Catch Iwā running a session of her game ‘Yous are Broken Too?’ as a part of KiwiRPG Week 2026 live on our Twitch on Saturday 4th July, 1pm-4pm NZST / Saturday 1am BST / Friday 8pm EDT. The VOD will be linked here after the panel.
Telling a story of the story of how even when broken, we can find connection and meaning. Through narrative based discussion, “Yous are Broken Too?” guides the players through complex themes, and seeks to understand them from a holistic indigenous perspective.
This blog post uses te reo Māori throughout. There’s a glossary at the end, or you can find Te Aka Māori Dictionary here.
It’s a wild idea, that something so mechanical, western, and focused on entertainment can emulate something so ancient and cultural. But it can. Because while pōwhiri are super cool and cultural, they’re not ancient; culture evolves, shifts, and is fluid. Culture is meant to change with the times. Its meant to grow with those it is intended to be used by. As a takatāpui Māori wahine, its difficult for me to not embed myself and my people in the games I play and create. So when I play D&D, yeah for sure, it’s a Māori game just for the simple fact that I am Māori and thus everything I do is Māori. But the idea I’m attempting to posit is that the whole structure of TTRPGs as a whole is as ancient as any form of story telling that has ever existed, we just took the tried and true formula and added dice.
During a pōwhiri, there are multiple stages, each one dedicated to a different bit of the welcoming ceremony, each one existing in a different bit of Te Ao Māori. And like a pōwhiri, the TTRPG tables are the same; there are different parts to the structure that guide the flow of play. To explain everything, I’d need to write a whole new masters thesis, so I’ll only cover a few pieces of the overall puzzle; just the parts that sing out to me most as a GM.
Part one: The Carpark.
The Carpark exists as a funky new space. It never really existed until recently when communities became less of a group that traveled around together. In western society most people live individual lives, and arrive separately as opposed to the old days when we wandered around as one big group. In the old days, prior to arrival at a marae, you could talk at length about who does what during whatever part of the pōwhiri, cause you had the time. In our modern day, sometimes there just isn’t time, or sometimes the aunties aren’t on facebook or whatever, so the only opportunity to actually discuss what to do is the twenty minutes before you step through the waharoa; the time you spend in the carpark. It shows a certain level of cultural competency, to rock up on the day and be able to decide which of those gathered has the most mana? Who can karanga or whaikōrero? It takes a lot of courage, confidence, and knowledge to just wing it and decide twenty minutes before go time who the heck can lead you in a badass as hell ritual.
Some people think pōwhiri are boring, they just don’t know whats going on though. Cause if they did, theres no way they’d think that. Imma explain it to you.
Let me preface this: a lot of what I’ve learned I’ve learned from various aunties and uncles, from various visits to various marae. A lot of what I’ve learned is anecdotal, unique to myself. So my specific understanding, as well as everyone’s understanding of Te Ao Māori, is unique to each person. There is no one way, there is no black and white with Māori culture. Māori people are not homogenous, there are so many ways to do things, as long as we respect the whenua we are on, respect the tangata whenua and their ways of being, then we’re doing alright. Then when it’s your whenua, you can show others how you do things.
This is a long story, and a lot of this understanding can only be taught through story, like so much of Te Ao Māori. But I’m trying to teach you about Te Ao Māori and D&D and them meshing together, so I’m not gonna feel whakamā waffling on a bit, because if I do I’ll just end up not explaining anything particularly well and none of this will matter. I’ll try to keep it concise, but at the same time, there’s no amount of words that could correctly describe all the moving parts of this stuff. Imma try my best, fam.
Part two: Te Kore.
To be called onto a marae is to be called from Te Kore. Te Kore is the void, the great nothing. Beyond the waharoa of a marae, everything is in Te Kore space. In Maōri culture, the void is the best (at least I think so). The coolest baddest bitches come from and rule over the void, namely Hine-nui-te-pō, the goddess of death (I adore her). That being said, most people live in fear of Te Kore, and fair enough too, it is the domain of death. But it is also part of where life is born. In Te Kore, exists all wairua, spirit. When your mama is hapū, when your mum is pregnant, she calls your wairua from Te Kore and brings it into you as a foetus. This is one of the steps to making you a whole person. And when you die, your wairua will return to Te Kore. Only a woman, a mother, can call to the wairua in Te Kore. Which is why only a woman, normally a woman who has given birth, can call to you whilst you stand beyond the waharoa. Only someone that has pulled wairua from the void to create life can call people beyond a waharoa out of the void and onto a marae. At least that’s what I’ve learned. These women, those who call to you during pōwhiri, are known as kaikaranga. I believe all Game Masters to be kaikaranga.
Think about it, all GMs create life. They create narratives from those that have lived, those that are with us today, and those that will be here one day. GMs bring life in from the void, they call to those beyond the normal bounds of reality, and bring them into a new part of the world. Even if that world is built on fiction and imagination, that world still exists spiritually for so many of us who play in TTRPG spaces. To me, that means that these worlds we create around a TTRPG table are not for escapism, they do not exist outside the bounds of reality; they are as much a part of our lives as any other thing that occupies the thought processes of our minds.
Part Three: Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. It means wassup to those past, present, and future.
The idea that time becomes compacted, that the wibbly wobbly timey wimey fluidity through which time and space interweave between each other means that the ways in which stories have historically been passed from generation to generation and change, either through tone, or context, or content, the story grows to fit the needs of the people that are hearing it. This introduces the idea that the handing down of stories from generation to generation is a collaborative process, one that stretches over potentially thousands of years. D&D is exactly the same, only the process is compounded into a few hours around a table, with people who are all there for one express purpose: to tell a story together.
In essence, people around a table are constantly doing the tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou of constantly talking to the past present and future. There is an innate ability, I believe, that is unique to storytellers and thus TTRPG players; most of us can see, anticipate, and are excited for, cause and effect; we love seeing our actions have consequences. It’s a unique part of our medium, we want to see the heroes have impact, we need to see the world change around them and because of them.
That ability to queue up a narrative action, to let it simmer for a bit and let it hit months down the road for maximum narrative impact is that dialogue of the present, becoming past, and speaking to the future. It’s a dialogical style of writing and communing with the many temporal phases of one’s self that makes actions around a TTRPG table really matter; a dialogical style that is so similar to the ways we speak in Te Ao Māori, especially during pōwhiri.
In pōwhiri, we are innately aware we are standing where our ancestors, or someone’s ancestors once stood, and we speak with them, welcoming others or being welcomed, in a way that is culturally appropriate and competent. During a session of a TTRPG, there is a pattern to talking that I believe follows the structure of a pōwhiri so accurately, that I’ll explain in my final part.
Part Four: Tūmatauenga, the god of war.
In a pōwhiri, we start in the carpark, move through the waharoa, the big gate, across the ātea, the grassy bit, to the paepae, the place with all the benches for the whaikōrero and waiata tautoko, the big talks and songs to support. Then to finish off, we have the hongi hariru, the hongi how-do-you-do, then head to the whare kai for some kai, head to the dining hall for some food.
I think the table top space is so similar. We meet in the carpark (the kitchen) to decide who is doing our karanga and our whaikōrero (we hang out, see each other after a long week, catch up, and decide how long we play for, sort out the logistics of the game, get ready for the game). We are then called by the kaikaranga (the GM) to pass from Te Kore (the normal world) onto the marae (into the game world) and walk through the ātea, the realm of Tūmatatauenga, the god of war.
Its here that most of the game takes place. A return to the wahaora, a journey across the area, to be called by the GM to cross the realm of the war god, to be guided by the call of those who know the land. To then sit on the paepae, sit around the table, and talk with one another about how best to solve the situation, to sit and whaikōrero with one another till you know where you are, who you are, and what you’re doing. And then your whānau, your fellow players, stand and waiata tautoko you, they sing in your support.
A lot of this is almost poetry, and can feel almost pretentious. But we’re talking about culture, and pretentiousness is a tool of colonisation, used to remove the beauty of culture and make us feel whakamā about the true nature of our cultural practices.
I think it’s normal to want to see myself and my people represented in the ways I play my game. I think it’s beautiful to do so with people who are not so confident in Te Ao Māori, but are willing to learn. Most people that sit at my table know that there’s going to be some wild mātauranga Māori based holistic practices to the way I’m doing things, they just don’t know exactly how. But they feel it. They know why I do it. And often, my want and need to embed my culture in my game makes them want to do the same; it’s like they see me being cringe about my culture and know that it’s okay to be cringe with theirs, “Iwā is way more cringe about her culture than I could ever be about mine, I’ll just be a lil cringe about my culture”. It’s cool. I like that me being connected to my culture, or seeking to connect in every way possible, even through the new age medium of TTRPGs, it’s clear that me doing things indigenously is good for everyone, for so many reasons. The most important being that it makes me happy to feel closer to my tūpuna, my ancestors, especially in a gaming world.
Anyway, thats probably enough for a blog post. Thanks for reading it, it meant a lot that I got to write it, and got invited to post it for others to see. Ngā mihi nui, ngā manaakitanga e hoa mā, keetz ✌🏽
– Iwā Kingi
Glossary of te reo Māori words
Takatāpui – Someone of the rainbow community
Māori – The indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand
Wahine – Woman
Te Ao Māori – The Māori world
Pōwhiri – A traditional Māori welcome onto a marae
Marae – a formal meeting grounds in front of a wharenui
Wharenui – Ancestral meeting house
Karanga – A formal, or ceremonial call
Whaikōrero – Formal speech
Whenua – Land
Tangata Whenua – People of the land
Whakamā – To feel shame or embarrassment
Te Kore – The void, land of darkness, the world of death
Waharoa – Entrance or gate to a marae
Wairua – Here is an excerpt from Te Aka (Māori dictionary): spirit, soul – spirit of a person which exists beyond death. It is the non-physical spirit, distinct from the body and the mauri.
Mama – Mother
Hapū – Pregnant
Kaikaranga – The women that lead the call and response during a pōwhiri
Tēnā koutou – Hello! (The three or more people)
Tūmatauenga – The God of War
Ātea – The grassy bit outside a wharenui that belongs in the realm of Tūmatauenga
Paepae – The threshold of a wharenui
Waiata – A Song
Waiata tautoko – To sing in support of someone or something
Hongi Hariru – To hongi and shake hands with someone at the end of a pōwhiri
Hongi – To press noses with another and share a breath
Ngā mihi nui – Thanks a lot
Ngā manaakitanga – To some it means best wishes, but I believe it means to send manaaki to others
Manaaki – Support, care, respect
E hoa mā – Friends
Keetz – A colloquialism, a shortened version of “Ka Kite”, see you
