In November of 1987, in the city of Seattle, it began.  Four heroes were drawn together, and stayed together.  They took the name “Forte” for their new team.  And what began with them became legend.  More heroes joined them along the way as others left, with a total of 25 heroes having been members of Forte at different times.  Forte became one of the best-known hero teams in history, and saved the world—and the universe—on more occasions than they like to think about.  For eight years, Forte protected Seattle, and the world.  And then, it was over.

            That’s what happens to Champions campaigns when everyone moves away.

            It’s not an exaggeration to say that Forte was one of the most successful Champions games ever run.  It started in Sacramento with gamemaster K.C. Ryan, and his players were Tim Watts, Jeff Baumgardner, Kaye Dunham and Michael O’Connell.  They met weekly to play this game, having no idea it would last so long and go so far.  The “game updates”, summaries of the previous week’s gaming session, were written up by K.C. and numbered as though it was a comic book series.  Forte #1, Forte #2, etc.  When the campaign finally closed, that final issue was Forte #328.  And in the eight years of the campaign’s continuous run, there had been 13 players and 25 characters in the game, and stories both epic and personal that would rival the best of any comic on the market.  It was an amazing ride.  It was a fluke, too, really.  Champions campaigns—or any roleplaying campaigns—never last that long.  How this group managed to keep doing it, week after week, regardless of life changes or schedules, is still a mystery.  When it ended, it was lamented that something like this could never happen again.   And especially with all the players and the gamemaster now spread across the country.  Forte had had its day, but that day was over.

            Or was it?

           The Forte campaign has never really died.  Former players still know what their characters are doing as the years roll by, and certain ones get to get together again at the occasional con game at the annual San Diego Comic-Con gathering.  Some still write fiction about their characters.  Some chat on the phone or the internet and discuss great story ideas that could still be told.  The interest is still there.

            So one day, thinking about Forte, I got to wondering what it would be like if, by some miracle of circumstance, the original Forte group all ended up in the same city again, and our schedules allowed for us to take on weekly gaming again.   Suppose K.C. decided to start up Forte again, and asked the four of us to make new characters for a new team that would fill the hero void left in Seattle since Forte disbanded.  What kind of characters would we all make?  What would the new Forte look like?

            This is a question I posed to Tim, Kaye, and Jeff, just as a fun creative exercise.  The goal was for each of us to create a character just as though K.C. himself had asked for it.  We all know how K.C.’s world works, and what parameters he has for character creation (what power levels to use, what powers you can and can’t have, etc.), so we all approached the idea just this way.

            What resulted was what I think are four really great characters—Max (Jeff), Tinker (Kaye), Rainier (Tim) and Seahawk (myself).  Without planning, we all managed to make characters that were Seattle natives, and the dynamic suggested by the different personalities and backgrounds of each of them told us that this would be a really fun team that would work well together, and make for a great game.

            While there was still no way we were all going to get together and game, it was decided that the team was too much fun to just create and then cast aside.  Hey, there were always con games, right?  And besides, most of us are fiction writers, and stories of a new Forte would be a lot of fun to create and share. 

            And so Forte 2000 was born, taking its place among the other elements of the Forte Expanded Universe (all the post-game creations and stories).  Using the characters as a guide, I wrote up the origin story of this new team in game update format, as though we’d actually played the game, taking into account the personalities of the characters as written, and the way I know all the players like to roleplay.  That was the start.  And from there, the sky was the limit.  There were stories waiting to be told be all involved…and new characters, created by other former Forte players, were waiting to be added.  Though we couldn’t all be together physically, creatively a new Forte could go on.   Because as we’ve all learned in the years since the game officially ended, Forte never really goes away.  It’s always with those of us that were part of it, and it goes on, and on, and on.

            I created this page to present the new team and collect all the information on them, and the adventures they’d get into along the way.  Hopefully, it’s a page that will be updated regularly.  So, Forte fans old and new, please take a look around, and enjoy, and join us as the next great chapter of this never-ending story begins.

            One…two…three…Forte.

 

Michael O’Connell

Dr. Jackal, Twostep, Seahawk, Nightsable