See How Stories Work The most compelling stories move us emotionally. Up and down, between hope and fear, in ways we don t always expect but that you can harness as a writer, editor, and critic. This book shows you how to track, map, and understand the rhythm of a story. Whether you re writing or rewriting, editing a manuscript or dismantling your favorite television episode, Beating the Story helps you understand how stories get hammered into shape. 
Beating the Story combines Laws insightful and articulate analysis of story beats with all-new transition beats and icons to do for fiction and screenplays what his Hamlet s Hit Points did for narrative games. Read it and see how to map, understand, and elevate any narrative. 
Foreword by John Rogers.

Beating the Story: How to Map, Understand, and Elevate Any Narrative

Robin D. Laws

Gameplaywright

Build the Store Your Community Deserves. Tabletop gaming is on the rise. If you love games like Catan,, Magic: The Gathering, or Dungeons &amp; Dragons; like the sound of being your own boss; and are willing to dive deep into what it takes to build a successful business, then this is a book for you. 
In Friendly Local Game Store, you ll learn what you need to know to build a store that doesn t just sell games, but creates a community where games are beloved: 
* A detailed look at your store s startup costs, and why starting off undercapitalized is worse than not starting at all. 
* An exploration of your store s unique value proposition, and why Amazon will eat your lunch if you don t have one. 
* A sober examination of why you should think twice about hybrid stores with cafés, coffee shops, or bars. 
* Inventory management 101: your open-to-buy budget, turn rate fundamentals, sales per square foot, and more. 
* Running in-store events, hiring and managing employees, and navigating social media. 
* But most importantly, how your game store can provide you with a reliable, middle-class income. 
Among this down-to-earth advice, Gary Ray shares the stories of his years running Black Diamond Games. From the moment he realized he was going to leave his IT job, to the third-year move necessary for the store to keep growing, to the time he forced his lender to renegotiate his mortgage. Even if you don t want to open a game store, you ll appreciate these stories about what it takes. 
Do you believe in the power of the friendly local game store? This is the book for you! 
Foreword by Travis Severance (Millennium Games, Rochester, NY). Contents Foreword Introduction

Friendly Local Game Store: A Five-Year Path to a Middle-Class Income

Gary L. Ray

Business & Money

Review\nMeeples Together is a must-buy book for anybody who is even remotely interested in cooperative gaming. I learned of or better framed concepts that were brewing in a primordial soup in my mind, and I have almost 900 published reviews and thousands of playtesting hours under my belt. It is an easy, insightful, entertaining, thought-provoking read, in many ways doing more than what its blurb suggests. It is one of these rare books that takes our hobby to the next level, probably because it is written by gamers, for gamers. --Antonio S, RPG.net Reviews\nHow and Why Cooperative Games Work 
This is the authoritative source on cooperative board games and card games for gamers, aficionados, critics, and designers, featuring a deep dive into co-op gaming's titles, mechanics, theory, and frontiers. 
You are on an epic mission to combat global plague. Or you are seeking out werewolves in an isolated village. Houses are on fire, islands are sinking, and enemy androids have infiltrated the fleet. 
You can't succeed alone and victory requires more than understanding your teammates. You need to know the game. 
Join experts Christopher Allen and Shannon Appelcline as they examine not only how cooperative board games work, but why. With more than 150 enlightening images showing principles and mechanisms of play in action, this book helps you see your favorite cooperative board games in new ways. Together, we look deep into the machines of great games to reveal how they work and how we play. 
Whether you want to play cooperative games better, discover your next favorite game, or design the world s next favorite, Meeples Together is for you. 
Foreword by Matt Leacock (designer of Pandemic) 
"This is the single most valuable resource to date for the design of cooperative games." 
--Raph Koster, author of A Theory of Fun 
"Meeples Together is a must read for any emerging game designer, and an interesting read for all hobby gamers." 
--Richard Launius, designer of Arkham Horror 
Required reading for game designers of any kind, bursting at the seams with knowledge and notions. I ll be stealing ideas from this for years. 
--Matt Forbeck, award-winning game designer and New York Times bestselling author 
"Meeples Together will deepen your understanding of cooperative game mechanics and dynamics, as well as keep you entertained." 
--Eric B. Vogel, designer of The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game 
If you like cooperative game and game design, this is the book you absolutely need to read. It includes an incredible exhaustive and detailed work analyzing the history of cooperative games, and tries to answer these two essential questions: how it works, and why it works. 
--Bruno Cathala, co-designer of Shadows over Camelot 
Everything you always wanted to know about cooperative games but were afraid to ask...and more! Absolutely [a book] to read! 
--Serge Laget, co-designer of Shadows over Camelot

Meeples Together: How and Why Cooperative Games Work

Shannon Appelcline

Christopher Allen

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Gameplaywright publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Gameplaywright

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Gameplaywright publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Beating the Story: How to Map, Understand, and Elevate Any Narrative

Friendly Local Game Store: A Five-Year Path to a Middle-Class Income

Meeples Together: How and Why Cooperative Games Work