle!!!! 

[Guest darkpiranha]

3 hours ago, chcarlson23 said:

I KINDA read all of that, and it seems like you need some team names? How about some dice game names? My favorite is Farkle. 

 

EDIT: I GOT IT! The Fresno Farkle!!!! 

 

 

I like it!  However, I realize again that even though I made a clear warning my post was too long, and tried to keep the relevant info confined to the top, that it was still WAY too long, lol.  Tomorrow I'll make a new post that is truly short and just asking what I need at this time, with none of the deeper context added in.  

 

But the Fresno Farkle is definitely being added to the roster.  I don't NEED more teams, just that more teams are more fun and my league is set up to handle an infinite number of teams.