It took me several weeks to get a copy of Hunter-Book Visionary. The book store I dealt with was having a problem with its distributors, so every time they attempted to order this book for me they were sent a copy of Hunter-Book Judge. In the weeks that it took them to get a copy of Visionary for me I begin to worry. Visionary had the potential to be a very good book, focusing as it would on those Hunters who do their best to interpret the big picture, to figure out where both Hunters and monsters fit in the world, to try and discern what the Messengers exactly are; in short, the thinkers among the imbued. It also had the possibility that the writers would pick up on the few bad bits that had been given about Visionaries in other books and run with them, resulting in a sub-par product. Well, the day finally came when I got a copy of the book, and I found my worst fears realized.
The book starts out with copies of web pages from Unity, the Visionary website, covering a variety of subjects, including a bit from the very bad Hunter: Apocrypha. This is followed by a short fiction piece, where Witness1 and another Hunter go to Pittsburgh to investigate a portion of Apocrypha. This is an excellent tale, well-written and entertaining, and worthy of reading. This is followed by the usual introduction found in Creedbooks, and then we get on to the meat of the book.
The four chapters that focus on Visionary interaction both on the Internet and in the real world have some very good parts, a fact I can not deny. The fonts used are all nice and legible, something I really appreciated. But as I said, there were things that I was afraid were going to be in here, and they showed up often enough to bother me. To be specific:
1. We get several instances of a character going on a tirade on some subject, then dismissing it as "I could be wrong" or "unless I'm mistaken" or the like. Visionaries are supposed to be not only individuals who are willing to accept alternate views, but take hard stances on what they believe in. The parts where characters brush off what they say remind me of a letters column from an early issue of Grant Morrison's Invisibles, where the author spent the better part of a page going on about his belief about how in the coming year there would be a major revelation about the truth of the world and the universe, then ended it by saying he could be wrong, all with a dead serious tone that made you think "If I'm going to spout off a totally off-the-beaten track idea like that, I don't think I'd make it sound like I'd be willing to throw away that idea the moment it might be contradicted."
2. There's many instances where characters refuse to accept the possibility that others theories might be correct, or even worth listening to. While I can respect that to a point, mentioning as I did in the previous section that Visionaries should be strongly locked onto what they believe in, we've been told in other books that Visionaries will listen to other opinions and weigh them, sometimes to dismiss them totally, sometimes to work them into their own views on the world, and sometimes they change their outlooks completely. Most of the Visionaries in this book are portrayed as having some spark of imagination, but when someone else presents a different (not necessarily conflicting, just different) viewpoint they seem to clam up and say "My idea's the best. Shut up!" This doesn't seem really to hold true with what we've been told about Visionaries before. This book gives the impression that most Visionaries spend their time bickering with each other and anyone else who would listen, to the point of not actually doing anything good for the Hunt. This is especially annoying, as that very subject was the main drive of the fiction earlier in the book.
Chapter Five covers the rules systems for Visionaries. I got the impression from this section that all Visionaries each have one distinct view on the world, which I didn't like, as my understanding from the main rulebook was that they took in everything and analyzed it, accepting some and discarding the rest. There are some interesting new Derangements, though the benefit of the Volatility Derangement seems a little high, giving a Hunter 2 to all Social rolls involved in promoting his cause. The new Edges are nice, excellently evoking the idea that Visionaries are the leaders or those individuals destined to inspire their fellow Imbued. The Creed's specific power introduced in this book ties into the idea that a Visionary must have one, lasting goal he wishes to accomplish, which as you can imagine bugged me. Basically the Visionary can create new Hunter Code that sums up his goal and there is the possibility of Visionaries getting empathic flashes of those around their symbols; the system for this and its effects are largely up to the Storyteller.
Chapter Six has some pregenerated Visionaries and some notable Hunters. Witness1 is detailed and statted, as is Shaka74, who last appeared in The Walking Dead; while he's written up here, no information is given on his fate since his appearance in that book. Several others are detailed, though some are unstated because they're to play a role in future Hunter releases, and one meets their final fate in the Wayward sourcebook (which, incidentally, builds upon Shaka's write-up here).
The vast majority of the artwork in this book is terrible. One artist is very talented, one semi-talented but whose level of quality jumps from picture to picture, and a third who made me wonder how he got hired. I sometimes think Hunter is the red-headed stepchild of the World of Darkness line, and gives its art department the least amount of money to hire people with. Oh, look for the picture of the two midgets in full body armor guarding a fellow preaching. Just hilarious to look at.
So do I recommend Visionary? If you don't mind those two big flaws I mentioned earlier you'll probably enjoy it. To be honest, after rereading this book for this review I honestly can't recall anything distinctly about it, unlike the other books, which always got my mind flowing with ideas about what I read and where White Wolf planned to take the line in the future. Kind of sad the book about intellectuals elicits such a response in me, eh?
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