Lester W. Smith

Last updated

Lester W. Smith
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s) Game designer, educational writer
Years active1984–present
Known for Dragon Dice
Website lestersmith.com

Lester W. Smith is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games.

Contents

Career

Early work and GDW

Lester Smith began his game-design career in 1984 with Mind Duel, a science-fiction board game submission to Space Gamer magazine. [1] In 1985, he joined the staff at Game Designers' Workshop. [1] Marc Miller, Frank Chadwick, Lester Smith, and Timothy Brown of GDW designed the new game Traveller: 2300 (1986) as an expansion of the original Traveller role-playing game. [2] : 58  He designed the Temple of the Beastmen board game. [1] Smith designed the role-playing game Dark Conspiracy (1991) which used the new GDW "house system" of rules originally created for the second edition of Twilight: 2000 . [2] : 60  Smith designed the Minion Hunter board game. [1]

TSR and Dragon Dice

Smith later left GDW to work for TSR. [2] : 63  He was hired by TSR in 1991, and contributed to the AD&D and Amazing Engine role-playing game lines. [1] Smith and Wolfgang Baur co-designed the Planes of Chaos boxed set. [3] He designed the Origins Award-winning Dragon Dice . [1] Smith designed Chaos Progenitus (1996), also marketed as Demon Dice . [4] Smith then worked for Imperium Games. [2] : 63  Smith later worked for Archangel Entertainment, and then helped Don Perrin design the Sovereign Stone role-playing game. [2] : 351  He has also done work for FASA, Flying Buffalo, West End Games, and others, acquiring two other Origins Awards in the process. [1] Along with Timothy Brown, James Ward, John Danovich, and Sean Everette, Smith co-founded the d20 company Fast Forward Entertainment. [2] : 351 

Later work

Smith worked as an educational writer and technologist for a Houghton Mifflin design house and for a time served as the president of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. [1] As of 2018, Smith is officially retired. [5] Since 2011, Smith has launched 13 successful funded campaigns on the crowdfunding platform kickstarter. [5] These projects include books, role-playing games and card games that Smith has designed himself. [5]

Personal life

Lester Smith is an alumnus of Illinois State University. [5] He married his wife Jennifer and they had four daughters together. [5] In 2015, Smith and his wife moved to Loma, Nebraska to live closer to family. [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steve Jackson Games</span> American game publishing company

Steve Jackson Games (SJGames) is a game company, founded in 1980 by Steve Jackson, that creates and publishes role-playing, board, and card games, and the gaming magazine Pyramid.

Traveller is a science fiction role-playing game first published in 1977 by Game Designers' Workshop. Marc Miller designed Traveller with help from Frank Chadwick, John Harshman, and Loren Wiseman. Editions were published for GURPS, d20, and other role-playing game systems. From its origin and in the currently published systems, the game relied upon six-sided dice for random elements. Traveller has been featured in a few novels and at least two video games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Game Designers' Workshop</span> Wargame and roleplaying game publisher

Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) was a wargame and role-playing game publisher from 1973 to 1996. Many of their games are now carried by other publishers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marc Miller (game designer)</span> American game designer (born 1947)

Marc William Miller is a wargame and role-playing game designer and author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Chadwick</span> American game designer and author

Frank Chadwick is an American game designer and New York Times best selling author. He has designed hundreds of games, his most notable being the role-playing games En Garde!, Space: 1889 and Twilight 2000, and the wargame series Europa and The Third World War, as well as creating Traveller with Marc Miller. He has won multiple awards for his work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Douglas Niles</span> American writer & game designer

Douglas Niles is a fantasy author and game designer. Niles was one of the creators of the Dragonlance world and the author of the first three Forgotten Realms novels, the Star Frontiers space opera setting and the Top Secret S/I espionage role-playing game.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Loren Wiseman</span> American role-playing game designer

Loren Keith Wiseman was an American wargame and role-playing game designer, game developer and editor.

Timothy B. Brown is an American game designer, primarily of role-playing games. He has been a designer at Game Designers' Workshop, an editor at Challenge magazine, and the director of product development at TSR.

<i>Azhanti High Lightning</i> Board wargame published in 1980

Azhanti High Lightning is a science-fiction wargame, designed by Frank Chadwick and Marc W. Miller, illustrated by Paul R. Banner, Charmaine Geist, Richard Hentz, and Richard Flory, and published by Game Designers Workshop (GDW) in 1980. The title is the name of the large military starship that provides the setting for close-action combat between individuals on board. Azhanti High Lightning is the fourth Traveller boardgame published by GDW. It was republished in 2004 as part of Far Future Enterprises's (FFE) Traveller: The Classic Games, Games 1-6+. Originally Supplement 5: Lightning Class Cruisers was only available as part of this game, it was republished in 2000 as part of FFE's Traveller Supplements volume.

James Michael Ward is an American game designer and fantasy author who worked for TSR, Inc. for more than 20 years.

Challenge was a role-playing game magazine published by Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) between 1986 and 1996.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Cook (game designer)</span> American game designer

David "Zeb" Cook is an American game designer, best known for his work at TSR, Inc., where he was employed for over fifteen years. Cook designed several games, wrote the Expert Set for Dungeons & Dragons, worked as lead designer of the second edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and invented the Planescape setting for AD&D. He is a member of the Origins Hall of Fame.

Demon Dice, originally published as Chaos Progenitus, is a collectible dice game for two or more players created by Lester Smith and Tim Brown.

Gary L. Thomas is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games.

David Ladyman is an American game designer of board games such as Car Wars, and role-playing games such as GURPS.

Imperium Games was an American game company that produced role-playing games and game supplements.

John Harshman is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games.

<i>Traveller Book 5: High Guard</i> Science-fiction role-playing game supplement

Traveller Book 5: High Guard is a supplement published by Game Designers' Workshop in 1980 for the science fiction role-playing game Traveller.

<i>Dark Nebula</i> (board game) Science fiction tabletop wargame

Dark Nebula is a two-player science fiction board wargame published by Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) in 1980.

<i>Invasion</i> (2300 AD) Science fiction tabletop role-playing game supplement

Invasion is a supplement published by Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) in 1988 for the science fiction tabletop role-playing game 2300 AD.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Smith, Lester (2007). "Kremlin". In Lowder, James (ed.). Hobby Games: The 100 Best . Green Ronin Publishing. pp. 168–171. ISBN   978-1-932442-96-0.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Shannon Appelcline (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. ISBN   978-1-907702-58-7.
  3. ↑ Swan, Rick (February 1995). "Role-playing Reviews". Dragon . Lake Geneva, Wisconsin: TSR (#214): 39.
  4. ↑ "Chaos Progenitus".
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Schucht, Eric (September 27, 2018). "Loma resident thinks outside the box to design game masterpieces". Columbus Telegram . Retrieved October 27, 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.