Battle in the Skies: Dave Arneson's Fantasy Air Battle Rules

[Havard]

Surely named after Mike Carr's Fight in the Skies, it seems that Battle in the Skies is another thing dug out by the Secrets of Blackmoor documentary crew. According to Secrets of Blackmoor promo, Dave Arneson came up with these rules in 1973 and were designed to similate airborn battles with Dragons, Gargoyles and other flying fantasy creatures.

The rules were demonstrated at GaryCon 2019 as reported by Kevin McColl via livestream:

“... Refereeing a game of "Battle in the Skies" at Gary Con - based on some reference material and rules by Dave Arneson from 1973 we discovered along the way. These are a more complex, earlier version of the aerial combat rules published in "The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures".
...” - Secrets of Blackmoor

Personally, I think it is great to see that this game has resurfaced and I love that it has its own name. I have always loved the idea of epic battles across the skies in fantasy settings. Reminds me of some of the Arturian myths as well as the more obvious Dragonlance imagery.

Does anyone here know more about these rules and if they were used in any specific Blackmoor game?

What sort of situations would you use these rules for in your Blackmoor campaigns?

-Havard

[gsvenson]

I recall a time when some of us had read the "Tarnsman of Gor" series and Dave introduced Tarns (like Tolkin's Rocs) as mounts for us. After awhile we stopped using them. I am sure we did some aerial combat at the time. I don't really remember details about that anymore. I think that it was in 1972.

[finarvyn]

Count me in as another who would love to see these rules. (And I also remember reading Tarnsman of Gor and thinking that we needed Tarn races, Tarn fighting, and so on.)

[Havard]

They posted a bit more on this at the SoB blog:

BATTLE IN THE SKIES - RELATIVE MOVEMENT
7/22/2019 2 Comments

Picture
(Image ​Courtesy the Dave Arneson Collection)
When Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax worked on the drafts for Dungeons and Dragons in 1973, they were exchanging sections of the rules for commentary and play testing.

There is plenty of evidence that this was how they collaborated.

During this time Arneson created an aerial combat system for D&D. In its original form it is a self contained game which he called Battle in the Skies, or B.I.T.S. Much of this game was redacted from the published version of D&D.

B.I.T.S. is heavily derived from Mike Carr's game Fight in the Skies, yet it also contains one truly novel idea. Within the explanation for movement are 3 options. Arneson's "Mode III" appears to be a novelty.

Instead of having everyone make their moves, either in sequence, or as written simultaneous moves, Arneson implements a system that models the distance moved by a unit as a relative property between the distance moved by all moving units. Thus a unit moving one square will not complete their one move until a unit moving 9 squares has already moved 4 squares, and then both units will move into their next square.

Here is the chart from Arneson's relative movement system:
Picture
(Image from the Movie Secrets of Blackmoor
​Courtesy the Dave Arneson Collection)
In B.I.T.S., units can move up to 18 inches. Arneson has chosen to divide each turn into 2 parts, with each unit moving half their movement per half turn. He then applies a chart that indicates who can move during each of 9 phases of the half turn.

It has taken me about a year of looking at this chart to truly understand it. As is typical for Arneson, his ideas are True Genius, but his writing is unclear.

Using the chart is simple, yet he designed it in a way that runs counter to how most people would understand it. The number headings for each line are a unit's speed. The numbers after the words "Move phase" are the movement phases in which that the unit is allowed to move.

Thus a unit moving a speed of 3 can move in phases: 2, 5, and 8.

In my game experience this kind of Relative Movement System does not appear in a published game until Star Fleet Battles (Stephan V. Cole, Task Force Games, 1979) is published, and then it is also used in the game Car Wars (Chad Irby and Steve Jackson, Steve Jackson Games, 1980).

My question to readers is whether this is an Arneson creation, or if there was a game published before 1973 that used this kind of movement system?

https://www.secretsofblackmoor.com/blog ... e-movement

-Havard

[gsvenson]

The movement rules sound to me like the Trireme game we used to play sometimes. I don't recall when it was introduced, but I recall playing it in 1973 with Bob Meyer and the Sniders and several other players. It was fun. You could even ram friendly ships with the written orders and multiple commanders on each team.

[finarvyn]

The movement rules sound to me like the Trireme game we used to play sometimes. I don't recall when it was introduced, but I recall playing it in 1973 with Bob Meyer and the Sniders and several other players. It was fun. You could even ram friendly ships with the written orders and multiple commanders on each team.

I remember Trireme. A friend and I played it a little back in the day, but I think we used Wooden Ships & Iron Men more.

What is puzzling to me, however, is the timeline. Board Game Geek says that the Avalon Hill version of Trireme is a revision of the Battleline edition, and the internet seems to imply that the Battleline game was printed in 1979. That doesn't jibe with the way I remember things.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleline_Publications

[Yaztromo]

Interesting!

[gsvenson]

Somebody else had published a version of Trireme that was available in the early 1970's. I don't recall when. I'll check in my attic and see if I still have my copy, because mine was not the AH version.