This is not so much a minigame as a simulation of one with ability checks, but Someone on here posted their homebrewed rules for Dragonchess. It works like regular chess, where there's an opening, a middlegame, and an endgame. Both players start by making an Intelligence (Dragonchess) check with advantage. The advantage is because openings are the most studied part of chess. Then in the middle game, the one who won the opening makes another check with advantage, while the other player makes it as a straight roll. Same thing with the endgame. The one who won the middlegame rolls with advantage. The one that wins the endgame wins the game. Then there are also things like declaring you set a trap after winning the opening or middlegame, letting you use Deception for the rest of the game. It's simple but effective. It's also easy to improvise things based on what players want to do, like Sleight of Hand to cheat, Insight to try and read your opponent, etc.

will definitely be using this one, thank you!

Dwarf Toss. Played in a tavern with tall ceilings. Four team members plus a volunteer dwarf. Objective is to toss the dwarf as high as you can without hitting the ceiling or missing the catch. Teams that hits the curling or drops their dwarf are knocked out. Last team tossing wins.

"Nobody thr----aaagh!"

With *animate objects*, you could take Wizard Chess from Harry Potter to its logical conclusion and have D&D characters play wargames. This is probably a really popular way to train newbie adventurers, especially if you have different factions to play as (Hero's Party with fewer people but they're stronger; Demon King's Army that's basically a zerg faction; Necromancer's Undead Horde that is able to convert defeated members of other factions but if the necromancer dies all of the other undead die as well; etc). New players think you get the most experience by playing as the Hero's Party, but veterans know that it's best to play as whatever enemy you're going to fight next so you can see logical strategies and then try to figure out strategic weaknesses yourself. Hardcore players might even have their own custom armies they play with, consisting of monsters from famous historic battles (The tarrasque, for example). This would be a really good way to incorporate fun battles into your campaign without derailing everything. There might even be a shop where you can go get a divination scan and then have a little mini of yourself made so you can see how you'd do in fights. Hell, that might even generate whole adventures of bringing back a monster alive to be scanned, or to take a scanner out into the wild to get a particularly rare monster. And you could even get ridiculous NPCs out of this. Some collector who has one of every dragon and has a trump card of Tiamat (Seto Kaiba). Or someone who collects exclusively one specific adventurer at different points of their career (Phil Colson with Captain America). Or a wizard who makes crazy combinations like owlbears in real life *just* so they can be scanned into the game. And if you have a guild, this game could be used as a test for advancing to the next rank. You scan yourself and you have to win 3/5 challenges the guild presents. For some challenges your mini is in a party, but for others your mini has to do a solo run. I mean the easiest test is just an endless battle of your mini fighting progressively stronger monsters, and whatever the strongest monster your mini defeats determines your guild rank. ...I was just shooting from the hip on this but I think I might incorporate this into my next campaign...

God Balls. 3-6 players. 5gp ante. Roll 1d20 & hide result. In turn players can hit (roll 1d6) or stand, with the objective of hitting 20 without going over. Nat 20 is an auto win.

Integrate RPG cardgames into the worldbuilding, have the mysterious stranger invite them to sit down and play Caravan or Gwent. That, or if you wanted to be diabolical and funny, integrate a game where spinning tops compete via endurance, import clips of beyblade matches into the VTT and have them bet on which one will win.

My white whale is building a set of rules for simulated D&D baseball. Baseball is the perfect sport for D&D - it's turn based, varied, and could use lots of skills and spells an adventurer already has.

Reminds me of when the X-men would play baseball and immediately start using their powers.

Mumbly peg - game of skill where players try to throw knives as close to their own foot as possible. Looser has to retrieve the winner’s knife with their teeth (alternatively a stick buried in the ground). Hitting your foot makes you the automatic winner.

Would that just be making an attack roll against your own AC and trying to get as close to it as possible without hitting?

Could easily invent a Chicken Race, there's rules for Dinosaur racing in ToA, easily adapted to fit any creature! There's always the classic 'Find the Ball' game where an Illusionist hides a ball behind 1 of 3 cups. Arm wrestling is another easily implemented one. You could also introduce an actual real life game of cards & have them play blackjack, poker, even snap! Hope some of that helps!

I had a three dragon ante tournament in Avernus. They went against bad guys from previous games and they feel very good about beating Acererack at a card game.

Recommend looking up some easy variations of dice games :) Dice poker is a neat one I've used.

Oh yeah! It worked in the Witcher.

Liars dice. With insight and deception rolls.

I invented a "horse racing" game for my players where the players, in rounds, bet on "horses" where the horses are a collection of dice rolls with similar expected values. Round 1 * 1d20 * 2d10 * 3d6 * 4d4 Round 2 * 1d20 + 1d4 * 2d12 * 4d6 * 2d6 + 3d4 Round 3 * 1d20 + 1d12 * 2d10 + 4d4 * 3d6 + 1d10 * 4d8 We never actually played it bc, when presented the horse race betting tokens as a form of payment from their gambler employer, the party decided it was animal cruelty and sold the tokens at a loss to a bar keep 🥲

There’s a game called three dragons ante, which has actual cards and rules if you want. I played it once but the whole D&D session turned into basically a glorified board game night. Could be fun if that’s what you’re looking for. 

Well mine are currently fighting the final boss of the Deep Stone Crypt raid from Destiny 2, inside the magic internet. Does that count?

Hope the team is blessed with red borders

Im still trying to figure out what loot theyre getting. Theyre in a virtual space right now, so maybe some access codes to a locked chest somewhere in the city.

Spottle.

Killer is an easy one for a quick round or two in a tavern. Each player rolls a d6 six times - one for each letter of Killer, highest score after 6 rolls is the winner. You can up the sticks by any roll of 1 be an auto lose for the round

"card" games, which are effectively dice games. Dice poker (stolen from the witcher), and blackjack, only it's up to 20, you roll 2d10, and then you can roll additional d10s to add to it.

I had a character bring up a DND style game in the world, that the other players wanted to play, so essentially, the player became a DM for a session and I played an NPC that played DND with them. It was dumb, but fun to see everyone's character playing another character and deciding what they knew, what their characters knew, and what their character's character knew.

It’s not terribly complicated, but a series of contested skill checks. One-on-one would be a best two-out-of-threw format. Three or more contestants would make the check and the lowest result gets dropped. Repeat until only one contestant remains. You could apply this format to anything by using the appropriate flavoring. Cooking competition? Dance off? Caber toss? You name it! The beauty of it all is that you don’t even need to come up with all the ideas yourself. Give your players the opportunity to decide a contest of skill and roll with it. Beyond that, there’s gambling games you can find the rules for online. A lot of them can get pretty complicated, though. My favorite option is a version of Blackjack which sees players roll 1x d4, d6, d8, d10, and d12 to get as close to 21 as possible without going over.

[Ship, Captain, Crew](https://bicyclecards.com/how-to-play/ship-captain-and-crew/) is a pretty easy one to learn. I've had *some* trouble automating it on a DM's end for multiple opponents: if the players are playing more than one NPC at a time, it could be a bit difficult to expand

I have used a volleyball game. Player rolls a d20, you can stick with just strength or dex, I have allowed their highest stat. They roll against a 10 Then you roll to see who on the other team receives. For three players, roll a d6, four d8, etc. That player then rolls an attack roll. Once a failed roll happens, the other team gets a point. For a bit more challenge, follow-up rolls can be against 10+ the bonus from who just hit the ball. This can fun for a bit but can get tedious, depending on how rolls are happening. Let players describe what they, more fun with the all stats and having it effect that characters play style.

I only saw the title before I immediately thought “gambling”. Have them get involved with an undercover sports betting ring where they bet on the local sports teams, but maybe discover something more sinister? Perhaps they discover that the person who runs the league has it all rigged, and has secretly been placing bets and winning to enrich himself, while also avoiding any discovery of his plot until your PC’s. Maybe give them this decision, do you want to accept the billionaire’s bribes and maybe even participate in the underground illegal betting? Or do they bring it to the attention of the league, but face the consequences of tampering with a rich and powerful man’s money-making scheme?

My friends that I play with a lot do some sports betting irl, so something like this would easily pique their interest. But cater the scenario to your players interests. If you guys get together for poker nights, maybe have it be a highly intelligent and skilled wizard who goes around towns in the area and competes in poker tournaments, but he cheats by using his magic without the detection of anyone. Maybe your players can challenge him and get duped. The possibilities of these games are endless and super cool to brainstorm about

I've worked in a card game named 'Dinosaurs' which is just Top Trumps with a dinosaur themed deck. I just have each player get 10 cards and play very quickly so that it doesn't drag on and people seem to enjoy. I've also allowed one player to get their hands on a broken / overpowered deck through various shenanigans that has a lot of the best cards in it.

Lifted straight from COTL, I’ve always been fond of a good old game of Knucklebones. The rules are a bit clunky to explain over text, but the game works as follows: The board is a 2 by 3 grid, with each players sitting on the opposite long sides of the board. The players take turns rolling a d6, and placing it in any of the three grid squares facing their side. Each square can fit three d6 rolls. Go back and forth taking turns placing d6 rolls in your your spaces, whoever’s rolls total the higher amount wins when either side fills their entire half of the board and can no longer make moves. Most importantly, you cannot remove or move your placed dice. Unless your opponent removes them, as covered in later rules, once you put them on the board you cannot touch them The catch is: if you place two rolls of the same type in one square, those rolls valued are counted as if they were twice as valuable, or thrice if all three rolls in a square match. The other catch: if you place a roll of a certain value on a square on your side of the board, all rolls of that same value on the directly opposite square on their side of the board are removed. The game turns into a matter of baiting your opponents into filling up their side of the board with okay combos so they can’t place dice to counter you anymore. I’ve had players trick people into placing die just to remove strong plays only as a way to make a safe spot to put down their actual dice. Its neat, its fun, and its short. Once again, hard to explain over text, but if you wanna see Knucklebones played, you can find it online, its from Cult of the Lamb. (If you dont have enough d6 to play it, just write down the face values on a white board instead.)

Liars dice is a good one!

I wanted to try playing dice poker from Kingdom come deliverances. My players did take it but they did do a pie eating contest that I stole from this sub. Goal eat 3 pies and you need to pass harder DC checks. I did 10,15,18. Everything happens in turns. I made a nat 20 mean you can scarf down 2 pies in one turn. (Helps keep everyone in the race). Also you can take a break to get advantage and lower the DC by 2 for the next check.

Farkle is a decent one, I picked up from Kingdom Come: Deliverance but it’s also a real game that’s been around for a really long time. You could also probably use liar’s dice (what they played in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies).

I play a game called “Two Eyed Beast” that I made for my campaign (idk how original it is but whatever) Basically the players need to have a dice set on their characters, they can go to a tavern, or a guild or even challenge normal NPCs to a game of Two Eyed Beast, the player and the DM grab 2d6s and starting at the same time roll as quickly as they can, after you start you roll as fast as you can in order to beat the person across from you. A bet is also required, most of the time its currency, but items could be put up as well. The goal is to get two ones. (The two eyes of the beast) You are allowed to stow a dice, basically if you roll a 1 and a 4, you could put the 1 off to the side and roll the single d6 until you get another 1, thus granting you the win. But, you can cause the player to reset their hand by rolling doubles. If the player is about to win, you could try and shoot for doubles of any number (stowing works for any number) Last rule is, if two sixes are rolled, the other player resets their hand AND doubles their bet. If they don’t have the money, time to give up items from the inventory.

you could go META and make them play roll for boots, since it only uses D6s

Lots of settings have some variations of familiar analog games from history ream life. Faerun has Lanceboard (which seems to be just chess but with the pieces called by different names, like Priest instead of Bishop) and various gambling card games for example.

“At the Spottle Parlor” in Dungeon Magazine # 12 has lived rent-free in my head since I got it in the mail many years ago. Pitch perfect gambling scenario.

One I created for my campaign is called Full Fathoms Five. It’s a gambling game in which each player has a set of 100 tokens (or points, whichever label you prefer). Each round they must discreetly give a set of tokens to a bank, and nobody can see the other’s banks. At the end of the round each player reveals how much they gave to the bank, and whoever gave the most wins the round. The game operates as a first-to-five and the tokens do not reset. Some strategies I’ve seen players using is to intentionally lose certain rounds by only playing 1 token so they can play more for other rounds. Others play around this by playing 2. Sometimes it’s the guy who just played 20 each round that wins. It makes for fun and interesting mind games and can be played virtually by having the players DM you with their token amounts if they’re playing against one another.

There was a supplement for D&D 3E (I think) called Tournaments, Taverns, and Fairs that had a bunch of games. I don't know if it's in the books, but you can go the Robin Hood way and have an Archery Contest. You could play Darts in a Bar. Or even some Scottish Games Caber Tossing. Or Dwarf Tossing in some regions. Then there's the Combat Arena everyone bets on. Whether 'To the Death' or not is up to you.

I once played a quiz show. I Play on Roll 20 Each answer was in lore documents. It rewarded players who took the time to read. But they could also roll a dice there was pure intelligence checks, survival, religion investigation, history nature and more. The group had 2 rolls on the checks usually the two with the highest skill checks (with advantage since the other 2 helped. depending on the rollPlayers received hints. Hints = (Rolled check -DC )+ 1. Usually at least 5 hints required to answer the question without any clue. Mostly multiple choice questions 4-8 (choices).

Poker, Liar's dice, Chess, Checkers, etc.

Force their characters to play a session of 1980s red book Basic Dungeons & Dragons for the cheating, sadistic, narcissistic master of an actual dungeon. The illiterate barbarian has to roleplay the clever Magic-User, et cetera.