Daniel Kwan

Game Designer, Cultural Consultant, & Podcaster

About

Daniel is a Canadian podcaster, game designer, and cultural consultant. He is the recipient of 4 Gold and 4 Silver ENnie Awards for his work in the tabletop gaming industry.You might know him as the co-host and showrunner of the Asians Represent! podcast. As a freelance narrative designer, some of his notable works include Candlekeep Mysteries, the Ultimate Micro-RPG Guide, Avatar Legends, Dark Archive, and the Tian Xia series. As a cultural consultant, he has worked for companies like Dimension 20, Critical Role Productions, and Asmodee. As an independent game designer, Daniel has released products like Wicked Congregation, Ross Rifles, and the Chronicles of Spring & Autumn series. He is currently working on Wandering Blades, a wuxia game of violent melodrama in the style of old school TTRPGs.Daniel is also one of the co-founders of Level Up Gaming, a Toronto-based organization that provides facilitated tabletop roleplaying gaming experiences for the autism community.

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Portfolio

This page contains my work as a Narrative Designer, Game Designer, Developmental Editor, Cultural Consultant, and Producer. I have an intense passion for telling stories through games. My goals are to immerse players in meaningful experiences, write thought-provoking stories, and craft detailed worlds. The following works below are a selection of my portfolio.

Select Narrative Writing & Game Design

  • Motherlands RPG (game design, pending release)

  • Lost Omens Tian Xia World Guide (game & narrative design, 2024)

  • The Lost Omens Tian Xia Character Guide (game & narrative design, 2024)

  • Candela Obscura (preliminary design of the Illuminated Worlds system, 2023)

  • Legions of Carcosa: The Yellow King Roleplaying Game Bestiary (creature design, 2023)

  • Avatar Legends (contributing designer, 2023) - 2 x Gold ENnie Awards (Best Family Game & Best Rules, 2023)

  • Blades of the Lunar Kingdom (independent release, 2023)

  • Paradise Mountain - Chronicles of Spring & Autumn #1 (independent release, 2022)

  • Wicked Congregation (independent release, 2022)

  • Dark Archive (narrative design, 2022)

  • Candlekeep Mysteries (The Book of Inner Alchemy - game and narrative design, 2021)

  • Jiangshi: Blood in the Banquet Hall (narrative writing, 2021) - 1 x Silver ENnie Award (Best Setting, 2022)

  • Denizens of Mountains & Seas vol. 1 & 2 (independent release, 2021)

  • Vault of Magic (contributing writer, 2021)

  • The Ultimate Micro RPG Book (Going Dark - game design, 2020)

  • Unbreakable Vol. 1 (Drowned Souls of the Hidden Stream - game design, 2020)

  • Ross Rifles (lead designer, 2020)

  • Haunted West (contributing writer, 2019) - 1 x Silver ENnie Award (Best Rules, 2022)

  • Wolf of the South (lead designer, 2019)

  • Flip Tales (Never Trust an Adventurer - game design, 2018)

  • Zany Zoo (lead designer, 2018)

Developmental Consultation

  • Cloudbreaker Alliance (pending release)

  • Island & Aswangs (pending release)

  • The Koryo Hall of Adventures (2021)

Cultural & Sensitivity Consultation

  • Yunnan 2nd Edition (pending release)

  • Hyper Light Drifter: Tabletop Role-Playing Game (pending release)

  • Margrave: The Marcher Lords (2024)

  • Critical Role Productions (2022)

  • Arcadia Magazine (Issues 12 & 18, 2022)

  • Dimension 20 (The Unsleeping City: Chapter Two, Episode 213, 2022)

  • MOAR! Monsters Know What They're Doing (The Monsters Know What They’re Doing Book 3) (2022)

  • Unbreakable: Revolution (2021)

  • Flames of Freedom (2021)

  • 10 Foolish Foes (2021)

  • My Dad's Monster Manual (2020)

  • Ancestry & Culture (2020)

  • Kunio's Guide to Segai (2020)

  • Legend of the 3 Cosmic Fists (2020)

Production

Select Academic Research

  • No Experience, No Problem: Exploring the Role of Emulative Learning in Pipe Production - Journal of Archaeological, Ethnographic and Experimental Studies (Volume 9, 2017)

  • Empowering cultural preservation in China through participatory digitization - Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports (Volume 12, April 2017)

  • aʔkwaⁿdaʔtsǫⁿgyaʔ—We All Made Pottery: A Wendat Perspective to Ancestral Wendat Pottery Making - Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology (Volume 48, Issue 2, Summer 2023)

Contact

For professional inquiries about narrative design, cultural consulting, podcasting, or appearances, please contact me via the form below.