Thread by @Delafina777

It's actually worse than Eric lays out here, because Luke Crane didn't just give his capital to an abuser, he gave the capital of *all the authors he tricked into publishing with Koebel.*

And when those authors pulled out, he *continued* to coercively coopt them to his cause.

https://twitter.com/eric_lang/status/1366476398437818371

Most of the authors who pulled out have been very clear that they did so because they didn't want to give cover to Adam Koebel or be part of his preemptive rehabilitation.

Luke Crane then claimed that they'd pulled out not because they had ethical objections to the project (the actual reason most of them stated) but because people (presumably those who don't agree with his decision to publish Koebel) had harassed them into quitting.

So, basically, Luke Crane deceptively drafts people into giving the appearance of supporting his abusive buddy, and then

when they're like "whoa, no, I didn't sign up for this,"

he's essentially like "THEY SIGNED UP FOR THIS but you all harassed them into pulling out."

Like I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that in attempting to publish his buddy Adam Koebel, who deceptively and coercively drafted his coworkers into roleplaying sexual assault, Luke Crane deceptively and coercively drafted his authors into roleplaying support of Adam Koebel.

And this would be bad enough if Luke Crane were just some indie designer who was doing a Kickstarter.

But Luke Crane is Kickstarter's *Head of Community.*

Kickstarter is how a LOT of indie designers support themselves.

So contradicting his narrative potentially has some *significant* negative consequences for the writers he tricked into participating in attempting to get everyone to support his abusive buddy's work.

Anyway, as usual, the one constant in the TTRPG industry is that if you're a white man, there's literally NOTHING you can do that's bad enough that other white men won't cover for you.

And in a very real sense, this is theft of the social capital and credibility of the other authors on the project.

Which is especially gross considering both Crane and Koebel had greater prominence/name recognition than some of those authors.