In Dragon Age: Inquisition, the world is very literally marked by your actions. While you go out and close rifts in Ferelden and Orlais, the game keeps track of your actions at the War Table. There are some missions that you’ll only know through the table’s worn maps, and these are the ones that make a real difference in Inquisition‘s land of Thedas.
The War Table is the place you go to in your home bases of Haven and later Skyhold to unlock missions. When you go to the Table, you summon your three advisors, who stand around it with you. Sometimes they remark to each other about how things are going with the Inquisition. At the War Table you can open up a new map area, or start a character’s personal quest.
While you’re there you can also deal with smaller situations that aren’t worth a visit from your inquisitor but are still worthy of your attention.
A new recruit might warn you about bandits stalking your patrols, for example, and you can use the War Table to decide whether your advisor Leliana’s spies will take them out or if that recruit will join other advisor Cullen’s army instead.
All these situations are represented as markers on a worn map, and, for the smaller operations, you’ll only know them as markers. You’ll get an update on the results of the operation after a set amount of time, as well as some small reward, but otherwise the smaller situations are entirely hands-off, existing only on the War Table but still affecting the world of Thedas as a whole.
It’s also just a nice arse table.
In my third playthrough of Inquisition, I’m still finding new quests, collectibles and unexplored corners of the the larger game. But the smaller operations at the War Table makes all this feel fully alive.
A lot of those smaller missions will only open up after completing the larger story missions, the ones you take a party to, where you will probably have to solve a puzzle or two or perhaps fight some enemies.
You go back to The War Table to deal with the infrastructural tasks that aren’t exciting but need to be attended to regardless. For instance, after you capture a keep in the Western Approach, you still need to find them a water source and clear the area of some lurking demons. Even after tasks are completed, there is always another problem to solve.
I may be closing rifts and killing demons when I go adventuring, but the War Table drives home that I also have a responsibility to the people of Thedas. So many characters tell you that the Inquisition gives people hope, but electing to support a resistance in Tevinter or send aid to refugees through the War Table feels like I’m doing more than just fighting some loosely-connected battles.
The Inquisition, and its impact on Thedas, isn’t just about getting in fights and stabbing your enemies to death. All those markers on your map are a reminder that missions don’t end when everything is dead. You still have to handle all the loose ends to bring stability to Thedas.
The War Table gets overwhelming about halfway through the game, when more operations than you’ll have time to complete populate the map. It’s a reminder that this isn’t just a story about my character, but the movement they’re leading. Each marker represents another community that I can make better using our influence.
As my power grows, so does the pressure to help everyone. It’s a welcome complication to a standard hero narrative. Sure, I am going to save the world as Inquisitor, but the War Table reminds me that saving the world is a lot more work than slaying a demon.
Comments
9 responses to “Dragon Age: Inquisition’s War Table Brought The Wider World To Life”
Gita, I love how much you love this game!
I have just been trying to replay this game, and still after all this time I love everything the game is trying to do when playing, but every time I open the UI I feel like rage quitting. Its like they had the temporary/placeholder one, then someone with no design skills, decided ‘it will do’.
The thing with most of it, especially important places like the War Table is that no thought was given to the readability of that much lore. White capitals on a black background is just ludicrous. So instead of comfortably reading each quest/thingie, I just rapidly click through. Everyone knows if you want people to read paragraph after paragraph (some lore entries are huge) of anything at all, dont use capitals.
Its such a shame.
There are a few mods on Nexus for this game, I think some fix certain font. Worth a look. Shame frostbite isn’t very mod friendly.
It’s one of my favourite games and my favourite Dragon Age game. I still have my Dragon Age licence that I got for trying out the game before it’s release at PAX Aus.
I loved Inquisition actually all the Dragon Age games (Yes even DA2), but I had the exact opposite reaction to the war table. It broke the first rule of role playing.. “show don’t tell”.
To me it wasn’t a case of influencing other parts of the world, illustrating the reach of the Inquisition, it was just being told about interesting adventures I wanted to go on that other people got instead.
In the case of the Dalish background, I can’t for a second see the Inquisitor sitting on her ass in Haven while her people are threatened and just delegating a response
It mildly infuriated me that I had to step out of each half to see the other.
I can’t imagine why all of Thedas wasn’t on the one map.
While i liked the table, I wish those tasks were also in a list of some sort categorized by regions.
While i liked the table, I wish those tasks were also in a list of some sort categorized by regions.
Agreed! Even a simple “filter out what I’ve already done” icon would be sweeeeet (that 5 e’s people). On PS4 the board is somewhat readable in terms of what’s done/not done, on PS3 it’s a murky mess (maybe it’s my eye’s, maybe it’s my 780p monitor…).
However,… yeah love the war table.