Dumb question!
 

Is it possible to play this with a gamepad at all?

I suppose anything is *possible,* but it's only designed for mouse-and-keyboard use. I imagine it would be incredibly awkward even if you got it to work.

I also wish it was gamepad compatible, but I don't know how they could manage it with the inventory system.

I play with an XBOX 360 wireless controller. I use a program called "Pinnacle Game Profiler" which lets you map any button configeration to any game.

The only slight problem for me with The Witcher is that the Journal text is hard to read from a distance with standard 720p resolution on a HDTV.