Luke Crane (game designer)

Luke Crane is a game designer specializing in indie role-playing games.

Career

Luke Crane designed the role-playing game The Burning Wheel (2002), which uses a six sided dice pool, and a "Beliefs" mechanic.^[1][2] Crane also designed the Burning Empires and Mouse Guard Roleplaying Game role-playing games.^[3] Crane has crowdfunded several of his own game designs, including Torchbearer.^[4] Crane designed the 2010 role-playing game Freemarket with Jared Sorensen.^[5] Crane held an annual weekend gaming event in New York City called Burning Con.^[6] Crane posted the question "Why are there so few lady game creators?" on Twitter in 2012, which started the hashtag #1reasonwhy, as hundreds of people shared their own stories.^{[7][8][9][10]} Crane also designed the 2015 Mouse Guard board game.^[11]

Crane joined Kickstarter after he saw a surge in gaming campaigns on the website.^[12] Crane became a community manager at Kickstarter, and persuaded his company to host the arcade game Killer Queen for its annual block party in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.^[13] Crane was the head of games at Kickstarter, where he critiqued projects to determine their fan appeal.^{[14][15][16][17]} Crane later became the vice president head of community at Kickstarter.^[18] Crane launched a campaign for The Perfect RPG in 2021, but quickly cancelled the campaign after receiving public backlash because of the inclusion of designer Adam Koebel as a contributor.^[19] Crane resigned from Kickstarter after this controversy.^[20]

Personal life

Luke Crane lived in the same apartment in New York City for many years with three of his friends that he met at New York University in 1991.^[2] Crane managed the Manhattan Mayhem women's roller derby team.^[3]

References

1. Spearing, Graham (December 2009). "Wordplay Designer's Notes". RPG Review. No. 6. p. 13. Retrieved 2024-03-08 – via Internet Archive.
2. Howard, Hilary (2012-08-03). "A Confederacy of Bachelors". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2021-05-12. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
3. Crane, Luke (2010). "Luke Crane on Jungle Speed". In Lowder, James (ed.). Family Games: The 100 Best. Seattle: Green Ronin Publishing. p. 190. ISBN 978-1-934547-21-2. Retrieved 2024-03-08 – via Internet Archive.
4. Livingstone, Ian (2019). Board Games in 100 Moves. London: DK. p. 164. ISBN 978-1-4654-8575-5. Retrieved 2024-03-08 – via Google Books.
5. Leaman, Troy (2016). "Playing for Change: FreeMarket and the Rise of Serious Tabletop Role-Playing Games". In Byers, Andrew; Crocco, Francesco (eds.). The Role-Playing Society: Essays on the Cultural Influence of RPGs. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. pp. 197–202. ISBN 978-0-7864-9883-3. Retrieved 2024-03-08 – via Internet Archive.
6. Morgan, Matt (2012-10-25). "Luke Crane Provides Advice For Building RPG Scenarios". MTV. Archived from the original on 2024-03-08. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
7. Hamilton, Mary (2012-11-28). "#1reasonwhy: the hashtag that exposed games industry sexism". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2024-03-08. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
8. deWinter, Jennifer; Kocurek, Carly A. (2017). "Aw Fuck, I Got a Bitch on My Team!". In Malkowski, Jennifer; Russworm, Treaandrea M. (eds.). Gaming Representation: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Video Games. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. p. 57. ISBN 978-0-253-02573-9. Retrieved 2024-03-08 – via Internet Archive.
9. Consalvo, Mia (2019). "Why we need feminist game studies". In Oren, Tasha; Press, Andrea L. (eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Feminism. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. p. 208. ISBN 978-1-138-84511-4. ProQuest 2230172803. Retrieved 2024-03-08 – via Google Books.
10. Kocurek, Carly A. (Winter 2020). "Editor's Introduction: It Isn't Difficult to Find Feminist Game Studies, but Can We Find a Feminist Game History?". Feminist Media Histories. 6 (1): 1–11. doi:10.1525/fmh.2020.6.1.1. ProQuest 2770691265.
11. Niebling, William (2016-01-19). "Luke Crane's 'Burning Wheel Gold Codex'". ICv2. Archived from the original on 2024-03-08. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
12. Duffy, Owen (2017-05-09). "How board games conquered Kickstarter: Five years on from the tabletop crowdfunding revolution". Tabletop Gaming. Archived from the original on 2024-03-08. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
13. Frushtick, Russ (2014-10-12). "Dynamite With a Laser Beam". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2024-01-23. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
14. Moodie, Alison (2015-05-17). "Game on: what happens to video startups that make millions on Kickstarter?". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2024-03-08. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
15. Li, Shan (2016-06-23). "This isn't Candy Land: Exploding Kittens and others are reviving board and card games". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 2024-03-08. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
16. Bromwich, Jonah Engel (2017-09-05). "Secret Hitler, a Game That Simulates Fascism's Rise, Becomes a Hit". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2023-06-06. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
17. Fraade-Blanar, Zoe; Glazer, Aaron M. (2017). Superfandom: How Our Obsessions are Changing What We Buy and Who We Are. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-24996-5. Retrieved 2024-03-08 – via Google Books.
18. Ziwei, Puah (2020-12-23). "Video game funding on Kickstarter is at its highest since 2015". NME. Archived from the original on 2024-03-08. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
19. Carter, Chase (2021-03-01). "Kickstarter executive cancels The Perfect RPG campaign amid backlash to Dungeon World co-creator's involvement". Dicebreaker. Archived from the original on 2024-03-08. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
20. Hall, Charlie (2021-03-26). "Kickstarter community head quits, apologizes for controversial RPG project". Polygon. Archived from the original on 2024-03-08. Retrieved 2024-03-08.