Lester Smith began his game-design career in 1984 with Mind Duel, a science-fiction board game submission to Space Gamer magazine.
[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]: 63 Smith later worked for Archangel Entertainment, and then helped Don Perrin design the Sovereign Stone role-playing game.
[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.