I normally don't bother with rules lawyering. I prefer for a game to be fun, if we have to run a little loose with some of the rules, I'm fine with that. But, we're playing in the campaign from The Emperor Protects. Our GM told us that one of the enemies we fought had an attack that couldn't be parried or blocked. Unfortunately, this creature killed us all. However, I have a copy of the adventure too. I didn't look through it, because we were playing that campaign, and I didn't want spoilers or out of character knowledge. Afterwards, I flipped to the page in the book, because I wanted to see what kind of stats this thing had. When I was looking at it's abilities, it only said it's bite attack couldn't be parried, nothing about it not being dodged. I feel that we would have had a better chance of surviving, if we'd known we could dodge those attacks. How should I bring this up with our GM. I don't want it to be a huge issue in the group. But, I feel that we would have survived, as we had him down to 13 wounds by the time we were all killed. I almost feel like asking for a do-over, as it was a rather large mistake he made on that. I'd appreciate any ideas about this from you.

If I were you I would talk to you GM outside your normal game time. Tell him you were looking at the creature and realized that the encounter was played wrong. Don't place any blame just explain your concerns and be open to a compromise. If your GM is fair he should work something out for you. Be calm and respectful, the fastest way for my players not to get what they want is to shove something in my face and demand I change something. If the act respectful we always work something out. If that doesn't work...I dunno, find a new GM

Most of us in our group simply say the rule was the rule when it happened, and then we change it for the future. This goes for mistakes in combat or in character generation, etc. As a GM, I personally tend to side with the longevity of the PCs though, if I've misread something in the rules that resulted in a TPK I'd probably go back and fix it.

But as Gijared says, I'd do it outside of the normal game session and bring it up respectfully, don't demand or yell. And remember ultimately it's up to him to decide if you get the do-over or not.

Also, did you not get a chance to burn a fate point to survive?

Agreed. Normally, I'd say a GM is allowed to make ceratin rules and expectations of a group, but after a TPK of a group, a polite question to them alone is the best route.

Yup. As above.

And I'd also like to know why you didn't all get to burn a Fate Point to survive: That's the point of them!

I'm not sure about our Tactical Marine. But, I had used my last fate point in the last session to survive. And, our Assault Marine used his last one to survive as long as he did against it. I was the first to die, then the assault marine, then the tactical. Our GM hasn't pulled any punches, that I could tell, and has been pretty harsh on us with mistakes we made. I'm not entirely opposed to that. We're space marines, it isn't supposed to be easy if they're sending us in. I'm even ok with being dead, as I died first. I just feel that, if we'd known we could dodge those attacks, it would have taken him another turn or two to kill me. And that would have given the others time to kill it.

As a GM I've made some mistakes myself, everyone makes them. In this case I would follow the above advice and speak to your GM privately, and let him know that you aren't upset that the team died. Ask him that if he starts up a new game to allow maybe Heroic Sacrifice bonuses since he did not allow possible character saving actions. Don't push him, and speak like adults.

Fate Points aren't really replaceable. A player should consider themselves to have a very generous GM if they are awarded one every three or four mission. They're the game's 'extra lives'. So getting a PC killed with 3 Fate is akin to getting through 4 characters. Fate points are basically there to quarter the amount of character generation that players need to do!

Additionally, Fate Points aren't supposed to be something that you burn and then ignore the hit. If a player burns fate, they are typically knocked out, captured, washed down a drainage sluice or similar. You don't spend them and then just carry on fighting.

If every player in the group got through four 'lives' or more in the first game of a campaign, I think it's safe to say that either every player was high on glue, or your GM is being far, far too harsh and perhaps does not understand how Fate Points are used/burned/earned properly. I tend to consider it a bit of a 'win' for the bad guys if even one player is forced to burn a single Fate Point during a scenario.

Of course; I don't know the scenario, so it might be designed to specifically kill the players and be ridiculously difficult, in which case I retract my comments.

You could also say it was an honoust mistake, though killing of the entire party is pretty harsh...give them all their burned fate point back, unless it was stupidity.

You CAN burn a Fate Point to survive death even if you've spent all your Fate Points for a session. On the other hand, if you've already had to burn ALL your Fate Points to stay alive in the current game... maybe you should have a different talk with your GM.

that's what I mean, both my Devastator and the Assault marine had burned all of our fate points before we died. He used his last one during the fight, and I didn't have any left before the fight even started. It's been pretty rough for us, lol.

Hopefully your GM is aware that the point of the game is to continue having a game. :/ I wish you luck with your future characters; invest in high Toughness and Mk. VIII armour if you can get it.

public enigma said:

Good lord, how many sessions have you guys even played? This seems overly agressive, and unless you guys like a high mortality game I'd talk to the GM out of a session about that before even discussing the misread of the enemy stats. It can be really hard to get into a character when they're burning all fate in 8 hours of gameplay all the time.

So far we played in the Final Sanction and Oblivions Edge starter campaigns they had on the site, then we did a third mission that I think he got out of the GMs screen booklet. So, this is our fourth mission, it's the one from The Emperor Protects.

public enigma said:

4 deaths or so per character in that amount of time is pretty hardcore. If the group isn't a big fan of dying all the time you'll definitely need to communicate this to your GM. I've seen games run that way, and so long as everyone is enjoying themselves no worries, but for people that want to get into their character and can't because they're dying all the time, well that's a different story.

public enigma said:

This is a good example of why I never use pregenerated campaigns. Perhaps the GM thought the monster should have that ability, maybe you are all higher rank or there are more of you then the campaign suggests? Does this monster have fate points and did the GM use them to make killing blows? You could ask him about it, or consider GMing yourself if you feel you are getting overwhelmed each session, but really if you never have GMed you need to realize the difficulty in balancing an encounter to make it challenging, especially in this game.

Frostfire said:

If you are looking for a ret-con solution recast the fight as having taken just a flash, and that it was the profetic vision of a librarian. Kinda cheesy: sure, but it beats an unfair, non-epic TPK any day. Have the players take clues from the librarian to tackle the fight the second time around. I might even give the PC's a +10 dodge bonus by way of acknowledging the oops.

To be honest, if the PCs are only three missions in and through their FPs, then ret-conning a single fight is a little too little, too late.

I'll admit that I haven't tried the Emperor protects, so I can't say for sure, but is it really that hard? I mean, I know PCs can make mistakes, and I know it's all in the dice, but a TPK three missions in either sounds like an intense group or a mistake. I'd say a GM can be unforgiving, but one shouldn't actively try to slaughter players, unless that's what they like and are expecting.

Frostfire said:

It can be that hard if the GM is agressive and unforgiving. Something I do notice in DW is that it's easier to accidentally create a TPK than in some other games; in a lot of games TPKs are quite obviously the GM trying to punish the players for some reason or another, while in DW you can trip and hit one if the GM isn't paying attention.