J. Andrew Keith


John Andrew Keith was an American author and games developer.

Career

J. Andrew Keith, and his brother William H. Keith Jr., had seen ads in Journal of the Travellers Aid Society that stated that Game Designers' Workshop was seeking authors; Loren Wiseman brought them on to begin freelancing for GDW in 1978 or 1979, and together the three of them set up much of the early tone for the Traveller universe. J. Andrew Keith's writing for the Journal of the Travellers Aid Society was so extensive that he began to use the pseudonyms John Marshal and Keith Douglass. The Keith brothers were making enough money that they were able to freelance full-time starting around 1979. The Keith brothers began working for FASA by the end of 1980. FASA began getting into publishing adventures for Traveller beginning with Ordeal by Eshaar by the Keith brothers, who then wrote FASA's "Sky Raiders" trilogy. J. Andrew Keith briefly edited the magazine High Passage in 1982 before the High Passage Group told FASA that they could not publish additional High Passage material; FASA replaced this magazine with a new J. Andrew Keith magazine called Far Traveller, which began publication in October 1982. When FASA ended its support of Traveller, the Keith brothers moved their Traveller writing to a new company called Gamelords, but continued working for FASA in other capacities. The Keith brothers wrote seven supplements for Gamelords, including The Mountain Environment, The Undersea Environment, and The Desert Environment.
J. Andrew Keith wrote some adventures for Fantasy Games Unlimited's Chivalry & Sorcery before the line ended. The Keith brothers expanded into FGU's other lines in 1985 including Aftermath!, Daredevils, Flashing Blades, and Psi World. The Keith brothers also designed Freedom Fighters, one of the last role-playing games published by FGU.

Works

Andrew was a rather prolific Science Fiction and Role-Playing Game author, and the bibliography presented below is in no way comprehensive. Several of these works were with various co-authors, most commonly his brother, William H. Keith Jr.
"We shared several : Keith William Andrews, Keith Douglass, and H. Jay Riker. Back in the Traveller days, when he was doing a ton of writing for the old Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society, he used several pen names, including Keith Douglass and John Marshall, so it wouldn't look like the journal was entirely an Andrew Keith production."

Science fiction novels

Books, Supplements, and Folio Adventures: Cargonaut Press, Digest Group Publications, FASA, Gamelords, GDW, Marischal Adventures, and Seeker.