The rule for avoiding damage by ceding control of a Station -- commonly referred to as the "Station Dance" -- has been used for a while in our games but came under a little bit of scrutiny in the most recent one. The rule can be found on page 123 of the Rapid Attack rulebook, and reads "If it is within Hand to Hand Range of a Station, its owner can choose to have it ignore one damage and instead abandon its position, moving the Mobile Frame 1 Ruler unit further away from the Station."
Now, we've always taken the "its owner" portion of that statement to refer to the owner of the Station. Joshua has stated that the "its owner" refers to the owner of the Frame. In the first take you get the damage reduction because you are giving up control of the Station. In the second case you get the damage reduction because you give up contesting the Station.
The first case makes sense to me. You controlled the Station but you gave it up to avoid some damage. The second, not so much. Unless the Station is in a Contested state (page 130/131 MFZ:RA rulebook) you are not giving up anything. Unless that Station is under the control of a Frame with one White die left, it can be pretty hard to "peel" a Frame off of a Station. You can have a Frame standing next to a controlled Station -- swinging for the fences and shouting "Gimme!" -- all you want but, players generally don't abandon Stations easily.
While I'm sure the rule isn't going to be changed, I think the wording can be changed to make the intent clearer.
Now that that's out of the way, let's move on to the real reason for this post. A couple members of our group -- during our last game -- stumbled across the fact that the song "Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats can actually be tweaked to be relevant to MFZ. So, with apologies to the aforementioned band, here it is.
Station Dance
We can dance if we want to
We can leave your Frames behind
'Cause your Frames don't dance
And if they don't dance
Well, they're no Frames of mine
Say, we can go where we want to
A place where they will never find
And we can act like we come
From out of this world
Leave the real one far behind
And we can dance
Or sing
We can go when we want to
Night is young and so am I
And we can dress real neat
From our hats to our feet
And surprise 'em with the victory cry
Say, we can act if we want to
If we don't, nobody will
And you can act real rude and totally removed
And I can act like an imbecile
And say, we can dance, we can dance
Everything's out of control
We can dance, we can dance
They're doing it from pole to pole
We can dance, we can dance
Everybody look at your hands
We can dance, we can dance
Everybody's taking the chance
Station dance
Oh well, the Station dance
Ah yes, the Station dance
We can dance if we want to
We've got all your life and mine
As long as we abuse it, never gonna lose it
Everything'll work out right
I say, we can dance if we want to
We can leave your Frames behind
Because your Frames don't dance
And if they don't dance
Well, they're no Frames of mine
I say, we can dance, we can dance
Everything's out of control
We can dance, we can dance
We're doing it from pole to pole
We can dance, we can dance
Everybody look at your hands
We can dance, we can dance
Everybody's taking the chance
Oh well, the Station dance
Ah yes, the Station dance
Oh well, the Station dance
Oh well, the Station dance
Oh yes, the Station dance
Oh, the Station dance, yeah
Well, it's the Station dance
It's the Station dance
Well, it's the Station dance
Well, it's the Station dance
Oh, it's the Station dance
Oh, it's the Station dance
