Lucian Kahn

{{Short description|American game designer and musician}}{{Infobox writer

| name = Lucian Kahn

| occupation = Game designer, musician

| genre = Games: indie role-playing games, tabletop role-playing games; music: queercore folk-punk

| notable_works = games: Visigoths vs. Mall Goths, Dead Friend, If I Were a Lich, Man; music: Schmekel

}}

Lucian Kahn is an American role-playing game writer/designer and musician based in Brooklyn.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/nyregion/schmekel-a-band-born-as-a-laugh.html?_r=1|title=Schmekel, a Band Born as a Laugh|author=Hugh Ryan|date=25 November 2011|newspaper=The New York Times|accessdate=31 March 2012}}{{Cite web |last=Hall |first=Charlie |date=2022-12-15 |title=The best tabletop RPGs we played in 2022 |url=https://www.polygon.com/23505692/best-tabletop-rpgs-ttrpg-2022 |access-date=2023-03-21 |website=Polygon |language=en-US}} His work focuses on LGBT, Jewish, and subcultural themes, typically utilizing satire and farce. His games include Visigoths vs. Mall Goths, If I Were a Lich, Man, and Dead Friend: A Game of Necromancy, and his music includes Schmekel.

Games

Kahn wrote and designed the tabletop role-playing games Visigoths vs. Mall Goths,{{Cite web |last=Joyce |first=Justin |date=2021-06-02 |title=The best tabletop role-playing games are sold online, but not through Amazon |url=https://www.polygon.com/22463860/tabletop-rpg-store-drivethrurpg-indie-press-roll20-itch |access-date=2023-03-21 |website=Polygon |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |last=D'Amato |first=James |date=2020-05-11 |title=355. Visigoths VS Mall Goths Part 1 |url=https://oneshotpodcast.com/one-shot/355-visigoths-vs-mall-goths-part-1/ |access-date=2023-03-21 |website=The One Shot Podcast |language=en-US}} Dead Friend: A Game of Necromancy,{{Cite web |last=Hall |first=Charlie |date=2022-12-15 |title=The best tabletop RPGs we played in 2022 |url=https://www.polygon.com/23505692/best-tabletop-rpgs-ttrpg-2022 |access-date=2023-03-21 |website=Polygon |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |last=Roberts |first=Alex |date=2019-07-23 |title=Backstory 88. Lucian Kahn |url=http://oneshotpodcast.com/backstory/88-lucian-kahn/ |access-date=2023-03-21 |website=The One Shot Podcast Network |language=en-US}} and the boxed trilogy If I Were a Lich, Man.{{Cite news |date=2023-02-23 |title=What We Do in the Shadows and Russian Doll inspired this trio of comedic Jewish RPGs |url=https://www.dicebreaker.com/games/if-i-were-a-lich-man/news/if-i-were-a-lich-man |access-date=2023-03-21 |website=Dicebreaker |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=Previous Award Winners |url=https://www.igdnonline.com/previous-award-winners |access-date=2023-03-21 |website=Indie Game Developer Network |language=en-US}} All three games started out self-published as indie role-playing games, then were reprinted by Hit Point Press in 2023 after the Canadian publisher's kickstarter campaign for If I Were a Lich, Man raised $84,590 in two weeks.{{Cite web |title=Pre-order If I Were a Lich, Man: 3 Jewish Games by Lucian Kahn on BackerKit |url=https://if-i-were-a-lich-man.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders |access-date=2023-03-21 |website=BackerKit |language=en}}

Visigoths vs. Mall Goths lets players play LGBTQ people in 1990s goth subculture{{Cite web |date=2020-08-13 |title=Fables Around the Table: Tainted Love - Project Derailed |url=http://www.projectderailed.com/podcast/fables-around-the-table-tainted-love/ |access-date=2023-03-21 |language=en-US}} with a focus on bisexual people,{{Cite web |last=Gailloreto |first=Coleman |date=2021-06-19 |title=LGBTQ+ Themed Tabletop Roleplaying Games |url=https://screenrant.com/lgbtq-tabletop-rpgs-pride-sword-lesbians-mall-goths/ |access-date=2023-03-21 |website=ScreenRant |language=en}} and uses both classic RPG battle mechanics and dating sim game mechanics about flirting at the mall.{{Cite web |date=2022-06-06 |title=Queer Games Bundle strives to earn a living wage for marginalized artists in the tabletop RPG space |url=https://www.dicebreaker.com/topics/bundle/news/queer-games-bundle-2022-itchio |access-date=2023-03-21 |website=Dicebreaker |language=en}} The art is by Los Angeles artist Robin Eisenberg, and the game includes an adventure written by Jonaya Kemper.{{Cite book |title=Black Game Studies: An Introduction to the Games, Game Makers and Scholarship of the African Diaspora |publisher=Carnegie Mellon University: ETC Press |year=2021 |editor-last=Grace |editor-first=Lindsay |pages=48}}

In Dead Friend: A Game of Necromancy, two players act out a ritual in which one resurrects the other from the dead. Players draw Tarot cards to receive randomized storytelling prompts. Jess Kung for Polygon named Dead Friend the best game they played in 2022.{{Cite web |last=Hall |first=Charlie |date=2022-12-15 |title=The best tabletop RPGs we played in 2022 |url=https://www.polygon.com/23505692/best-tabletop-rpgs-ttrpg-2022 |access-date=2023-03-28 |website=Polygon |language=en-US}} Alex Roberts interviewed Kahn about designing Dead Friend as an episode of Backstory on One Shot Podcast Network.

If I Were a Lich, Man and Kahn's thoughts about Jewish fantasy tropes were featured in a 2023 Jewish Telegraphic Agency article.{{Cite web |last=Eanet |first=Lindsay |date=2023-05-12 |title=With goblins, spellcasters and holiday heroes, board game makers are imagining new Jewish worlds |url=https://www.jta.org/2023/05/12/culture/with-goblins-spellcasters-and-delis-board-game-makers-are-imagining-new-jewish-worlds |access-date=2023-05-13 |website=Jewish Telegraphic Agency |language=en-US}} The trilogy's title game is about anti-fascist Jewish liches debating how to survive attack by paladins who represent white supremacy and Christian privilege in the United States. Kahn "sees Jewish-coded monsters, and queer-coded villains, as figures of resistance" and sees his work as similar to tricksters fighting evil monarchs in Jewish folklore. The game reappropriates antisemitic tropes such as the use of tefillin as phylacteries to store a lich's soul. The second game in the trilogy, Same Bat Time, Same Bat Mitzvah, is about a guest who turns into a vampire at a Bat Mitzvah. In the third game, Grandma's Drinking Song, players collectively write a drinking song while acting out scenes based on Kahn's ancestors' true stories about working as bootleggers during Prohibition in New York City. The trilogy was inspired by What We Do in the Shadows and Russian Doll.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kahn produced Hibernation Games, a collection of one-player journaling games by five designers including Anna Anthropy and Jeeyon Shim, with themes of winter and solitude.{{Cite web |date=2021-02-03 |title=Hibernation Games bundle delivers five journalling RPGs to help weather the cold |url=https://www.dicebreaker.com/games/hibernation-games-bundle/news/hibernation-games-bundle-kickstarter-solo-rpg |access-date=2023-03-22 |website=Dicebreaker |language=en}}

Awards and Museum Exhibitions

If I Were a Lich, Man won the Silver ENNIE Award for "Best Family Game / Product" in 2024{{Cite web |last=Jovanée |first=Alice |date=2024-08-03 |title=Where to buy the best TTRPGs from Gen Con 2024 |url=https://www.polygon.com/24208883/best-rpg-games-tabletop-ennie-awards-gen-con-2024-buy-pre-order |access-date=2024-08-03 |website=Polygon |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |title=2024 Nominees – ENNIE Awards |url=https://ennie-awards.com/2024-nominees/ |access-date=2024-07-09 |language=en-US}} and the Indie Game Developer Network award for "Most Innovative" in 2020. Visigoths vs. Mall Goths was part of the exhibition "Game Play: Between Fantasy and Realism" at the Museum of the Moving Image.{{cite web |title=Game Play: Visigoths vs. Mall Goths |url=https://movingimage.us/event/game-play-visigoths-vs-mall-goths/ |access-date=March 21, 2023 |website=Museum of the Moving Image}} Kahn's work was also nominated for a 2023 Origins Award, a 2020 IndieCade award,{{Cite web |last1=McAloon |first1=Alissa |date=2020-09-24 |title=50 standout indie games nominated in this year's IndieCade Awards |url=https://www.gamedeveloper.com/disciplines/50-standout-indie-games-nominated-in-this-year-s-indiecade-awards |access-date=2023-03-21 |website=Game Developer |language=en}} a 2020 ENNIE Award,{{Cite web |title=2020 Nominees and Winners – ENNIE Awards |url=https://ennie-awards.com/portfolio-item/2020-nominees-and-winners/ |access-date=2023-03-21 |language=en-US}} and 4 additional IGDN awards.{{Cite web |date=2021-08-11 |title=Indie Game Developer Network announces 2021 award nominees |url=https://www.dicebreaker.com/companies/indie-game-developer-network/news/indie-game-developer-network-groundbreakers-nominees-2021 |access-date=2023-03-28 |website=Dicebreaker |language=en}}{{Cite web |date=2019-12-07 |title=Indie Groundbreakers Awards — Indie Game Developer Network |url=https://www.igdnonline.com/groundbreakers |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191207003433/https://www.igdnonline.com/groundbreakers |archive-date=2019-12-07 |access-date=2023-03-28}}

Talks

Kahn spoke on the game designer panel "Playing with Identity: Tabletop Role-Playing Games and the Queer Power Self-Definition" at Flame Con 2019, discussing the impacts of queer identity on game design and play.{{Cite web |last=Sendaula |first=Stephanie |title=Highlights from Flame Con 2019 |url=https://www.libraryjournal.com/story/flame-con-2019 |access-date=2023-03-22 |website=Library Journal}}

Music

Kahn was the singer, songwriter and electric guitar player for the Brooklyn queercore punk band Schmekel,Croland, Michael. Oy Oy Oy Gevalt! Jews and Punk. Connecticut: Praeger, 2016. pp. iv, x, xx, xxvii, 6-7, 17, 64-67, 141, 143-145, 159, 180. which explored his identity as a gay, Jewish, trans man through comedy. Hugh Ryan for The New York Times compared Kahn's songwriting to gay punk band Pansy Division and Jewish singer/songwriter and satirist Tom Lehrer.{{cite news |author=Hugh Ryan |date=25 November 2011 |title=Schmekel, a Band Born as a Laugh |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/nyregion/schmekel-a-band-born-as-a-laugh.html?_r=1 |accessdate=31 March 2012}} According to the Jewish Music Research Centre at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Kahn wrote the lyrics and punk chord progressions on the guitar for songs like "I'm Sorry, It's Yom Kippur," then electronic keyboard player Ricky Riot altered the chord progressions to make them sound cantorial.{{Cite web |last=Adelman |first=Eliahu |date=October 1, 2013 |title=I'm Sorry, It's Yom Kippur: Atonement through Punk (and Traditional Jewish Music) |url=https://jewish-music.huji.ac.il/content/%E2%80%98i%E2%80%99m-sorry-it%E2%80%99s-yom-kippur%E2%80%99-atonement-through-punk-and-traditional-jewish-music |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131002150727/https://jewish-music.huji.ac.il/content/%E2%80%98i%E2%80%99m-sorry-it%E2%80%99s-yom-kippur%E2%80%99-atonement-through-punk-and-traditional-jewish-music |archive-date=October 2, 2013 |access-date=2023-03-21 |website=Jewish Music Research Centre - Hebrew University of Jerusalem}} Eddy Portnoy wrote that Schmekel was an unsurprising development in Jewish culture because there was evidence of transgender people in the shtetls of early 20th century Europe, and connected the band to "Queer Yiddishkeit."{{Cite web |date=2011-10-19 |title=Transgender Jews May Be Nothing New |url=https://forward.com/news/144546/transgender-jews-may-be-nothing-new/ |access-date=2023-03-21 |website=The Forward |language=en}} In describing his performances with Schmekel, Kahn said, "Comedy is sacred to me, which is a pretty Jewish sentiment, isn't it?"{{Cite web |title=Schmekel in the Shtetl {{!}} Shtetl Montreal |url=http://shtetlmontreal.com/2012/01/20/shmekel-in-the-shtetl/ |access-date=2023-03-21 |website=shtetlmontreal.com}}

Kahn appears as the lead singer of Schmekel in the Tales of the City novel The Days of Anna Madrigal by Armistead Maupin.Maupin, Armistead. The Days of Anna Madrigal. New York: HarperCollins, 2014. pp. 84-85.

Lucian Kahn

Games

Music

References