Do Americans know about Deadly 60? This is a kids' wildlife programme that has been aired on the BBC since 2009; the conceit is that the presenter, Steve Backshall, travels to a different location each episode in search of a few of 'the Deadly 60', meaning the sixty 'deadliest' animals on the planet.
How 'deadly' is defined is never made explicit - sometimes it seems to mean 'deadly to humans' (king cobra, crocodile, black widow, and so on) and sometimes it seems to mean 'deadly to its prey' (chameleon, gannet, dolphin). Each creature on the list is given a Top Trumps style set of stats for things like speed, weapons, armour, etc., but these seem to just be assigned for fun and Steve has by now encountered far, far more than sixty animals. Really, it is just a wheeze for an entertaining programme about wildlife - and it works surprisingly well for an adult audience as well as for kids. There is a mixture of real-life animal-bothering (excuses are often made for Steve to get into situations in which he ends up getting nipped by a wolf, having his hand crushed by an anaconda, fending off crocodiles with sticks, etc.), fact files and experiments (is a peregrine falcon faster than a car?) and sheer japes and shenanigans - it's a very good, entertaining programme made by an evidently nice and enthusiastic team of people who get on well. I recommend it, if you are able to watch it and have children who are into wildlife.
But the reason I ask is that it brings me back to the idea, the subject of many posts passim, about exploring the world and interacting with it for its own sake, rather than in pursuit of extrinsic objectives such as treasure or XP. I do not mean to suggest that one should or could base a campaign around the 'Krynn Deadly 60' or 'Athas Deadly 60' (though that might indeed be fun...), but rather that there is something pure and refreshing about the concept of a campaign in which the PCs direct their energies towards finding weird and rare creatures to interact with rather than kill and take their stuff.
'Interactions' cover a wide range of scenarios, though. Some thoughts:
- We are familiar with the concepts of snake charming, lion taming and the like. It is difficult perhaps to envisage how to make a long-term, open-ended campaign about a troupe of dragon tamers or cyclops hypnotisers or gargantua charmers who rove the wilderness in search of subjects...but not impossible.
- The PCs are in the employ of a wealthy eccentric/scholarly institute/guild/menagerie, etc., and go off in search of exotic creatures to bring back alive.
- The PCs are wannabe Steve Backshalls (or Herculeses) who simply want to test their strength against dangerous, powerful or strange monsters - wrestling hydras, boxing minotaurs, riding tarrasques and so on - without killing them.
- The PCs are themselves scholars who go out in order to study and learn about the capabilities and behaviour of monsters for the sake of the advancement of knowledge, presumably working for some kind of institute of higher education.
- The PCs are 'beast masters' who gain abilities, enhanced spiritual awareness, good juju, or whatever, from communing with monstrous beings
