Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique a wide range of modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath.

Kiwi Acres is an adventure collection and campaign setting for Mausritter, by Hugh Lashbrooke. The author reached out to me with it after I mentioned back in my Tomb of a Thousand Doors review that I run Mausritter with my kids. It’s a family-friendly set of adventures, clearly modelled after the highly successful the Estate, with 10 mini-modules attached to a simplified hexcrawl.

The titular farm is a 19 hex area, each hex having a single sentence description, 10 of them being directly related to a mini-module, and only 1 other being described in any additional detail, that being the township in the centre of it all. It has its own random encounters, rumours, and factions, along with simple child-level advice on how to run them. The factions in particular really simple and iconic, in a way that’s perfect for childlike minds. Scarecrow Stand, the township, is modelled the same: 1 sentence descriptions, plus a few pages of striking but simple characters.

The mini-modules are brief, and fit on a single spread, a more succinct version of the Estate, which means going through them individually defies the point to some degree. I play Mausritter with my kids, and all of these are enough for a solid session with them. About half are traditional location based modules, and half less traditional. They’re written, to be honest, with kid referees in mind, and for those purposes I think for most of them a more typical location is better, and the less concrete locations would be a challenge. But they’re fine for me as a mum playing for her daughters. My favourites, though, and based on my experience also the ones likely to be my kids favourites, are the less traditional ones: Particularly Underground Escape, a perpetual chase through underground tunnels pursued by a gang of ravenous Weta. The younger kids in particular prefer modules with their own momentum, rather than ones where their agency is required to propel them forward.

It finishes with a treasury and a list of creatures — helpfully with photos of the native wildlife that are featured. The fae of Mausritter are replaced by indigenous folktales, and the unique spells and items are a lot of fun. My main irritant here, to be honest, is that they inconsistently use a bunch of different types of dice — d20 for treasure, then either d6, d8, d10 or d20 depending on what you roll at first — some consistency here would be nicer in my opinion, and would make for less complexity in the roll.

Layout wise Kiwi Acres is simple to the extreme, but in a way that’s coordinated well with the information design such that almost everything is confined to a spread or a page. It works really well, and in print makes it an absolute breeze to run. I’d love to argue for a more complex layout, but it’s really unnecessary here — it feels modelled after a primary school text book and the information brevity complements this decision and reduces the need for a more complex layout. I should add it’s also designed to be scrawled on — there are a bunch of notes pages, where you can write down what has happened and what you’ve invented. The brevity here is extreme, clear, and written in words a primary schooler will understand. There’s minimal poetics here — Mausritter’s house style to some degree discourages this — but is it perfect for both its audience and does it know itself? Yes, in my opinion, it does.

As someone who enjoys spending time in New Zealand, this is a charmer, leaning hard into te reo Māori, and featuring a bunch of unique Kiwi wildlife. It feels targeted to some degree as a teaching aid, explaining basic pronunciation, and making the wildlife iconic and stereotypical in the way Mausritter itself did for the quaint English countryside.

I’m always on the prowl for more family-friendly Mausritter content, and Kiwi Acres hits a home run on my criteria for running for kids. It’s simple, it’s iconic and stereotypical, it reimagines places they’re familiar with, and it has an educational aspect to it as well. Very cool! I like having printed modules when I’m running for kids, and the POD hardcover of this is a gorgeous little picture book, and it has print and play tokens included (although not the actual tokens), which are also essential for keeping the kids engaged in the inventory system. Overall, if you’re looking to play with your kids — or keep playing with them — Kiwi Acres is an admirable addition to your collection, that will last you a good 10 or more sessions, although there is content I prefer if you’re running Mausritter for a table of adults.

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