Review: Tiny Fables

by Tobias Adam

Tiny Fables is an adventure module for the Mausritter TTRPG, written by Josiah Moore. I backed the Kickstarter in 2024 on the Deluxe Print tier, which includes a physical copy of the zine, a RISO printed Map Pack, a Campaign Guidebook, and bonus item/condition cards.

The package arrived a few months ago, and I didn't get to look it over yet, which is what I will do with this review. Print copies are currently reserved for US orders only, but you can get the PDF on itch.io.

Contents of the package:

Everything included comes packed in a reusable A5 plastic pouch, which I always appreciate for storing reasons.

First off, we've got the adventure module itself - a staple-bound, 60 page A5 zine made with nice, sturdy paper. The front and back cover are printed with gorgeous risograph illustrations of a band of critters. And I'm not gonna lie, the illustrations are what got this project onto my radar in the first place, back when Josiah shared some of them on Twitter. They're adorable and simplistic, mostly black and white with an accented green offset. It gives that special vibe that I associate with Mausritter. I'll write more about the module itself further down, but I'll add here that there are a lot of illustrations and maps in the same style included inside, which gives the zine a nice, coherent look and feel.

Next up are four foldable maps of the largest locations; a hex map of the Forest of Pwyll (the adventures' area), another hex map of Heartache Lake (one of the adventure sites) and two dungeon maps of the Tomb of Roses and the Maw of Shadows. All these foldable maps are nearly A3 in size and also printed in the same risograph style as the illustrations in the zine. All of them are player facing, which means they're missing certain information that the GM facing maps in the zine contain, so the players are encouraged to explore their surroundings. I'll add, though, that none of the maps are labeled, but they're not too hard to find in the zine. What I would have like to see included (even only as stretch goals) are the maps of Thimblewood Village and the two other adventure sites, Chulip's Castle and the Wandering Cottage, all of which have a GM facing map in the zine. Even though they're not that complex and the two sites' maps are sideviews, I'd have loved to see them on A5 prints, just to lay them onto the table. You can copy them out of the zine, though, they're each taking up a full page and reveal no important information.

Also included is a Campaign Guidebook, a staple-bound A6 zine which contains lots of useful stuff for the GM to use during the game, such as simplified maps of the adventure sites and their keys, 8 pages for session notes including a player mice roster and turn tracker, an NPC mouse generator as well as tables for fairy NPCs and Creature Names and a two-page bestiary containing generic statblocks for the modules' creatures. Not contained here are some special variants of these creatures, as well as the statblocks of certain named NPCs. 

I'm torn about the guidebook. In theory, I really like the idea of it as a tool to use while running the game at the table. The turn tracker and session notes pages, the condensed maps and generators are certainly helpful. It seems to scream, "I'm designed to be used during play instead of the zine", but then there are important statblocks missing in it, so I'd have to take up the zine to look them up. The zine layout itself is emulating the Mausritter rulebook, which means it's already highly structured and easy to use while running a game. I think if the turn tracker and generators were included in the zine itself, I'd have all the information I needed in hand. With the guidebook, I'd be flipping through two zines while playing. I do like the concept, though.

As is often the case with Mausritter adventures, we've got a bunch of new item and condition cards, organized on three A5 cards with each adventure site having its own column. The third card also contains six cutout hexes with locations missing from the player facing map of the Forest of Pwyll. All of these cards are made of sturdy cardboard.

Last are the unlocked stretch goals of the Kickstarter campaign:

• Twelve A5 pages of character sheets in a landscape format with their layout and design in style of the illustrations in the main zine in black and white risograph print.
• A beautiful black and white risograph printed cardstock bookmark.
• A black and white risograph print of the animal parade on the zine cover and itch.io page banner.

The Adventure Itself

From the introduction: "Tiny Fables is a Sandbox Style Adventure for Mausritter inspired by folklore and fairy tales." It is aimed at players of all experience levels and has no strict level recommendation for the player mice. It is written in the spirit of the implied setting in the Mausritter rulebook - a world full of whimsy and danger, favoring cleverness over brute force.

As a sandbox adventure, there’s no one thread for the players to follow. We've got a 10x6 miles forest with 14 locations to explore, four different factions to interact with and a whole bunch of creatures to meet - from a fire-spewing chicken, to fairies, to merfolk and tin soldiers - all while an ancient evil threatens to be resurrected.

I haven't played or run this (yet), but with the amount of content this module has, it could easily be a campaign itself. There's a *lot* to do and discover and just from reading it, it feels like it could entertain a gaming table for weeks, possibly months. If you are into this kind of game and the more whimsical side of Mausritter, I recommend you try it out.

SPOILER TERRITORY - GM-perspective review

Keeping in spirit with the Mausritter design, the module attempts to give you all the information you might need in a clear and easily navigable way. We've got a bunch of adventure hooks, each tied to one of the major adventure sites and with engaging premises ranging from helping with a fairy coup to looking for one's missing shadow.

Each of the four factions is either concerned with inner troubles or findig a way to take over the Forest of Pwyll, and thereby bound to get in conflict with one or more of the others.

The main backdrop of the adventure is a dark fairy who tries to resurrect the mythical Jabberwocky to exact vengeance on the areas' guardian tree for an ancient wrongdoing. For that, we're given a table of events waiting to happen. There's no real timeline here, rather the GM is encouraged to pace the events as they see fit, thereby enabling them to either condense the frequency for a shorter campaign or draw them out for a longer one.

The areas' main hub, Thimblewood Village, serves as a place of respite and contains a bunch of interesting NPCs with individual problems, each again tied to the different adventure sites and possibly being in line with the player mice's hooks.

The Forest of Pwyll map comes with daytime and nighttime encounter tables, consisting mostly of entries designed to get the player mice in contact with the different factions and a few unconnected, neutral encounters.

A thing about the map keys - they seem to be numbered after location importance, which leads to the numbers on the map being all over the place - a minor nitpick of mine; I like some order on my maps, so I don't need to spend too much time searching for places.

The pages for the adventure sites themselves are neatly organized - the first spread contains the GM facing map, a short background of the location, and an overview of possible conditions, treasures and key items to find. The following pages contain the area-specific encounter tables and keyed locations. The text here is again consistent with the Mausritter rulebook layout, with important parts in bold letters, bullet points and important statblocks. The latter are printed in a different color from the body text (the same green tone used in the risograph illustrations).

The module ends with an Epilogue, a half-page dedicated to possible outcomes and adventure endings.