our why?
We subscribe to the Simon Sinek business philosophy, which is to have a singular purpose, or “why”, for being in business; where every decision or act that you make in business is in direct service of that “why”.
Our why is –
“To encourage, promote and grow the tabletop gaming community in Brisbane and Australia.”
Meeples & Dragons (aka M&D) is owned and operated by a husband and wife team, John & Sarah. Prior to forming M&D they were involved in running a small business in the Australian building construction industry, one of the toughest industries to survive in. With over 25 yrs combined experience, Sarah and John have applied their knowledge to form a tabletop gaming business that is community focused, more than simply sales. We liaison with small time creators, artists and other small businesses to bring products to the Australian market as well as actively engage and promote the artists’ projects through platforms such as crowdfunding.
Who is john?
John is a fully qualified structural steel draftsman who has a strong technical expertise and an eye for detail. He has over 15yrs experience in project management & quality assurance writing and handling. Originally introduced to tabletop gaming with Hero’s Quest, Space Crusade & Settlers of Catan in the early to mid 90’s, he was later introduced to D&D at university in 2002 and has been a rabid Dungeon Master ever since, time permitting. He enjoys a strong focus on character design and role playing mixed in with a healthy dose of combat & dungeon delving. More often then not he spends more time learning rules in order to run games for friends instead of playing them.
John is referred to as a Game Runner, aka a Dragon.
Who is SARAh?
Sarah is a junior accountant who has been heavily involved with administration and clerical work for more than 10yrs. She has self-educated herself with databases and VBA, frequently she is caught altering the backends’ design for increased efficiency. A tinkerer at heart she has a knack for troubleshooting “dodgy” code. She is an avid gamer who thoroughly enjoys board games, RPGs and video games. She was originally hesitant to try playing a tabletop RPG, but with years of John’s “nagging”, Sarah picked it up in her late 20’s and has never looked back. Her favourite character is Fidget, the clumsy halfling rogue, the collector of shiny things. Sarah is a frequent player in many of John’s games and affectionally refers to herself as the Meeple of the partnership.
Together they form Meeples & Dragons - a store for the players & Game runners
The Meeples: The Players
No game can be played without people to play with. A player doesn’t necessarily require a huge degree of game rule knowledge or experience, they only need to have the curiosity and interest in a game in order to play. Affectionately we refer to players as Meeples. A term usually associated with people shaped tokens in several euro boardgames, you can’t play Carcassonne without a few Meeples now can you.
The Dragons: Game Runners
Of course, you also can’t play a game without some understanding of the rules, here is where game runners come in. These people spend the time learning rules from multiple games and RPG systems so that their fellow players don’t have to. A noble interpretation and we are sticking with it. They are your Game Gurus, Game Masters and Dungeon Masters. We have always envisioned the Game Runners hoarding their vast rule books and systems, spending countless hours with their heads down counting the days to their next meal, I mean game night. Naturally we affectionately refer to them as Dragons.