A meeple is a small board-game piece, usually with a stylized human form. They are usually made from wood and painted in bright colors. Meeples have been called an icon of

German-style board games A Eurogame, also called a German-style board game, German game, or Euro-style game, (generally just referred to as board games in Europe) is a class of tabletop games that generally has indirect player interaction and abstract physical componen ...

("Eurogames"). The word is a contraction of "my people". Meeples are more

anthropomorphized Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics t ...

than pawns. Whereas pawns have a stylized head and body, meeples have a more humanoid shape, with limbs. They have replaced pawns in many modern games, making the latter a rarity outside classic games. Meeples are believed to be introduced by the 1984 game ''

Top Secret Spies ''Top Secret Spies'' (German name: ''Heimlich & Co.'') is a spy-themed German-style board game designed by Wolfgang Kramer and published in 1984 in games, 1984 by Ravensburger. The game, also known as ''Under Cover'' or ''Detective & Co'', won t ...

''. ''

Carcassonne Carcassonne (, also , , ; ; la, Carcaso) is a French fortified city in the department of Aude, in the region of Occitanie. It is the prefecture of the department. Inhabited since the Neolithic, Carcassonne is located in the plain of the ...

'', published by

Hans im Glück Hans im Glück is a German board and card game publisher. Though many of their own games are language-independent they themselves publish only printings for the domestic market which include only German-language rules; English-language printings o ...

in 2000, has been credited with popularizing the modern concept and shape of the meeple. They have since become a popular component of many modern board games. The modern meeple was likely designed by , German game designer, entrepreneur, and founder of Hans im Glück. Although the figures were initially referred to as "followers", Alison Hansel, an American gamer, coined the name ''meeples'' in November 2000. According to Alicia Nield, owner of the company MeepleCity, Hansel accidentally combined the words "my people" during a game of ''Carcassonne''. The term was popularized through the website

BoardGameGeek BoardGameGeek (BGG) is an online forum for board gaming hobbyists and a game database that holds reviews, images and videos for over 125,600 different tabletop games, including European-style board games, wargames, and card games. In addition to ...

. On November 27, 2000, Hansel made a post on the Unity Games forums proposing the term ''meeples'' to describe these figures. Some companies offer hand-painted, deluxe meeples, and meeples in some games are customized in various ways; for example, Tiny Epic Quest has customizable meeples that can hold various items such as weapons. Some games, including expansions to ''Carcassonne'', have wooden figurines shaped in non-humanoid forms that are sometimes called meeples; for example, '' Dixit'' has rabbit-shaped meeples. Farm animal meeples are sometimes called "sheeples", monsters "creeples", and robots "bleeples". The term meeple has occasionally been used for wooden board game pieces representing inanimate objects like vehicles. More elaborate miniatures used in gaming, such as the ones used in

miniature wargaming Miniature wargaming is a form of wargaming in which military units are represented by miniature physical models on a model battlefield. The use of physical models to represent military units is in contrast to other tabletop wargames that use ...

, are not usually called meeples.

References

{{Authority control Board game terminology 2000 neologisms

See also

References