Free Role Playing Game Supplement Review: 5 Minute Mini-Games

5 Minute Mini-Games by Hannah Lipsky is a free role playing game supplement published by Chaotic Shiny Productions. The supplement is intended for use with Dungeons & Dragons games but will also work as a generic supplement as well.

This is a nine page PDF that is available from RPGNow. One page is the Contents/front cover and one page is an About the Author page with details on Chaotic Shiny and upcoming products.

The stated aim of the supplement is to give players something to do for a few minutes when the GM is otherwise occupied. The games themselves are divided into three categories, Simple, Standard and Complex. The difference between them is the number of ability scores involved, which is listed in the Contents. Simple games use one ability, the standard two and the complex game four. Each game has its name, the number of players needed, requirements, description and rules. The description is how the game would be played in real life (warning – some of these are really not suitable for this!) and the rules is D&D mechanics, if appropriate, for playing them using skill checks.

There are six simple games. These involve telling jokes, a drawing game, holding hot coals, throwing a waterskin with rocks in it, a renamed rock/paper/scissors and a drawing game.

There are six standard games, knucklebones or jacks, a couple of true or false games, one that involves riddles then a challenge of skill, one that involves spinning a coin and one that involves kicking a mug of the other person’s head.

The sole complex game has a Priest and a Demon together with Innocents. The Priest is trying to slay the Demon, who is disguised, whilst the Demon is trying to slay the Innocents. The Priest has to correctly guess the demon.

The PDF lacks bookmarks and, despite its brevity, these would have been appreciated. The Contents is decently thorough, listing every game. Navigation is okay.

The text maintains a single column format and no errors were noticed. There are a number of illustrations, which would appear to be stock in nature. Presentation is okay.

The games in the supplement are not really games within the game (as Assassin’s Breach: Tavern Gambling Game and Dragon and the Thief are) but more ways of occupying players for a few minutes. Which is their stated aim. Some could be used as tavern games, but as many of them have D&D stats, they are often really just an alternative methods of resolving games of chance or skill with slightly different rolls (and some should certainly not be played in real life). Still, there are a fair few games and they can provide some diversion for a few minutes, which is what they are intended to do.

Although it might have been better to see these developed more into games within a game, such is often difficult to do and besides, this is a free supplement. Some of the games are original, but others are clearly existing games that have been given a new name. 5 Minute Mini-Games is a decent enough collection of short mini-games and it can be downloaded for free by clicking here.