[DonathinFrye]

Well, mini-games to me, as a long time RPG player in general, is a competitive or game function that solves something besides direct typical gameplay. It's a change of gameplay in an isolated way. For instance, Clandestine offers(ed) a casino with holdem, stud, slot machines, roulette, and other such games. Freeze-tag is a game that is implemented in different ways to many MUDs that creates a pvp environment with a different rule-set. Duel of Swords (taken from 's system of pvp) creates a round-based pvp system that we used to create a mini-game. Our system of mining materials, forging ore, creating weapons or equipment from materials gained from questing and mining had "gameplay" mechanisms that forced two players to combine efforts to balance the equipment they were creating in real-time. We had temple strongholds created for a mini-game involving invasion of other enemy player-ran temples, in an effort to steal artifacts to gain the power of other Gods temporarily. All of these things and other things, we used mini-games to incorperate non-direct gameplay with the standard MUD gameplay.

I think that your best bet, though, if you wish to avoid bots and cheating, would be to create your own game. I always thought that Duel of Swords(or Fists or Magic, all running on different "matrices", with different rules and advancement rules) could work in real-time with minor modifications that would make pvp be entirely skill oriented with a tier-like system that is vaguely reminiscent of Godwars. Another MUD I worked on included a card collecting/fighting game, despite being set in a post apocalyptic, zombie infested gun-toting future. I found that the card game, while incredibly well conceived, simply removed the players too much from the atmosphere of the MUD itself to be much of a draw to the players. On Clandestine, we actually implemented a few board-games directly as mini-games too (chess & checkers), but the players rarely ever used the engine that had a fair amount of time spent on creating those board games.

You could approach the creation of a board-game like pvp system that borrows themes or environment from games like Final Fantasy Tactics or Guild Wars. FFTactics is something most people here probably have played, but Guild Wars has solo vs solo pvp called "Hero Battles", in which each player micromanages their own character and three AI character that they can give orders to (or allow them to act on their own AI), in an effort to gain control and hold control of various map points that give bonuses to combat when held and controlled. It then becomes a race for points, points based on the number of kills on each side in combination with the bonuses gained from controlling geographical points on the map.

If you created a MUD where your players played a gangleader or general of some sort, then any pvp or pve could go that route, though you would have to conceive of a "board game" type setting, as well as find a way to handle group vs group pvp for more than two players. Just a few ideas, but keep trucking - what you are working on is something that I've hoped a MUD would do, and do very well, for a long time.