In a video game or TTRPG, a generic "roll to succeed" choice can still be interesting as you built your character up to that point. But in /qst/, you can't really do that as everyone has a hand in deciding the direction, which further lowers this aspect of the game. So instead, we need something else to make it a "game".

The main disadvantage of making a game is they require some setup and extra work, can cause friction between players (and QM) if mutually exclusive options exist, they can be "sabotaged" by bad faith actors if a high skill component exists, and they can also derail or negatively contribute to the overall immersive qualities or "legitimacy" of a regular Quest thread. I found this out the hard way in my previous Monke thread's Minigame; in which it dominated most of the thread with slowly filling up various gauges and accumulating resources. But it also colored the entire rest of the thread; with many choices have direct or indirect consequence on this minigame; even encouraging the players to act in a specific way against how they normally would to maximize returns on the minigame. For this reason, I consider them successful and worth the added investment. Being a drawfag also helps, as you can visually create the assets and it helps massively to keep track of the various elements of the game.

Finally; making each minigame creative and distinct is somewhat of a challenge. As of this point, I basically had three "war" minigames all just featuring different ways to roll dice to blow up other spaceships. Each one is mechanically distinct, but even so I'm getting tired of it and trying to find a better solution BUT hopefully without actually having to actually invent a straight up whole wargame. You can always make a minigame bigger and bigger and scope; but it isn't desirable. Just for my own personal autism? Having a minigame just for one thread is perfect. Gives you just a taste, and you can always bring it out of retirement later if you find a minigame that's really, really fun.