mini games/events

[tim01300]

So while reading the Weapons of Legacy book one the hooks to get an item is to win it in a joust. Then the book politely provided how to handle a joust in game and a point system to determine a winner. I hadn't thought of doing this but it seems like a fun change from the normal combat and puzzles my games have.

So do you guys have any other "mini games" or events that you have run?

[Mayito]

My brother loves to do home brew worlds and goes fairly in depth on creating each nation and in one of his worlds he had a national sport for each nation. I don't remember all the sports but the elves had magical basketball where all non damaging spells were legal and the hoops were 30 ft in the air and there were moving floating platforms. To make a basket required a throwing ranged attack and if there was anybody nearby they could do a dex check dc the attack roll to block the shot. The halflings had paintball capture the flag using slings, the kobolds ran through gauntlets that another kobold had trapped, and I wasn't around for any of the other races sports but I think I remember dwarves had a version of shotput, the gnomes played a version of golf, the humans had jousting but you already mentioned that. We were working on a version of baseball but things got to complicated fast so we dropped it. Hope this gives a few ideas

[Deaxsa]

i've done stuff from Races of Stone for a goliath encampment. I've also played an obstacle course, wrestling matches, races(those were kinda boring tbh, just initiative, dex, and movespeed), shifting mazes, mirror/statue puzzles, logic puzzles, riddles, and others. man, this is making me miss my old DM :smallfrown:

[BowStreetRunner]

Complete Warrior has Jousts, Gladiatorial Matches, Archery Contests, and Conjurers’ Chess. Complete Arcane has Spell Duels and Tournaments Arcane.

[ArcturusV]

Quite often over my DMing history. Though I found out early on, the best stuff is interactive between competitors. So I would avoid having "Racing" being a huge thing, because it tends to just be how well YOU can stack bonuses or roll a dex check and a con check, etc. But having a Deathrace thing on Chariots, where people are actively sabotaging and attacking one another is a different thing and instantly both more fun to play, and probably more fun for the Bread and Circuses crowd to watch.

Though the ones that probably worked out the best was usually the Big Game Hunt style events. While yes, it did have standard combat going on as you were usually trying to bag something prestigious and this was often a Monster... it drew in other rules that were seldom used like hunting/tracking, throwing fellow hunters who might want to ambush you and steal your kill off track, ambushing other hunters to do the same, etc.

[Krobar]

I once ran an in-game poker tournament. After a few minutes of dice rolls it ended up with just the PCs and me (the dealer) sitting at the table playing poker for a couple hours. Then after the poker game was over, in-game the the local thieves' guild stole all the prize money, and the rest of the night was spent tracking it down.

[Story]

We recently had a poker like dice game. It was based entirely on OOC dice rolls and bluffing, but it was still great fun.