RedM minigames: chess, checkers and games players come back to

Players do not stay online for the big events. They stay for the quiet hour in between, and a quiet hour needs something to do that is not a job. A game at a saloon table is that: two players sit down, talk in character while they play, and a crowd gathers when money is on the table. This guide covers what makes a minigame work on a roleplay server, and how to run chess and checkers in particular.

What makes a minigame work in roleplay

• It happens in the world. A menu game anyone can open anywhere is a phone app. A table in the Saint Denis saloon is a place, and places create scenes.
• Others can watch. Spectators are half the point: they talk, bet among themselves, and remember who won.
• It has stakes, and the stakes are safe. A wager makes a game matter. A wager that can be dodged by logging out makes it a scam.
• It remembers. A rating or a record turns one game into a rivalry.
• It works alone. On a quiet night there may be nobody to play, so an AI opponent keeps the table useful.

Chess and checkers at the table

Poggy Chess ($29.99) does all five. It spawns the tables, boards, chairs and pieces itself; characters walk to a chair and sit. Anyone within 20 metres can watch a game in progress.

• Chess with the full rules: castling, en passant, promotion, and draws by stalemate, repetition, the fifty-move rule or insufficient material. Players can offer a draw or resign.
• Checkers in American, Russian, Brazilian and Pool rules, plus house rules picked at the table. Captures are taken one jump at a time, and pieces that must capture are ringed, which matters more than it sounds for players who learned different rules.

Either game can be switched off in the config.

An opponent at 3 a.m.

Chess has seven AI levels, from beginner to grandmaster; the default is club. The first four run on the server's own engine. The top three ask Stockfish through chess-api.com, and fall back to the server's engine when that cannot be reached. Checkers has three levels. AI games get hints and an evaluation bar, so they double as a way to learn. They are never rated.

Wagers players cannot dodge

Wagers are the reason people crowd round, and the first thing players will try to exploit. The rules that close the gaps:

• Both stakes are taken when the game starts, when the second player accepts. If either cannot pay, the game does not start. Nobody plays on credit.
• Leaving loses. Standing up or leaving the server mid-game loses the game and the stake.
• Stalling loses. If an opponent stops moving, the other player can claim the win after 5 minutes.
• Draws and restarts are refunds. A draw, or a game with no result, returns each stake. A server restart returns both, and money owed to someone offline is paid when they next come online.
• Death is not a strategy. By default a death ends the game with no result and refunds both. The alternative setting, where the player who died loses, turns shooting your opponent into a way to win; leave it off unless that is the roleplay you want.

Wagers can be cash or gold, 1 to 500 by default, and only between two players.

Ratings and records

Each character has an Elo rating for chess and another for checkers, starting at 1200. A player needs five rated games to appear on the leaderboard, which keeps one lucky win from topping it. "My record" lists every game with wins, draws, losses and opponents, and replays any game move by move, which is the part players use to settle arguments.

Games without a wager, AI games included, are saved when a player stands up, and can be picked up again from the same chair.

Where to put the tables

Five tables ship with it, each with a map blip: Blackwater courtyard, and the saloons in Saint Denis, Rhodes and Armadillo, plus Sisika Prison, where a chess game is exactly the kind of roleplay a prison needs. Add your own in /poggy → Chess & Checkers → Tables → Add table, standing where it should go, or in Config.Tables.

Put tables where players already wait: saloons, a train station, a jail, a camp. A table nobody walks past is never played. Two or three well-placed tables beat ten scattered ones.

Running tournaments

A chess night is one of the cheapest events you can run: book a saloon, post the bracket, and let spectators bet in character. RedM event ideas has more on announcing and running events. For a stuck table, /chesstable reset <id> ends the game with no result.

Installing it

Poggy Chess needs Poggy Core (Free) 0.23.0 or newer and oxmysql, and runs on VORP Core, RSG Core and QBCore RedM. Its tables are created on first start. Its config and translation files are open, and /poggy edits most settings in game.