Kickstarter RPG VP Resigns In Wake Of ‘Perfect RPG’ Controversy, Issues Apology
Luke Crane, Vice President and Community Head at Kickstarter is stepping down in the wake of a now-canceled controversial project.
Last month, designer and Kickstarter VP Luke Crane faced backlash from the community after launching, then almost immediately cancelling a project that included work from a controversial designer and seemingly hiding this designer’s involvement.
Crane’s project, titled The Perfect RPG, was intended to he a zine-style collection of different tabletop rpgs from a variety of contributors, including work from Dungeon World co-creator Adam Koebel, who last year stepped down from a popular streaming show and resogned from work on the Dune RPG following an “on-screen” sexual assault scene roleplayed out in the final episode of the Far Verona stream.
Backers and contributors alike were dismayed to learn of Koebel’s involvement, prompting many contributors to back out of the project. Now, one month later, Luke Crane has issued a statement on the now-cancelled project:
When we began the Perfect RPG project, my only goal was to launch a small collection of micro-games designed by my friends and others whose work I respect in the community. On the day it launched, while the project was falling apart, I did not fully understand what was at stake and what had happened—in the shock of the moment my communications were insensitive and desultory.
So here and now I wish to unequivocally apologize to you, and everyone affected, for the harm I’ve done to the community with this project. I am grateful for your input over the last month, and have done my best to listen with an open heart. I thank you for sharing your opinions and feelings, and know that I have violated the trust you placed in me. I am sincerely, deeply regretful.
In creating the project, I made a series of missteps and miscalculations that added up to a gross oversight on my part and, accordingly, I am fully responsible for the current situation and its effects. So I would like to add some clarification around some of the particular points raised, in the hope that it will help the community as a whole move forward in a productive way: There was no deceit, deception or bad faith in any of my actions around the project. I understand that I should have disclosed the participant list to all contributors beforehand, and I feel terrible that my poor planning placed some creators in a difficult position.
Likewise with the unusual order in which contributors were listed—I was seeking to highlight the first creator on the list, who was my primary playtester for this project. In hindsight this was a poor idea that came off as duplicitous, for which I apologize.
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Crane calls his actions and any harm caused to the indie RPG community “devastating” and has pledged to try and repair the damage done by reaching out to all the contributors of the project and engaging in earnest discussions with them, listening to their perspectives and asking them for input.
Crane has also parted ways with Kickstarter, calling the departure “a mutual one.”
More on this story as it develops
