Summary
A fun way to break up intense role-play or combat sessions inDungeons & Dragonsis by adding low-stakes mini-games. These styles of games can be found anywhere, from your town’s local tavern to the Witchlight carnival in the Feywild, and usually involve a handful of skill checks and no small degree of talent.
There are several mini-games that might come to mind that translate easily to D&D 5e, while some others require a bit more involvement to make work within the rules. With that in mind, all kinds of games involve a variety of skills and can accommodate any play style.
Updated on July 21, 2025 by Matthew Cochran:As D&D celebrates its fifty-year anniversary with more adventures and so much new content and adventures to explore, hopefully, party members will still have time for a few mini-games. We;ve added a minigame option for you to try with your players during their inevitable down time between bid missions and story beats.
12Obstacle Courses
While it doesn’t have to look like an Ironman Challenge with various pits of mud and rubber ties to hop through, an obstacle course involves any set of environmental hazards that require multiple skill checks or even a skill challenge to get through. An example of this is a ship sailing through a storm and between coral reefs at risk of sinking.
Using skill challenges for obstacle courses is a great way to get the entire party involved at once, allowing them to role-play what checks to use and how to use them as they either succeed or fail. Obstacle courses like rapidly shifting terrain and magical weather can be used in place of combat encounters while still holding on to the fantasy elements.
11Drinking Contest
The most classic game of all, drinking until the other person either pukes or passes out first. This is atavern-style gamewhere two or more competitors throw down pints of ale until they eventually fail a Constitution saving throw while raising the DC after every check.
While the stakes for these games are usually bragging rights, you can spice it up by adding a gold reward or making it an obstacle when your players are looking for information. To add depth to the rules, allow your players to intimidate their opponents or double down the pints to raise the other drinker’s DC.
“Doubling down” can also be used on almost any other type of mini-game, allowing for more interesting rolls with greater risk.
10Dinosaur Racing
Originating in the Tomb of Annihilation adventure module, dinosaur racing is exactly what it sounds like. Your players can enter the weekly dinosaur races of Port Nyanzaru and ride atop ankylosaurs, triceratops, and even a T-rex. Using this race in your own setting can look very similar, or you can use different mounts entirely.
Riders make Animal Handling checks in turn against the dino’s DC to determine how fast they go per round. Players can lash their dinos to make them go faster but might end up leaving them at half speed for the rest of the race. This trade-off includes a high-risk, high-reward system. There is also an ‘unchained’ variant where the dinosaurs aren’t muzzled and allowed to attack each other, death race style.
9Gambling Games
While actual gambling games like poker, liar’s dice, or blackjack can take a significant amount of time to play, there are ways to simplify it to suit your campaign. The best place to start is by looking atMatthew Mercer’s gambling rules.
The simplest way to play gambling games is to have your players roll a d20 with the highest number winning. If you want something more immersive, Mercer’s Gambit of Ord involves players rolling a d8 and keeping the result hidden while betting, calling, or folding, followed by a d6 and a d4, with players revealing the total at the end with the highest number winning. This can be a chance for your players to win big while allowing you to add interesting plot hooks or threats from the other gamblers.
You can also allow your players to cheat, requiring either a Sleight of Hand or gaming set proficiencies, but also giving NPCs the same skill.
8Shell Games
Along the cobbled streets of Waterdeep, you might see a charlatan shuffling upturned bowls hiding a gold coin. The coin, of course, belongs to perspective game players who manage to keep an eye on the right bowl. While popular for being a thief’s game, using sleight-of-hand tricks to move the coin is perfect for gullible players or especially clever ones.
If your players are watching the bowls, shells, or cups, have them make a flat Intelligence or Perception check to keep an eye on the right cup. you’re able to complicate it by adding a Sleight of Hand check by the shuffler to see if they can move the hidden object without them noticing. With various spells and features, this game can quickly become a masterclass in deceit and perception between the player and shuffler.
7Mazes
Mazes in D&D can be scaled from the size of a pumpkin patch field trip to an epic labyrinth with no beginning or end. However, if you want to add a maze as a mini-game, the best scale to use is something that can be solved in under a session. While you might be inspired to use an actual maze your players run through, consider using theater of the mind to avoid meta-gaming or time-wasting.
While the Maze spell just requires an Intelligence saving throw to solve it, you can make it much more interactive by requiring Intelligence checks to memorize the ‘routes’ while adding dangers like traps and shifting corridors. Also, encourage creativity from your players, like using rope or breadcrumbs to leave a trail and potentially lower the DC of checks so they don’t get lost.
6Rat Races
Like dinosaur racing but much smaller and cuter, your players can choose to bet on any number of small critters to win an adrenaline-fueled race down a ten-foot track. To involve your players in the outcome of these races, allow them to purchase and train their own critters that they can enter to potentially become champions.
Whether your players have a rat in the race or are just making idle bets, have them roll the dice for their entrant so that they feel like they have succeeded or lost on their own. The race can look like a skill challenge, having each competitor roll Athletics checks until one of them reaches three successes on the DC and wins.
5Cooking Competition
Who better to encourage greatness in your players than Gordon Ramsay with pointed ears telling them they are idiot sandwiches? Any time they want to try their hand at gourmet foodstuffs, give them a tiered challenge with fantasy-inspired ingredients and tools.
In addition to making a cook’s utensils tool check, you can add checks such as Perception for taste or Intelligence to determine cooking time. If your players want to be risky and add new ingredients, have them roll a d100 to determine the outcome.
4Archery Contests
A booth you see at every Renaissance fair and mostin-game festivals, archery allows your players to impress the crowd with their skilled shots. You can also add a rival archer that somehow sweeps the floor with your players every time they compete.
A basic archery competition will result in your players making ranged attacks, without the damage rolls, against the target’s AC. To make it more interesting, you can add moving targets that have a higher AC or even require archers to leave the shooting range and hunt down their targets.
3Dragonchess
Invented by the creator of Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygax, Dragonchess is like normal chess except with 84 different pieces spread across three vertically stacked boards. While actually playing Dragon Chess might take as long as a full D&D session, you can include this iconic piece of nerd history into your games with simplified rules.
The core of the game involves two players making opposing skill checks, and the first to three successes wins the game. You can spice up these checks by allowing your players or the opponent to make contested Insight and Deception checks to influence the DC or provide any bonuses or advantages.
