=][nquisitor=

There's been a bit of talk at the bunker about what is perhaps GW's strangest Specialist Game: Inquisitor.

Inquisitor is not your average GW game. It's billed as a "narrative skirmish" game.


What does that mean? It really means that it's a role-playing game where everyone is not on the same team. The game pretty much requires a game master (as opposed to Mordheim, which is kinda GM-optional). When GW first released Inquisitor it was before Dungeons and Dragons had taken on its current minis-heavy guise. To me it was fascinating. Most of my gaming pedigree comes from RPGs -- but I've always been obsessed with miniatures. It seemed like the perfect blend of the two -- in many ways it still is.

The game takes place in everybody's favorite Grim, Dark Future. Originally, each player was meant to play the part of an Inquisitor, each approaching their duty to the Emperor from their disparate philosophies. Some Inquisitors flirt with the Warp and use the tools of Chaos to hunt down Chaos itself. Others bend the will of alien Xenos to stalk the heretic. Others still are uncompromising in their search to stomp out the enemies of the Imperium. Naturally these different views cause conflicts in the vast organization of the Inquisition. These conflicts are the core of what Inquisitor is all about.

The GM's job is to create an overarching story to link the games together. The skirmish battles themselves -- between the Inquisitors and their retinue -- are meant to represent the climax of each "episode" of the storyline. In doing this, the GM and the player create a story. The rulebook even encourages the GM and players to keep a diary of story events so you can look back years (or even a few days) later and relive the narrative.

This focus on narrative is not unique in GW games. Indeed, it's the "fluff" that draws most people to GW games in the first place. After all, without the fluff, it's just a bunch of math. We could choose to play Warhammer with chess pieces, ("The pawns are all guardsmen with lasguns." "Okay well mine are all ork boyz with choppas and sluggas." But even the most diehard of tacticians would soon tire of that.

Inquisitor's focus on narrative is even more in depth. It makes Inquisitor unique -- for both a tabletop skirmish game and an RPG (after all, most RPGs are pretty hack 'n' slash oriented). It's also what makes a game master essential to the game. In Inquisitor, it's possible to be a character like Witch Hunter Tyrus, in huge, nigh impenetrable power armor, while your "opponent" is a character like Eisenhorn, adorned with only a duster and samurai-like sword. There is no points system to ensure one warband is equal to another. That's left up to the GM. Unlike other tabletop games where the GM acts as an arbiter, in this game the GM is like the GM in an RPG -- his/her word is law. He's the ultimate authority on the story. And the story, after all, is what Inquisitor is all about.

It's a tough balance. I imagine the game would be even more of a cooperative act of make-believe than D&D -- somewhere in the realm of White Wolf's Vampire, Werewolf and Mage games. Only in this game, you get to use minis. Mmmm minis. They make our world go 'round, don't they?

Anyways, with the intermittent chatter around the Bunker about Inquisitor, I'm sincerely hoping I get to play -- whether as GM or player character. It could make for some serious fun.