TL;DR: I have some ideas for a Bionicle-tabletop, are you interested in such a thing? Hello everyone, for a while now i have had some ideas floating around my head on how to create a tabletop ruleset based on Bionicle. For those who don't know what tabletop gaming is: It is basicaly putting together a team or army of figures under some rules and then having them fight someone elses team/army with other rules on a tabletop outfitted with some terrain, which can range in fidelity from stacked books to highly realistic models. A very popular example would be Warhammer 40k. I play X-Wing Miniatures, which is where I draw my experience with this type of game from. Bionicle with its multitude of characters and unique abilities is a great source material for this kind of game. So much so that I am astonished no one has done this, yet, to my knowledge. So, what do I want to do? Some of my ideas: Game system: No "I go, you go". Having one player take all their actions and then the other is difficult to balance out, creates weird a weird "gamey" feel and can become rather dull for both players half the time. Instead unit activation in the same time window should be the way to go, similar to X-Wing.The game should not require buying extra dice or making specilizes accesoires, so all you'd need to play would be your Bionicle figures, measuring tape, 6-sided dice and normal playing cards (Ace-10, though with what I have in mind you'd need one of these sets for each unit), maybe some LEGO bricks as counters, too.I want to keep the game on a smaller scale to be manageable, first. For me that means setting it in 2002s story, giving me 2 factions, Kanohi masks as abilities for the Toa, Krana abilities for the Bohrok, smaller units and more. I picked this era because thats where I have most sets from myself.The game should have realistic collection requirements. While it would be an amazing sight to have a swarm of 12 Tahnok on the table, only a tiny fraction of Bionicle fans have that. I think aiming for 2-4 Toa + supporting villagers vs. 4-6 mixed Bohrok + Bohrok Va is still thematic enough and achievable for most fans when both players get together with their stuff.The game should be about objectives mostly, as killfests can get boring and leave less room for unit variety - Toa canister tops could work well as points the Toa have to defend or retrieve.Combat should feature both melee and ranged and have a heavy emphasis on elements and abilities.Teambuilding Teams will be build using a point system, probably with 100 points per team as the baseline for developmentUnits will come with two types of hitpoints, more sturdy armour and regenerable (through abilities) health. Bohrok would have almost no health and a chunk of armour, while Toa and Matoran would be with varying ratios. They will have abilities tied to them based on their lore.They will also be able to be upgraded according to what they'd use, though Toa should come with their base mask for free. They will not, as they canonicaly should, have all of them at their disposal at all times, as that would be ridiculous bloat and incredibly hard to balance, so the abilities would have to be a lot less impactful, which I think is worse thematicaly. Kanohis have to matter!The Toa-Faction Toa will be strong units on their own, capable of operating seperatly, but with some teamwork abilities.They will only be availiable as unique characters.Tahu as the face of Bionicle should be an allrounder. Capable in both melee and ranged combat and with an average Toa statline. He will be resistant to magma-terrain.Kopaka will be the alternative allrounder. I am not quite sure how to differentiate him enough from Tahu. Maybe he will be better at range, maybe more sturdy. Making the Akaku work in combat also is a bit of a challenge...would it be much of a crime to use it as targeting visor?Gali will have the strongest healing (buffing, too, probably) abilities in the game. She will need to be covered by her team. She will also be able to cross water-terrain with no penalty and maybe have climbing capabilities. Her combat should compliment that, being long range mostly.Onua works as a melee focused tough brawler that gets some crowd-controlling abilities to represent shaking up the earth.Pohatu is an interesting one. He will have the choice of either strong mid-range attacks with little mobility, or the ability to move very far, but not attack. That makes him usable as objective-runner or as a mobile turret that needs to be reset if caught out.Lewa is swift. Melee focused like Onua, but less sturdy, he would rely on mobility rather than bulk to keep himself alive. His air-abilities could be represented by single-target control.Matoran would be cheap supporting units, usefull when you can't have your Toa hog an objective or when they need quick healing.They won't be differentiated by their type, as Le- and Onu- matoran weren't availiable 2003, and MCtoran are a bit rare (are they?).They will be able to be equiped with a relevant profession, like guardsman (more sturdy) or healer.Turaga may or may not make it into the game. If they do, they'd be strong supporters.The Bohrok-faction Bohrok will be centered around the Krana. That means they will play in a very synergistic way around the leadership and communication Kranas and be able to have specialized units based on the many Krana powers.Their abilities will translate into mechanics like with the Toa. I haven't given them as much thought on that front, though. Levahk will be able to apply a damage-amplifying debuff, I believe. All Bohrok will have a pretty strong melee attack, though, to represent their action-feature in set.Bohrok-Va will play similar to Matoran, but they will be able to carry Krana so they can adapt the Bohrok force on the battlefield. Maybe to compensate for possible Turaga in the other faction, they will also have unique characteristics for each type.Krana mindcontrol has to be a thing! Not sure how exactly, as it must not be too strong, but it is such an integral part of the Bohrok that is has to. The taken enemy would be less effective, the attacking Bohrok disabled until resupplied by a Bohrok-Va, and the victim would have chances to free themselves. Fairly hard to balance and conceptualize, but this is mandatory.So how would the game play? Each round has two phases, bidding and acting. For bidding, every unit has action points, of which both players will chose a number (1-10, using a deck of playing cards) for each of their units in secret, spending more to be able to act earlier. In acting, the units then activate from highest to lowest, with ties being resolved through alternating initiative. When a unit activates, it can spend its remaining action points to move, attack, or use abilities. The players compete for 2-4 objectives they placed on the table before. How exactly I don't know. They can just act as capture points, they can be places the Bohrok have to hold for x rounds, there is room for a few game modes here. Combat would be resolved using 6 sided dice, having attack values varied by number of dice and threshold of success. Defense to ranged attacks can work in a similar manner, while melee defense shouldn't be dice dependant and rather exhaustion-based. So that is where I am at. I won't have much time in the near future to further develop this, but I'd like to have a first playable prototype by the end of this semester (so about August). That one should feature Tahu, Kopaka, and one or two Toa I feel like creating along with their mask powers, the basic Matoran, one or two Bohrok and Bohrok-Va types and the central Krana. Once I have this prototype, I'd open a topic in the media part of the creative outlet (though I'd be happy to take better suggestions for where to put it, it is kind of hard to cathegorize in BZPowers structure) to distribute it and to organize some playtesters. So what do you think, community, is this something you'd be interested in spending your time with and are there any suggestions that would improve on this early draft? Thanks for reading through all of this and have a good day!
