FAQ
(Foolishly Answered Questions)
What's the deal with this thing?
Sigil Prep is a comedic, role-playing intensive campaign set in, and parodying, the traditional D&D mythos. All of it. Characters come from all published official D&D settings, and attend school at a prestigious, if unorganized, campus on the Outer Planes.
Gotcha. So, looking through it, you seem to have 4e stats on some pages, and 3e on others. So what's up with that?
Simple enough. I started creating this thing back in the glory days of 3.5, and to keep it current, I'm starting to write things in 4e terms. The ongoing game I'm running is in 3.5, and it's not going to convert midstream, so a lot of stuff will continue to be listed in 3.5 terms. However, as 4e material comes out, it is my sovereign duty to make jokes about it.
In that interest, I will also at some point be going back to create some 1e, 2e, and even OD&D content, on account of I have too much time on my hands.
So, will 4e fluff override the current fluff?
Heavens no. It will add to it. Since the game covers all of D&D, certain fluff fits best in certain places. As the game is ostensibly "set" in Planescape, a lot of the old Great Wheel fluff for demons, devils, and other such critters will still stand, but the 4e fluff will have a place in "The Core" (default campaign setting for 4e), just as I continue under the assumption that Mystara uses OD&D fluff (and rules). Whatever makes the best joke, in most cases. Since it's funnier that Slaadi are creatures of raw chaos (rather than chaotic evil brutes like in 4e), they will continue to behave randomly and be bad at math in Sigil Prep.
I read your campus tour. Where's the building for Nature Rituals?
It's on the Primal Campus. It'll be detailed when PHB2 comes out. Suckas!
So what can I play?
Anything from any 3e or 3.5 D&D book (4e if I start a new game). All options are open, from all (official) sources, down to regional feats and skill tricks. Every setting from Blackmoor to Eberron, every deity, every optional rule (short of gestalt. No gestalt).
So is there going to be some sort of Spellplague to explain the 'fundamental changes to the laws of the universe' (i.e. game mechanics?)
Change of curriculum. It's pretty simple to explain things when the whole game is one big lampshade store.
Lamp... shade..?
Sheesh, have you just discovered the internet? www.tvtropes.org Look it up.
So, my character comes from Krynn. How do I get to Sigil Prep?
The easy answer, find a Portal. The long answer, see here.
So, this Timeline of yours doesn't make sense. Warduke can't be that old, and it hasn't been 300 years since the Time of Troubles, and...
Look! Over there!
What? Where? Hey...
Seriously, though, I did that for metajoke reasons, and anyway, who cares? I mix and match timelines to create the best possible world, anyway. I use Chronicles-era Dragonlance, but don't feel like I can't use characters or concepts from other eras. I use the factions (in a sense) in Sigil, even though "Die, Vecna, Die!" is presumed to have taken place. Continuity with the official settings isn't important, if something else makes a better joke.
So I want to DM a game in this setting. What do I do?
To me, the only way to handle this setting is to sit back and let the players drive. Reactive DMing. The most important skills are improvisation, and a quick sense of humor. Also an obscene knowledge of the various D&D settings and monsters, and rules, and spells, and... the more you know, the more stupid jokes you can make. That's the key. Don't spend too much time worrying about going to class. Worry about prank wars, and trips home, and who kidnapped the head cheerleader, and the dungeon under Regdar's house where the gibberlings stole the keg during the big party, and the evil head cheerleader from University of Iuz who wants to sabotage the big game... Classes are boring. Hijinks are fun.
So, my DM is running this game, what should I play?
Didn't we go over this? Whatever you want. Although it's better if you develop a character rather than a one-note joke. Your Wizard with 10 INT who can only cast cantrips may be funny at level 1, but at level 10, when your friends are fighting that frost giant street gang who's been roughing up freshmen for their lunch money, will it still be fun? It may be, who knows? But make sure you think long term, not 'what's funny now'.
Also, from experience, I can tell you, you don't want to play a brooding loner. That may be your favorite cliche in your other games, but 'round here... Sitting in a corner and moping just gets you left out. Everyone who came in with dark, brooding loners dropped out quick. (Korwan is the closest to that stereotype that stuck around, and he's social enough to involve himself in things). Also, for the sake of your DM, don't play freaking multiple personality characters! Damn, that shit is annoying.
What the hells does 'Loft' mean?
Slang term, short for 'Ravenloft', which equates to real world "Goth". Other in-game slang includes: "Dump Stat" (an area in which someone is deficient: "Gods, Regdar, is everything your dump stat?"), "BAB" ('bad-ass bitch/bastard', i.e. a combat intensive major), "he's at Zero" (unconscious, but stable. Used in the infirmary). When using meta-jokes like that, I usually assume there are 'in game' definitions for those terms, not that the characters are *nudge-nudge, wink-wink* aware of their existence as game characters.
Why does Storm Silverhand have so many bard levels on your Yearbook entry. That's not how her stats look in the FRCS.
Classes and levels are different from the official sources of various Setting Characters, based on my needs for said characters. For instance, Storm is more useful to me as a bard than any of her other roles, so I pumped that up. Merrix d'Cannith has to be on par with equivalent Important Personages from the Realms and Greyhawk, so I boosted him to Epic. This isn't an official anything, so I can do that.
It looks like you have every book. What are you, some kind of dork?
I'm not a dork, I'm a geek. But not including adventures, and several of the later books on account of I was poor, I have every 3e book from the PHB to Complete Scoundrel (and then I stopped having money, and haven't completely been able to catch up). Before that, I had all the hardbacks for 1e (and many of the boxed sets), and all of the pre-rules options stuff for 2e. I will probably continue this 'every book' practice in 4e.
So this is set in the modern day?
No, but it's full of anachronisms. There's football, and sneakers, and nachos, and fast food franchises. There are not modern firearms, motor vehicles (except one motorcycle Mora owns), or anything that would create a genuine power curve. There are (within the confines of the school), magical versions of computers and such, but these are rare.
Okay, I think I get it now.
Good. I'll be sure to expand this FAQ in the future, as other books come out, to anticipate interaction with Sigil Prep.