I don't have a whole lot of time in my sessions for planned irrelevancies. I am not going to suggest my players spend an hour on playing cards during our RPG session if playing cards isn't really relevant to play, rather like I don't encourage them to spend an hour role playing through purchase of common gear.
This, unfortunately. Back in the days when we played several times a week, it was fun to include a mini-game from time to time.
These days we don't manage to meet even once a month, so I'd rather concentrate on the essentials.
Still, I recently introduced a deck of many things which most of my players thought was a fun interlude and didn't really take a lot of time. But that's more like using a prop (Tarot cards) than an actual mini-game.
Interestingly, in our TDA/DSA campaign, we often use mini-games, but they are used in a different way:
They are used to provide scenario-specific rules to resolve a situation not covered by the rules, e.g. there was a mini-game simulating our efforts to save a child from drowning in a fast-streaming river.
I.e. they're used for the kind of things you might resolve using a skill challenge in D&D.
