How do you make a sport that doesn't exist?

[Anorux]

Okay, I know I’ve been bringing worldbuilding up a lot, but I’ll explain:
I’ve been worldbuilding a world that anthro dragons and humans populate. I’ve been doing it for…three years now, and I occasionally have an issue.
How would one build a more dragon-centered sport? I know this sounds stupid, but right now I’m doing culture and I’ve never done this before, and I thought maybe someone would know.
Maybe I could use them breathing fire/ice as part of it?
The sport only features dragons. think of the dragons as basically dragonborn from D&D but with wings/tails

 

[Woollybear]

Keep it easy for the reader by starting with what our sports usually have in common.

Teams. Scoring systems. Sometimes gear or uniforms. Often a ball, or else some other object that is not alive but needs to hit a goal. A defined field of play. Often, officials. Penalties. Fans. Playoffs.

You can change some of these things, but it seems to me that you'd want the sport to feel like a sport.

So with dragons, you could have the field be in the air, for example. The ball could be an egg, or flammable, or a human?, and accidentally flaming the ball gets you a penalty. The gear could enhance or restrict dragon nature.

Rules: e.g. Only three flames allowed per play, and so on.

From the larger world, penalties and rewards could tie into big cultural things or other. The winning dragon is king of the city for the upcoming year.

It's fun to mess around with ideas. I definitely think fire is good low-hanging fruit. Start with typical aspects of most games, that's my advice.

 

[Unimportant]

What do your dragons value as a culture? Often sports are built around those things -- accuracy (sharpshooting), working as a team (rubgy), hand-eye coordination (cricket/baseball), physical prowess (weightlifting), combat (martial arts), etc.

 

[Lundgren]

Sports seems to consist of one or more components of "peak performance," skill, and team work. Even if there is skill included in say running, it is mainly a peak performance kind of sport. Orienteering adds a skill element as reading the map and planning where to run, a good map reader can outperform someone faster and being in better shape, but is bad at handling the map.

So, to add something original, maybe base it on that but with the abilities the dragons have. Maybe flying a track, and hitting targets with their breath weapon? Time added for each target missed. Air-polo. Like water-polo, but in the air. Some sort of dragon martial-arts sport?

 

[CMBright]

Dragons acting as zambonis to maintain the ice hockey surface.

What are their physical, mental, magical abilities? The olympics go back a couple thousand years. Races, relay races, tossing heavy things, tossing light things, wrestling and so on.

If they have breath weapons, target "shooting" is an option. There are triathalons with swimming, biking and running, maybe change biking to free rock climbing. Or a Biathalon with racing and target "shooting" at intervals. Orienteering would be one to play with. Magic might open up a variation of geocatching, instead of GPS coordinates to find the prize, use some kind of magic spell.

The Irregular at Magic High School has magic used in a school sports competition. I stream that anime on Crunchyroll. The Nine Schools Competition episodes might spark ideas since they are competitions where students use magic as part of the sport. Like battle boards, a water track that the competitors race along on surf boards using magic to propel themselves and to interfer with competitors. Or pillar break where they try to break the opponent's ice pillars before their own are broken.

If these dragons are solitary, other than necessity, I would not expect team sports.

For team sports, there are tips already. Start with a goal. Add limitations. Have a way to score. Once upon a time, Mom created a team sport or game as a fundraiser. Four person team, one on a gurney, the others pushing it, first team across the finish line wins. With a second prize for best team costumes.

Another place of inspiration would be just about any traditional fair. People compete at everything from tossing logs (yes, it's a thing) to who makes the best jar of pickles. Eating contests are another thing. Which dragon has the largest horde or brought the most valuable trinket to the gathering. Thinking of lumberjack competitions, maybe competitions where the first to destroy a target wins.

If they have domestic animals, there are sports like agility or steeplechase that have individuals and animals working together.

 

[Lea123]

I would take sports and alter the rules / dynamics to fit a dragon where I could. Flying in particular would add an element of challenge to quite a few 'human' sports.

I've always liked the sound of Dragon jousting... the falling off the dragon element would cause such tension in the crowds. Probably an elite sport, unless the riders had parachutes... Although anthropomorphic dragons similar to D&D probably wouldn't work with that.

If they can fly, what about some form of triathlon that only dragons could do? Make it a big once a year thing like the London marathon? Flying through hoops or various narrow spaces and around obstacles would add an element of challenge, especially if it's a blind course (as in they have no idea what they'll face on the day but also blind folding them could work for another type of challenge...) Perhaps the glory is in the time element of it and it could have some nasty injuries too if they don't change formation in time.

Not sure if you've ever seen Hole in the Wall that was aired on the BBC a few years ago (there's a few clips on Youtube) but that could be quite good for dragons!

There's always archery, where they have to fly to get to certain targets.

Figure skating / dance type things but in the air.

My brain has just whispered limbo but I'm not sure how that would work being in the air. Still, you never know!

 

[CMBright]

My brain has just whispered limbo but I'm not sure how that would work being in the air. Still, you never know!

Instead of lowering the bar, they make the gap to fly through narrower?

 

[Lea123]

Instead of lowering the bar, they make the gap to fly through narrower?

Oh my goodness, yes!

This could lead to a whole load of body image obsessed dragons not wanting to be too fat so they can fit between the bars...

 

[CMBright]

For a game I created, I started with polo and lacrosse. Then I started thinking about the team, how goals were scored, how teams could prevent goals. Then added a team position just to cause choas and interfer with the other team. Imagine adding paintball to a game of lacrosse on horseback.

 

[Anorux]

Okay, I have another question, how would I use ice breath in this?

 

[CMBright]

Okay, I have another question, how would I use ice breath in this?

What is the sport?

Freeze a target. A stationary target (archery, hit as close to center as possible) is easier than a moving target (skeet shooting).

Freeze the path to trip opponents.

Use ice breath to create ice balls, use balls to score in some way. It might be getting the balls into a goal of some kind or by hitting opponents in a dodgeball type game.

Create ice walls to box in opponents, trap prey or create a fort to defend in a game of capture the flag.

Use ice breath to create platforms for parquor or aerial gymnastics.

At least those seem the most logical at the moment.

 

[Woollybear]

Maybe dragon sport involves killing the target.

Maybe humans are the target.

 

[Lundgren]

Okay, I have another question, how would I use ice breath in this?

Maybe something like curling, but the ground is high friction unless smoothing it with ice? And it is warm, so it melts quickly?

 

[Lundgren]

Depending on how much and often they can create ice, maybe you could take some inspiration of Frozone in The Incredibles, and think of some of the stuff in a sport context.

 

[CMBright]

Another possibility is competing by using ice breath to create sculptures. A panel of judges scores each sculpture, highest score wins.

 

[Woollybear]

Another possibility is competing by using ice breath to create sculptures. A panel of judges scores each sculpture, highest score wins.

Competing teams use fire to demolish.

 

[Anorux]

Here's what I have so far...

Sport: Goreball

Teams of six, evenly divided between dragons that breathe ice and fire.

game is in the sky, in an arena a hundred feet in the air. If a dragon goes below 50ft, it's considered a foul. The "goreball" is a human skull dipped in steel. the objective for both teams is to get to the other team's goal, which is a large platform for dragons to throw the skull on. That's one point. Whoever gets ten points wins.

now, fire can raise the platform, and ice can lower it. no idea how that would work yet. Anything I can improve on?

 

[CMBright]

Here's what I have so far...

Sport: Goreball

Teams of six, evenly divided between dragons that breathe ice and fire.

game is in the sky, in an arena a hundred feet in the air. If a dragon goes below 50ft, it's considered a foul. The "goreball" is a human skull dipped in steel. the objective for both teams is to get to the other team's goal, which is a large platform for dragons to throw the skull on. That's one point. Whoever gets ten points wins.

now, fire can raise the platform, and ice can lower it. no idea how that would work yet. Anything I can improve on?

Is it anything goes or are there rules on what they can burn/freeze? Is flaming an opponent a foul? What about icing an opponent's wings?

There is a minimum height, is there a maximum height? What about out of bounds to the sides or behind the goals?

Unless the ball has magic, it's going to tend to fall. What if the ball hits the ground? Will the dragons be throwing the ball with their hands/claws? Will the dragons need any kind of protection or will natural defenses be enough? Will there be penalties if fights break out? What happens if a dragon melts the metal coating off the skull?

How large is the platform? The larger the area, the easier it is to hit. Are there walls or nets around the goal? If not, does the goreball need to stop and rest on the platform to count as a point? If the ball touches, then skitters over the edge of the platform, does it still count as a point?

Is there a goaltender to try to prevent the opposing team from scoring? Are there referees? If a ref calls a penalty, is one team down a player for a period? Is the player out of the game? Does the player have a handicap for the remainder of the game, like being unable to use their dominant hand/claw to toss the ball?

And at the end of the day, you only need enough for you to be able to write it well enough for the reader to follow the action.

 

[frimble3]

Sports seems to consist of one or more components of "peak performance," skill, and team work. Even if there is skill included in say running, it is mainly a peak performance kind of sport. Orienteering adds a skill element as reading the map and planning where to run, a good map reader can outperform someone faster and being in better shape, but is bad at handling the map.

So, to add something original, maybe base it on that but with the abilities the dragons have. Maybe flying a track, and hitting targets with their breath weapon? Time added for each target missed. Air-polo. Like water-polo, but in the air. Some sort of dragon martial-arts sport?

And, what counts as a foul? Hitting another player? Freezing/burning them?

 

[Lundgren]

And, what counts as a foul? Hitting another player? Freezing/burning them?

That's a good question. And how severe is the foul considered to be. After all, what might give three minutes in the penalty box in hockey might get a life-time ban in another sport.

 

[Cobalt Jade]

Do they reoutinely torture and enslave humans?

How about something like putting a human into a giant maze, and prodding them along the right path from above (which the dragons can see because they are hovering but the human's can't) with blasts of hot or ice breath? The art in it being painful enough to motivate the human but not enough to make them unable to run. Yes, I have twisted mind.

 

[frimble3]

That's a good question. And how severe is the foul considered to be. After all, what might give three minutes in the penalty box in hockey might get a life-time ban in another sport.

Given that all the players are dragons, I imagine the scale of penalties might be more in line with hockey penalties, in that violence is sort of expected, if not actually encouraged.

 

[CMBright]

The National Hockey League does work to make the sport as safe as possible, given you have two hundred pound plus men zipping around an ice surface on knife blades and swinging sticks at a frozen rubber disk.

Would a dragon getting hit in an unprotected head be the equavalent of a human getting hit with a ping pong ball or a bowling ball? I'd imagine wing membranes to be relatively fragile compared to claws that can tear through the hide of tough prey animals. I can imagine using fire breath to create flares bright enough to temporarily blind or using ice to increase wing weight.

I can also imagine chaos off the "field" by fans or players arguing about rules if there are variations in different regions. "Are the refs blind! Why in our region, that would/wouldn't be a penalty!"

 

[Bitterboots]

Maybe dragon sport involves killing the target.

Maybe humans are the target.

That's what I was thinking.

 

[Anorux]

I will say, so far hating humans isn't a bad idea. What the story is for them is they were sort of a medieval kingdom, and they got invaded by a technologically superior fascist nation, that subjected them and forced them to pay heavy taxes and have a puppet government (think of japans invasion of Manchuria back in the 1930's), so it's natural they might. No idea how to integrate that, however.