Lester W. Smith | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | Game designer, educational writer |
| Years active | 1984–present |
| Known for | Dragon Dice |
| Website | lestersmith |
Lester W. Smith is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games.
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's game Dark Conspiracy (1991) for GDW used the new "house system" of rules originally created for the second edition of Twilight: 2000.[2]: 60 Smith designed the Minion Hunter board game.[1]
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 Ken Whitman's Archangel Entertainment, and then helped Don Perrin design the Sovereign Stone roleplaying 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
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]
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]