DCPI for Dummies

[Galen]

This is designed to act as a guide to starting a fantasy drum corps, based on some recent suggestions we've had on the board. I hope that all aspiring directors find it useful.

I: The basics

To create a fantasy drum corps, you need the following things:

Division ranking

Location

Tour schedule

Captions

II: Division ranking

You pick your own division ranking (1, 2, 3 or senior) when you create your corps. The choice is entirely up to you.

III: Location

When you pick your corps, you have to give it a location. This determines which region you will compete in for the first part of the season. Additionally, you should specify which regional you want your corps to compete in when you sign up (if your corps is in a "border state" that could feasibly go to multiple regional championships).

Your corps can be based anywhere in the world. In the past, corps have come from numerous cities and states in the US (including 1 fictional town). Recently, there has been a small but growing influx of international corps. If you wish to submit an international corps, you will still have to pick which regional you wish to compete in, but you will not be listed as part of that particular region.

IV: Tour schedule

My favorite part. B) When you set up a tour schedule, you are limited to 30 shows for the duration of the season. This does not include the following:

Finals of 2-day events (ie DCPI US Open, DCPI Preview of Champions, etc)

Prelims or finals of Regional Championship shows (1 per region, located in Philadelphia PA, Bloomington IL, Shreveport LA and Salt Lake City UT)

Special "invitation-only" events such as the Tour of Champions show in Whitewater, eg

Any event during finals week

You're free to schedule however you'd like. Most directors tend to be fairly realistic about how they schedule their tours and leave room for rehearsals, free days, etc instead of doing shows every night of the week. They also consider distance; you won't typically see a corps going from, say, Mobile AL to Juneau Alaska in 1 night.

V: Captions

Captions are the crux of DCPI. Simply put, they determine whether you win or lose. Many events, and even championships, have come down to the choice of a single caption or two.

When you pick your captions, you have a certain number of points to work with. The number of points you have depends on the division ranking you chose. The points system is:

Division 1: 125 pts

Division 2: 100 pts

Division 3: 75 pts

Senior: 90 pts

You have 8 different captions to choose a corps for. They are:

GE Visual (GEV)

GE Music (GEM)

Music Brass (MB)

Music Ensemble (ME)

Music Percussion (MP)

Visual Performance (VP)

Color Guard (CG)

Visual Ensemble (VE)

To fill a caption, you choose a real-life drum corps for that particular caption. Each real-life corps is worth a certain number of points, based on how they finished the past season. EG:

Cadets 05= 25 points

Cavaliers 05= 24 points

Phantom 05= 23 points

etc etc.

You do not have to pick the same corps for every caption; you're free to mix it up however you want, as long as you don't exceed the limit of points for your division. You MAY go under budget if you wish (if you find a corps that is a bargain for a particular caption, for instance)

A sample division I caption lineup, using a fictional corps:

Corps name: Trial Lawyers

Director: Dewey Cheetum Andhoue

Location: Boston MA

Division: Division 1

Since Trial Lawyers is from Boston, they'll compete in the East regional and attend the DCPI East regional championship in Philadelphia PA.

Trial Lawyers' director Dewey Cheetem Andhoue is a big fan of corps like Blue Devils, Cadets, Cavaliers, and Bluecoats, so he decides that he'll use those for a lot of his captions.

GEV: CAV05-24: CBC05-25 MB: PR05-23 ME: BD05-22 MP: MS05-20 VP: BD05-22 CG: CBC05-25 VE: BC05-21

Total: 182 points

After taking a look at the total, Dewey realizes that he has exceeded the amount of points he can use, so he makes some revisions.

Trial Lawyers' revised captions:

GEV: BD05-22 GEM: BC05-21 MB: PR05-23 ME: SOA05-14 MP: MS05-20 VP: CAS05-09 CG: MAN05-09 VE: PC05-07

Total: 125 points

As you can see. you can't have a lineup of all high-cost corps, because that would put you over budget. You need to spread the costs around and find lower-valued corps that you think will do well.

VI: Scoring

Your corps gets a "score" at each show it competes in. The dates are set to match the dates on DCI's tour in real life. Your score is based on how the corps you pick for your captions score on that given night.

Example: Our fictional corps, the Trial Lawyers, competes at a show on June 15th, and they have Madison Scouts for your Percussion caption. Let's say that Madison competes at a real show on June 15th, and they get a 13.5 for their drum corps (fairly realistic, since it's early in the season). Since they have Madison for that caption, Trial Lawyers would also get a 13.5 for that night. If Madison went out the next night, lit the field up and got a 15, Trial Lawyers would also get a 15 for that caption, if they're competing.

VII: Generated scores

More often than not, your corps' total score will be a mixture of real and generated scores. Generated scores are scores that you get when the corps you have for a caption is not competing on that night. For instance, Trial Lawyers have Blue Devils for their ME caption. But let's say BD has the night off on June 15th, when Trial Lawyers have their show. In that case, you would receive a generated score for that caption.

Generated scores are designed to reflect how that particular corps MIGHT have scored if they were competing that night. They are determined by a very complex process involving such factors as the date, what part of the season it is, what that corps has scored at recent shows, the flight patterns of birds, darts and a blindfold, the price of tea in China, the strength of the Euro measured against that of the Yen, the probability of finding a working solution to Fermat's Last Theorem, and how much you've donated to DCP lately, among other things. :P

Ok, in reality, it's not THAT complicated, but there are a lot of statistical formulas involved that can be tough to figure out if you're not really good at math and/or Excel (which is why we keep Steve around B))

VII: Changing Captions

Every so often, you'll want to change captions based on how the corps you pick are doing. The process is pretty simple.

For every 5 shows your corps competes in, it earns 1 full extra caption point to use however you'd like. So for instance, after their first 5 shows, Trial Lawyers would be able to use 126 points for their captions instead of 125. This goes on throughout the season, but you can only earn a maximum of 5 extra points during the regular season (finals are a different story).

The times you can change captions vary. For the first part of the season (up until the regional championships), you can change a total of 3 captions a week, once per week. So for instance, if Trial Lawyers changed their captions on June 22nd, they wouldn't be able to change them again until June 29th.

During the 2nd half of the season (after Regional championships), the rules are different. You may make a TOTAL of 10 caption changes, at any time you wish. There is also no limit on the number of changes you can make at once. So for instance, if you had a bad first half of the season, you could wipe the slate clean and start with a totally new set of captions (although you'd only have 2 changes left for the rest of the season). This period runs until the week before finals.

During finals week, a special rule kicks in. For each round your corps advances during finals week, you get an extra point per round to work with. You may also make up to 2 caption changes per round. So for instance, if Trial Lawyers advanced all the way to DCPI finals, they would have earned 3 additional points to use. The catch is, you can't stockpile those points- you MUST use them for each round you get them. Example:

Trial Lawyers advances to Div 1 Quarterfinals. Director Dewey gets an extra point to use for the next round, and may change up to 2 captions. If he makes no changes, however, he LOSES that point and would have to advance to Semifinals to earn another one.

When you change your captions, just look over your caption sheets and fill in the new corps that you want for that caption. Example:

Trial Lawyer's initial captions:

GEV: BD05-22 GEM: BC05-21 MB: PR05-23 ME: SOA05-14 MP: MS05-20 VP: CAS05-09 CG: MAN05-09 VE: PC05-07

Total: 125 points

Since Trial Lawyers have done 5 shows, they have an extra point they can use. After looking over recent DCI scores, Dewey decides to make the following changes:

Trial Lawyer's initial captions:

GEV: BD05-22 GEM: BD05-22 (NEW) MB: SCV05-18 (NEW) ME: CC05-19 (NEW) MP: MS05-20 VP: CAS05-09 CG: MAN05-09 VE: PC05-07

Total: 126 points

As you can see, Dewey has made some changes. He used his extra point to raise his GEM caption, and also decided to raise his ME caption. But to do so, he had to drop his MB caption a bit to still be at the new limit of 126 points. Trial LawyersL will now score based on how their new corps are doing.

VIII: Record keeping

It is very important to keep accurate records of your corps' performance during the course of the season if you are serious about being competitive. Most directors use Excel or similar software to track their corps' progress. A typical spreadsheet will list the tour schedule first, with the results for each show, followed by a list of captions, with a caption score breakdown for each score. Keeping records is especially useful when you change captions- that way, you can see how your corps has been scoring, and which captions you may want to change. It's also good to have your own records, in case there is ever a scoring error (it's been known to happen...)

IX: Extra fun

Those are the basics of DCPI. You can be as active or inactive with your corps as you like. These are some of the things that individual directors have done in the past to help make the activity more fun:

Detailed show announcements: Some directors simply post a list of the songs their corps is playing, and that's fine. Many directors, though, like to go beyond that and create fully-detailed show write-ups that may or may not take a phd to decipher. The more details you include, the more your show "comes to life". Some artistically creative directors have recently started to create their own show posters, similar to what real corps such as Santa Clara or Carolina Crown have done in recent seasons. If you aren't a Michaelangelo but still want to get something to visually "sell" your show, ask around among your fellow directors; somebody will surely be willing to donate some time for you.

Many corps directors also make uniforms for their corps, using original or modified pictures from companies like Fred J Miller, Stanbury, Band Shoppe, and others. These companies' catalogs and databases are easy to find online using Google or another search engine.

Many corps directors create their own corps websites to "advertise" their corps and celebrate their accomplishments. Freewebs.com is an excellent resource for this, because it provides free hosting, an easy creation process and numerous premade templates and styles for you to personalize your website.

Sample corps website:

http://www.freewebs.com/stpetedbc

A few especially proficient directors have arranged their own music for their corps and, in a couple cases, designed their own drill. Typically, you will need very specific (and expensive) software such as Finale or Pyware to do this. There are a few directors who have volunteered their design services on the DCPI board- it's better to ask one of them if they could arrange for you first before you go and plunk down a whole lot of money on software.

X: Closing words

I hope that this has been a helpful guide for you. In closing, I'd like to say:

*Be ACTIVE with your corps! DCPI is much more fun when directors get into the competition, design good shows, and even talk a little (polite) smack on each other! This is supposed to be FUN, but it's up to you to make it fun. :)

*Keep good records! And on top of that, keep in good communication with the executive directors regarding your submissions. Due to the overwhelming popularity of DCPI and the large volume of corps to keep track of, we still get the occasional scoring glitch. Keep good records for yourself, and keep a good sense of patience as well- if there's a mistake, it'll be noticed and fixed within a fair amount of time. This is especially important during the summer season, when we use live scores and have to deal with things like rain-outs, late shows on the west coast, and DCI not being as fast as we'd like in posting results.

*RECRUIT! If you know somebody who'd be interested in starting a corps of their own, send them this way, or point them in the direction of a fellow director. We're always welcoming new competitors.

Edited May 30, 2006 by Galen

[Galen]

Can we pin this, please? :)

[Toby]

In regards to records keeping.

I recommend using Gmail to send in caption changes. It automatically saves your sent messages, so you can easily pull those back up for future reference. PM me or just about anyone else competing for an invite if you don't have Gmail. We have plenty to go around.

Also, add a bit more to your corps, build a website! Freewebs is an excellent host for a free site. It will not only allow you to keep up with your group, but adds a bit more character. Post your tour schedule, scores, music clips, uniform pictures, anything you feel the need to do.

You can usually find a template with your corps colors if you are not too html adept. The editing software is pretty user-friendly, and once you get the handle for it, it's easy sailing from then on out.

Edited May 27, 2006 by Toby

[bssop97]

Exactly what I was thinking but better.

[Skylinersop16]

this is perfect

[Lancerman07]

I have a quick question about caption changes before regionals. I know you get 3 per week, but if you don't use them all do they carry over to the next week? Say the Trial Lawyers make 2 caption changes on June 22nd, can they make 4 on June 29th, or can they still only make 3?

[bssop97]

I have a quick question about caption changes before regionals. I know you get 3 per week, but if you don't use them all do they carry over to the next week? Say the Trial Lawyers make 2 caption changes on June 22nd, can they make 4 on June 29th, or can they still only make 3?

You get 3 only per week. If you don't use all 3 in one week, you can't have 4 the next.

[StarOrg]

You get 3 only per week. If you don't use all 3 in one week, you can't have 4 the next.

Are we sure on this??? I am going to be out of the country the first 2 weeks of the season leading up to the Regionals?

Does this mean we I return I only get 3 changes even if I have earned 6 to that point?

[bssop97]

Are we sure on this??? I am going to be out of the country the first 2 weeks of the season leading up to the Regionals?

Does this mean we I return I only get 3 changes even if I have earned 6 to that point?

I belive so. That's how I've seen it done. I will say this, last season, I ended with 8 different captions then what I started off with. It might not hurt you at all.

[Galen]

It's always been "maximum of 3 at a time, with no carry-over" for the first part of tour.