Lucifuge Dragon has updated the Sixth Circle website with some information about the flow (or, if you will, the gameplay) of his board game adaptation of Ultima 7: The Black Gate. As suspected, players do in fact take on the role of the Avatar’s companions…among other pre-defined personalities.

I like to think of The Black Gate as a boardgame/RPG hybrid. No, it doesn’t require any LARPing or putting on your wifes dress and performing theater. It’s pretty casual but it does have some basic RPG elements. Each player assumes the role of an Ultima character such as Iolo, Shamino, Dupre or any other of the Avatars companions. I even made some custom ones of friends for fun. The players start out with minimal equipment and a little bit of gold but as the game progresses new items are acquired from either buying items, completing quests, dumb luck or finding them in dungeons! Weapons range from a wood club to the Firedoom Staff so there is a wide variety!

After all players are setup with their starting equipment and character placed in their home town, it’s go time! It tends to feel a bit directionless at the beginning as the play area is quite big and you can go almost anywhere. This doesn’t last long once you get your confidence up to tackle some encounters or meet up with another player to test the waters of the dungeons! Remember, you are looking for the Guardians three generators (sphere, cube, tetrahedron) which are located somewhere in the deepest, scariest dungeons so if you want to win you have to eventually go in!

You don’t want to be too sure of yourself as a death in The Black Gate is quite taxing. The death of a player results in the loss of all unequipped items, all gold is gone, the players virtue is lost and the Guardian moves one space closer through the stars towards Britannia! That’s bad. If he reaches the black gate, the game is over. But it’s ok, with some luck and some planning you shouldn’t die too often. If you’re careless and unlucky…well..pack it up, game over.

Do click on through and read the rest; he gives a few more details about modes of travel in the game, and potential pitfalls as well.