[DonathinFrye]

I have always been a huge fan of the idea of mini-game centered PVP. I believe that you if you take a look at some text-based pvp games, you will see that this has been done with high success. The old, dying Clandestine MUD made great use of a mixture between familiar "cast&kill" style MUD pvp, in addition with a plethora of mini-games to enhance the pvp situation. Also, KaVir's Godwars2's combat system plays very much like a chess game, without removing its players from the immediate feel of an MMO. Most notably, games like Puzzle Pirates on the graphical side have proven that an entire MMO can be centered around popular puzzle minigames set to a player-versus-player backdrop.

The best thing I can tell you to take a look at is this game - and

This game has been around since the very beginning of AOL, has housed many many thousands of text rpgers, and blends open forum/chat roleplaying with a pvp system that is matrix-based, meaning that it is a much more complicated version of rock-paper-scissors. The combat matrix itself is very advanced and they offer three "Arenas" of pvp, as well as very sports-like team dueling leagues such as and .

This is the most successful "user-skill" text MMO that I have ever personally encountered, and I have found success implementing their pvp system as mini-games on games like Clandestine MUD. So whether or not your experiment ends up working, introducing "mini-games" is always a huge benefit to a MUD, as you want as many facets for pvp, competition, and fun that you can acquire when running a MUD.