Official Mecha Role Fighting Rules: First Edition

Mecha fights tend to be some of the most spectacular and hardest earned battles in the role 
fighting universe.  As a pioneer Mecha Role Fighter, I  built most of my experience fighting 
against superhuman opponents of god like strength, agility and power.  At first I would take 
damage easily and use 4 mechs per battle but then realized that this was incredibly cheap and 
now portray my mechs as more durable and capable machines.  With the rising interest in Mecha 
Role Fighting, I have developed these preliminary rules as a compendium/supplement to accompany 
the regular rolefighting rules to ensure a standard so that Mecha Role Fighting will be 
enjoyable and more easily judged.

When fighting with ANIME mecha, you have to take into the account that they are capable of the 
same and a lot of times, even more movement than a human/humanoid character.  Some are REALLY 
big and of course like with bigger characters, they are slow (IE The Macross Fortress, 
Heavy Arms, Raiden, etc.)  Other times you have smaller, quicker mecha that need only 1 well 
placed blast to destory but good luck on hitting it (IE Viper2, a standard Gundam, an Ingram)!
Anyway, there are special rules which apply of course but we'll start with the standard ones and 
go from there.

STANDARD FIGHTING IN MECHA
Things to remember:
1) puches and kicks do little or  no damage to mecha.  

2) Due to the great amount of wieght that mechs posses, throws and falls can be devastating.

3) Throwing mechs is hard to do because of the great amount of weight they carry

4) When fighting in mechs, take into account that most metal melee weapons will not do much 
damage unless acheiving critical hits. Energy weapons are the way to go.

5) Don't fight against Saiyans.  They tend to be cheap and God Mode alot. (just a joke)

BASIC RULES:
1)  You get ONE offensive move (attack,counterattack, reversal etc.) and ONE defensive move 
(defend, evade, parry, etc.) per turn, not nescisarily in that order.  Movement should be 
realistic to your mech. 

2)  If Flying, be EXTRA descriptive about where you are in relation to the other mech
2 a)  limit flying time to 2 ROUNDS AIRBORNE, 1 ROUND RECHARGE unless your mech is a Jet/mech 
(Valkyrie, YF-21) or you are in space.
	EXAMPLE:  *Shen Long jet-jumps into the air and attacks* *OPPONENT* *Shen Long parries 
	and lands* *OPPONENT* *Shen Long attacks on the ground* *OPPONENT* *Shen Long jet-jumps 
	again*
2 b) Realize that unless you have a jet/mech, jumping sucks a bit because you can't manuvear in 
the air like you can on the ground.

3)  LARGE ENERGY WEAPONS should be given TWO ROUNDS OR MORE to recharge.  Large energy weapons 
are weapons like Raiden's sattelite lasers, The Macross Fortress' Macross Cannon, and Eva 18's 
Reactor blast.  Firing them more than once in the time frame CAN AND SHOULD BE PENALIZED in 
tourney battles.  Penalties should include BUT NOT BE LIMITED TO: Overheated guns (4 rounds 
before another firing),  Emergency shutdown due to powerloss (imobilized mech for 2 rounds), 
Circuitry overload (debilitates the weapon for the rest of the fight), System overload (damages 
the mech with said weapon overuse) and Meltdown/reactor overload (SEVERE DAMAGE TO MECH OR 
AUTOMATIC FORFEIT)

4) Beam sabres and other melee beam weapons are to be used mostly in the same manner as their 
traditional counterparts.  
4a) Melee beam weapons CAN CUT THROUGH THE THICKEST ARMOR AND DESTROY IN ONE SOLID HIT 
(in otherwords, try and avoid getting hit at all by them)
4 b) Melee beam wepons take off limbs/appendages with solid hits like a katana through soft room
temperature butter. 

5) Mecha DO NOT regenerate.  They require extensive repairs which take lots of time and 
resources.

These are just some of the basic rules of mecha fighting.  Most regular rules of role fighting 
also apply to Mecha Rolefighting for instance, no God Moding.  There are exceptions to some of 
the rules above but not without their own distict weaknesses or downsides.  The exceptions of 
the rules should be announced to the judge BEFORE THE FIGHT, lest they be ignored and you be 
penalized.  Above all else, be sure to describe your fighting with great detail as that is the 
biggest determining factor in a role fight.  Good luck and may the best pilot win!

The Mecha Master

MechaUSA.com 1999