Do I have to know a lot about X-Men/the Marvel Universe to play in this game?
If it's something you can't glean from reading the game info, then you probably don't need to know it. :Db If we've overestimated how easy this is to understand with no X-Men/Marvel knowledge, though, and there's something that's still baffling you? Go ahead and ask. We don't bite.

How many characters can I have?
Nine! Nine per player. They can even all be from the same series if you want, though we'd rather you didn't do that.

Is there a game chat?
Indeed there is. If you're on AIM, you can head over to xichat mutantparty (it's normally xichat, but AIM has a tendency to randomly stop our rooms from working for a week or two and when this happens we usually lurk in mutanthighschool or makeoutrp or mutantparty where we currently are!) and we will welcome you with open arms. Chat participation isn't essential but it's worth it if you like that sort of thing – a lot of folks like getting to know their fellow players, and it can be a good place to ask for threads and talk about plot. There's often a mod or two or three in there, too, who will a) happily help you out if you need any help with anything and b) kick your ass if you link to anything not worksafe without warning. See the rules for more on chatiquette.

I don't have AIM but I want to participate in the chat; what can I do?
Well, for starters you could get AIM or one of the many other clients that support it; if you don't want to download anything you can try meebo, which allows you to use AIM in a browser window. Handy!

Can I join chat if I'm not in the game already?
If you're planning on joining, or if you're thinking about it and want to see what we're like, feel free to pop in! You can also pose questions to mutantprom before actually joining.

What's with the whole MUTANT PROM thing?
MUTANT HIGH SCHOOL. MUTANT FIELD DAY. MUTANT PROM!!!

What's all this GMT stuff?
Like half the mods are British, so we live in Britishtime. It's this bad habit we have. For your reference, EST is GMT-5. Now you know!

So I heard you have a wiki.
We do. You can find it at xiwiki.pbworks.com, and it can be a bit intimidating, but your best first stop is the Newbie Guide to XIWiki. It contains a lot of useful information like the lists of staff and classes at the Xavier Institute, which we encourage players to help keep updated, as well as pages on NPCs, locations, and an asspile of injokes. Also more lists than is probably reasonable, although some of them are quite useful.

So does the game take place in the Marvel Universe?
This RP takes place in an AU which resembles Earth-616, the main Marvel Universe, in a lot of ways, but differs quite dramatically in others, in order to have the game work the way we want it to. Essentially, outside of the X-Men, all American superhero activity has been simplified: the Avengers, for instance, were established about two years ago and their roster is still Iron Man, Thor, Ant-Man, the Wasp and Captain America; the Fantastic Four have been around for as long as the X-Men but their exploits have been toned down somewhat. Spider-Man has only been headline news in the Daily Bugle for the last two years.
The X-Men have had a variety of adventures and a variety of different teams; the original team of five young mutants was assembled ten years ago and it has gone through a lot of different members and a lot of different adventures since then. For a better idea of in-game history, check the timeline.

So what are those adventures?
We like to try to keep it vague and simple for the sake of people who want to app staff characters who've been members of the X-Men in the past. If you are playing a character who used to be a member of the X-Men, feel free to decide on past adventures amongst yourself with other players. Or just make shit up on the fly, especially if it's Silver Age-style nonsense. Especially especially if you're playing Wolverine.

If it's not Earth-616, what is it?
Earth-21561926, of course.

Are there any other mutant schools?
No. This is the only one. :I

Has the Xavier Institute always been a school?
Until it was rebuilt in 2009, the mansion did not have classrooms, dormitories, or any other of the school facilities it now boasts. Although there were often youngsters in residence and they often received schooling whilst at the mansion, it was often directly from Xavier or older members of the X-Men; there were no teaching staff and there were never more than five or so students at any one time.

This is the way something is in Marvel canon so it should be this way in your game, too!
Nope. The game is AU. Yeah, we take a lot of our cues from Marvel canon, obviously, but if we say something is a certain way in the game then that is how it is, regardless of whether that contradicts canon. If you know more about Earth-616 than us? Great, good for you. This isn't Earth-616.

Can I break the fourth wall?
You can't have your character recognise another character from fiction, no.
Obviously your characters are going to want to reference things now and then. That's fine – as long as what they're referencing doesn't involve a character we already have in the game. If it's a canon so far unrepresented, though, go ahead – but be prepared to pretend it never happened if someone apps a character from that series. We advise the use of poorly-disguised analogues or parodies of real-life books, comics, TV shows or video games in situations where directly referencing the real thing would be problematic.

Also, bear in mind that in this universe you can actually buy comics about the more public heroes (notably the Fantastic Four and Avengers).

Obviously none of this applies if you are playing Deadpool.

Why the politics? Aren't you worried about being biased?
Politics are a fairly important part of some of this game's plot and background, and we want to keep things fairly realistic in that area. As such, no political party is being portrayed as the 'good guys'; they're politicians, none of them are lovely people, they all make mistakes, and their actions in no way reflect the mods' opinions of individual people's political views, which we recognise vary drastically from person to person regardless of political affiliation. In-game politics will almost exclusively deal with mutant rights, and, while this will inevitably mirror some real-life social issues, we're much more interested in criticising prejudice from all political positions than in lauding any political party as the unicorn-riding bringers of sparkles and gorgeousness.

I want my character to be attending a class that you haven't mentioned/isn't listed with a teacher, what do I do?
Just say they attend it. We won't mind.

How many classes should my character be taking?
Really? As many as you like. Eight is an okay number? It's okay if you have more or less or only name a few and assume they're in some others. We have a pretty lax approach to classes and won't actually care if you change your mind about which ones your character is in every other week.

How do they afford all this?
The combined power of Professor X himself being pretty well-off and the school having a number of wealthy benefactors pays for most of the running of the school, as well as the education of a lot of the students. Students with no source of income (unsurprisingly, we are up to our necks in orphans and kids whose families have abandoned them) are provided with a moderate weekly allowance.

The mansion's technology is unfeasibly advanced, how are you explaining that?
I ...

... The Danger Room is cool, okay. Do you want us to not have the Danger Room or something? Geez.

Does my character have to have a codename?
For the most part, the only characters who'll have codenames from the start will those with a past in superheroics. Students may well be assigned codenames later on, though, so you might want to start thinking about it.

Does my character have to be the same age as they are in canon?
Nope. Generally speaking it makes most sense to make a character who's canonically a teenager a student, or one who's canonically an adult a staff member, but really we don't mind if people want to do it the other way round now and then. If we don't think it works we'll tell you, but if you can give us a believable characterisation, go for it.

Can my character be the oldest/toughest/strongest/most powerful ...?
Probably not. For the most part our measuring-sticks are in-universe characters – either NPCs, or played by people we trust. For example, we will generally discourage people from making their character:
- Older than Wolverine.
- A better engineer than Tony Stark.
- A more powerful telepath than Emma Frost.
- Stronger than the Hulk.
- More physically capable without super-powers than Captain America.
- More intelligent than Reed Richards.
- A more powerful sorcerer than Albus Dumbledore.
There are a few reasons for these limitations but mostly it's to do with not wanting the masses of characters from over-the-top shonen manga series to distort the power levels of the universe where this is set, and not wanting some of the people in charge of the school to be outdone by uppity kids.

Depending on who the character is, they may be allowed to be as good as some of these guys, but not better.

I have a question that isn't answered here!
Leave a comment about it here and we'll get back to you as soon as we can – that way the answer will be there for other people to see. Alternatively, you can contact the mod email at xavierinstitutemods@gmail.com, or IM one of us individually. If you're uncertain at all about whether anything is allowed, we'd much rather you ask us than assume the answer is no!