Category: Shows

 

 

There was a lot going on during KiwiRPG week, so you’d be forgiven for missing all these games, interviews, and other things.
Every one of these was featured in our KiwiRPG week email newsletter! You should sign up to that! Because it’s full of interesting stuff! And it doesn’t send frequently so it won’t clog your inbox! Sign up here
And why not finish up your cuppa with this RPG.net staff pick about a legendarily unplayable game from the 1990s: How we figured out how to play Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth by Steve Hickey.
Okay that was a cool pile of stuff huh! Aren’t you glad you signed up to the email list?
Yes I am still trying to get more people to sign up to the email list, it’s a good list and we don’t promote it nearly enough, really counting on this post working, to sign up you can go right here!

Did you know KiwiRPG has a mailing list? It’s for KiwiRPG week, giving you reminders, pointing out the best stuff, sharing a few secrets, and then going into hibernation until the next KiwiRPG week.

You should sign up!  

We’ve just sent out our final email for this year’s KiwiRPG week, and it seems like a good idea to include some of the urgent items right here. CUT AND PASTE POWERS ACTIVATE:

 

URGENT ITEMS!

Hurry! Hurry! The clock is tickling! 

  • VOTE! The CRIT Awards have nominated Gothhoblin’s Thus Spake Agathis (Trophy Dark) for “Best Homebrew, Supplement, or Third Party Content”. Find the voting form is linked on the CRIT Awards website https://www.critawards.org/; Gothhoblin has made a bunch of community copies available if you want to check it out. “Thus Spake Agathis is inspired by the near total decimation of the Kauri forests in New Zealand as a result of European colonisation in the 18th and 19th centuries, along with the Kauri tree’s profound place in Māori mythology as connected to the spiritual realm.”
  • One week to go on the Bloodthirst crowdfund! Bloodthirst is a fast-paced vampire roleplaying game built on Gila RPGs’ LUMEN system. Find it on Backerkit here.
  • And this kickstarter is launching soon: Sage Council, a comedic story game about being the city council in a fantasy town!

 

END CUT AND PASTE SECTION! See? Good stuff in there! 

(This has been an attempt to encourage signups to the KiwiRPG week email list. Did it work?)

A painted mini with long white hair on the ground in front of trees and plants.

Written by Campbell Wright

INTRODUCTION:

In 2016, Matt Mercer appeared in a youtube video on Geek and Sundry titled: “Preparing for the Unexpected” where he talks about improvising and adapting to unexpected moments in TTRPG. As a part of this video, he talks about Improv: “The improvisational skill is useful in all facets of life I’ve found and this [TTRPGs] very much so”. Brennan Lee Mulligan at various times has talked about his background in Improv and his time at UCB (an Improv school in LA and New York), and its importance for Dimension 20. 

 

So why is Improv such a good background for Role Playing? In essence, Improv teaches many skills for effective storytelling and embodying a character – which is at the core of both running and playing TTRPGs. There are far too many skills and techniques to go into detail here, but I thought I could give a couple of examples of techniques from improv that can improve your role play, as both a facilitator and a player. 

 

I do want to make a quick note here and point out that the style of game that these tips are for is primarily a story focused one – not every TTRPG, or even every table, has a focus on story (For example, some more tactics focused RPG’s such as Lancer may have less story than something like Legends in the Mist). However, for the story heavy tables/TTRPGs I hope that some of this information will be useful.

 

 

FOR THE FACILITATORS:

An improvisational technique sometimes used to set the space is called “scene painting”. This simply refers to describing what is in the scene, and in some instances can include performers indicating where the objects/things are in the physical space, to allow the audience to imagine the physical room filling up with these imaginary descriptions. While TTRPG’s are often descriptive, I think that elements of this technique can be used to embellish our descriptions a little further.

 

In TTRPG’s there are a few different places we can apply this technique. The first is as players enter a new room, environment, or space. Describe to the players what is in the new environment, but make sure to discuss more than what is there. Engage the senses! Sounds, smells, touch, and even taste can be effective for establishing a tone or feeling in the new environment (Sounds and smells for example, are particularly effective for horror).

 

As you open the door to the king’s chambers, the heat hits you first. Despite your best efforts, black smoke fills your lungs and leaves you coughing, the taste of charred flesh in your mouth. Fearing the worst, you brush the acrid smoke aside and step through into the room. Your vision is limited by the black smoke that roils in the upper half of the room, but you hear the king cry out for help from the far side. You rush to him to see a large roast boar completely aflame. “My dinner!” the king wails.

 

Horror example (warning: body horror, skeleton):

As the eldritch energy fills the room, the walls begin to… twitch. There is a pulse, a heartbeat, accompanied by a soft, wet, sussuration. The air smells sharp – cool and moist, but electric. The quiet static that comes before a thunderstorm. Even as you turn to run the blast strikes you and your muscles begin to writhe of their own accord – not moving your skeleton, but detached and flailing independently beneath your skin. You turn to look at your fellow party members, but where Surai once stood is instead a gaunt skeleton, bones separating without ligaments to hold them together and rattling as they fall to the ground.

 

 

The second place this technique can be applied is in combat (for those TTRPG’s that employ it) – particularly when using a battlemap or similar to draw or indicate what is present in the combat arena. When using a battlemap, we can be more specific in terms of showing players exactly where things are within the area. It’s a good idea to add in some erroneous items that simply fill out the space – sometimes adding these little tidbits of set dressing can completely change the way a combat runs when players begin to mess with it.

 

The Witch’s cabin is full of strange arcane paraphernalia. You can hear a notebook on the desk whispering softly to itself, and the light from the oil lamps flickers, sending shadows skittering across the walls. You’re on edge, waiting for a sign of the witch when she suddenly leaps at you! Roll initiative…

Mary, you’re up first!

Mary: I know the witch is attacking us, but I would like to briefly examine the notebook on the desk – maybe we can use her own magiks against her?

etc…

 

Another extremely useful place that scene painting can be employed is in introducing players to the world. Imagine that our description is like a camera, floating far above the world. We start by describing the wider land – the place in which the game is taking place. Once you’ve given this initial description, we can then zoom in to the specific region within the land and describe it. Repeat again for the town, and for the specific locale within the town before “placing” one of the player characters in this location. Matt Mercer can be seen using this technique at the start of Critical Role campaigns 2 and 3 to great effect. This is very useful for providing players context to the wider world. In addition, it gives players a glimpse into the history and regions that surround them, and creates a sense of intrigue where players want to find out more about this place, or that historic event.

 

On the other hand, it is also a perfectly valid technique to dump players into the action immediately, and this is something that Brennan Lee Mulligan loves to do. His appearance at the start of critical role campaign 4 is an excellent example of this: “Someone you love, very much, is about to die”. This technique can be a little more… disorienting. But it can also immediately get players’ attention and hook them into being invested in the story.

 

Another technique which Improvisors discuss when storytelling is the difference between “Advancing” or “Extending” the story. Advancing refers to moving between narrative beats – the next story moment, the next plot hook. Extending refers to providing additional details – slowing down a moment to give additional descriptions about senses, emotions, and character details. Generally speaking, we are advancing the story wherever we can – introducing new villains, encounters, a new room of the dungeon. But, it is important to know when and where to slow the story down and let the players take a moment. Whether the moment is to explore the world, to play out a scene with another character, or discover their new favourite goofy shopkeep, it’s important to give players the space to play with the world and one another. The trick here is finding the right balance between the two. Too much Advancing and you’ll find your players are not invested in the world or their characters because they don’t feel them. Too much extending and your players will get bored and listless and may be struggling for ideas of what to do next. Alternating between Advancing and Extending effectively is key to telling a powerful story. 

 

FOR THE PLAYERS:

Many systems use descriptive elements to tease out who your character is and their place in the world. Dungeons and Dragons, for example, uses Ideals (your character’s morals, what your character stands up for), Bonds (People and places your character is connected to), and Flaws (vices, compulsions, fears, or weaknesses of the character). While these are useful for getting you in character, they don’t do a very good job of informing your character’s journey. When storytelling in Improv, one approach to quickly creating effective characters is to create a character that wants something. It’s all well and good to have a character with a tragic past, but if they don’t want something, or to change something about the world, they have nothing driving them forward on their quest. The thing your character wants doesn’t have to be obvious to themselves, or to the other players at the table, but if it is something that they want, desperately, it will help to drive them forward and motivate them in their quest/s. I think the reason that a system like Dungeons and Dragons does not include this in its character creation is because there is a presumption baked into the system that players are either adventuring for 1. Money, 2. To live out their Ideals/moral beliefs (i.e. because they are heroes they will do the right thing), or 3. Because the DM will give them a reason to go adventuring. While this presumption can work for some groups, I think a more interesting story can arise from characters that have their own wants that they are seeking to address. Even if that want is “to earn money for my family back home”, that is already a more interesting motivation than adventuring for personal greed. (Extra little writers trick for experts: make a character that desperately wants something, but in truth, and perhaps unbeknownst to them, they actually need something else).

 

Another trick to make your characters feel real and lived in is to allow your characters to be changed by the world. In many of the most effective stories, a character goes on a journey into the world and comes back different, changed, by their adventure. This may be due to new experiences, scars, or different beliefs than those they had when they left, to name some examples. In any case, a character that is changed and affected by the world around them is a far more interesting one than one that returns to town almost the same as they left. Role playing offers a myriad ways for characters to be challenged, to fail or succeed. Let your characters learn something from that journey, and allow them to change into something new over time. This is something that I think the players of Critical Role excel at. For example, the difference between some of their characters between the start and end of The Mighty Nein (Campaign 2) is huge, and a significant portion of this simply arises from allowing their characters to be changed by the world and one another.

 

OUTRO:

A final piece of advice – Be bold! Be boisterous. Make stuff up! Don’t be afraid to let your players make up things about the world and accept them as canon. As a player, don’t be afraid to make bold offers or strong character choices – they won’t ruin your facilitators plans, and often lead to new and exciting beats that the facilitator hadn’t planned for. TTRPGs are at their best when both players and facilitators/DMs are telling the story together. 

I hope that you find these tips useful and can take them to your table! There’s so many more techniques and ideas present in improvisation that I know I use in my games regularly, but not nearly enough time for me to write them all out in a single blog post. If you’re interested in learning more, Poprox Improv will be running an Introduction to Improv for TTRPG players course later this year (more information can be found here once it is available). 

 

A crest with swords behind it and a banner saying 'AJ Pickett' on it, over an image of trees.

Catch AJ on the Makers of Actual Plays panel, along with Vahid Qualls (Dice Legenz), Julz Burgisser (Fate of Isen), and hosted by Sero (Redgate & Wolf), on the KiwiRPG Twitch channel, at 7pm-9pm Wednesday 8th July / Wednesday 8am BST / Wednesday 3am EDT

Written by AJ Pickett. Find AJ’s youtube channel here.

 

Most advice about YouTube monetization is built around the news cycle: post fast, ride trends, chase the algorithm’s mood this week. I went the other direction. My channel covers Dungeons & Dragons lore and mechanics in long-form, deeply researched videos, and the entire foundation of my income is built on one idea: make reference material, not content.

The difference matters more than it sounds. A trend video earns most of its revenue in the first 72 hours and then dies. A reference video — something people search for, bookmark, and return to — keeps earning years after you hit publish. My channel’s lifetime ad revenue currently sits north of $470,000, and the majority of that wasn’t built by any single viral hit. It was built by an archive.

Here’s how that actually works, and how another creator could apply the same logic outside my niche.

Build things people search for, not things people scroll past

The single biggest decision I made early on was to treat each video as a permanent resource rather than a topical post. Titles like “The Complete Guide to the Gelatinous Cube” or deep dives into specific D&D lore aren’t designed to catch a wave of interest this week. They’re designed to be the answer when someone searches that topic next year.

This only works if the content is actually comprehensive and accurate. A shallow “complete guide” gets discovered once and abandoned. Mine pull from primary sources, cover every edition or variant of a topic, and genuinely try to be the most useful video on the subject that exists. That’s slower to produce, but it’s the entire reason the content keeps earning.

Let the archive do the recruiting

Individual videos don’t build a channel. The archive does. Once you have enough comprehensive, well-made videos covering an entire subject area, YouTube’s recommendation system starts doing your marketing for you — pulling new viewers in from related searches and suggested videos, video after video, without any extra promotional effort on your part.

On my channel, new viewers consistently make up roughly half of monthly viewership, well ahead of returning regulars. That’s not because any one video is going especially viral right now. It’s because the catalog itself has become wide and deep enough that there’s always an entry point for someone who didn’t know the channel existed yesterday.

This is the compounding effect that separates reference-content channels from trend-chasing ones: every new video doesn’t just earn on its own, it also makes every existing video slightly more discoverable, because it adds another thread into the recommendation web.

Consistency is the unglamorous engine

None of this works without consistent uploads over a long period. It’s tempting to treat consistency as a vanity metric — something the algorithm “rewards” — but the real reason it matters is more practical: a thin catalog can’t generate the recommendation density that drives new-viewer discovery. You need enough comprehensive videos in the archive before the compounding effect kicks in, so, don’t give up your day job until you are earning more than your paycheck.

There’s no shortcut here. The channels that make this model work are the ones that show up reliably for years, not the ones that post in bursts. There is a huge attrition rate of creator burn-out, it requires self discipline and sacrifice. I don’t watch TV, I rarely play video games, I have almost no time for recreational reading. I often joke that I am the worst boss I have ever had. You have to manage your diet, get exercise, know when to push it and when to give yourself mental health breaks. Learn what motivates you and build good habits into obsessions. My brain is the source of my income, I treat it like a work horse.

Reputation is a monetization strategy, not just a branding nice-to-have

Being known for accuracy and depth in a niche is itself a growth lever. Once an audience trusts that your content is well-researched, they treat your channel as a default source for that topic — which means they’re more likely to click on a new upload immediately, comment, and return for future videos. That trust also tends to attract viewers from outside the immediate fanbase who land on a video through search and stay because the quality holds up.

This is compounded by direct interaction with commenters. I read every comment, I respond to a lot of them. This not only turns casual viewers into regulars and regulars into advocates, it also fights negative comments and trolling, because the root cause of a lot of people’s trolling is that they are seeking attention, so, once they realize you are going to give it to them, and they don’t have to be so aggressive about it, it can transform them into very dedicated fans, because you satisfy their craving for validation as a person

Be honest with yourself about the ceiling your niche puts on you

This is the part most “how I make money on YouTube” posts skip, and it’s the one I think matters most: your income is never fully decoupled from the popularity of your niche. My channel’s revenue arc closely tracks the broader rise, peak, and cooling of interest in D&D lore content as a category. I didn’t do anything wrong when growth leveled off after its peak years — the macro interest in the niche shifted, and no amount of personal consistency fully insulates you from that.

Older videos can keep earning steadily even once the niche cools, because the reference-material approach means your content isn’t dependent on being “current.” But it doesn’t make you immune to the category-level tide. Plan for both the upside and the eventual leveling out.

The model in short

If you’re trying to build durable income on YouTube rather than chase a single viral hit, the strategy that’s worked for me comes down to a few unglamorous, repeatable choices: make videos that function as reference material rather than disposable content, commit to comprehensive coverage of your subject area so the archive itself becomes a discovery engine, post consistently for long enough that the compounding effect has time to work, build a reputation for genuine depth and engage with the people who show up because of it, and stay realistic about the fact that your niche’s broader popularity will always be part of the equation.

None of it is fast. All of it is replicable.

 

AJ Pickett is the creator behind a long-running YouTube channel dedicated to Dungeons & Dragons lore, mechanics, and worldbuilding, known to his audience as the Mighty Gluestick or the Sage of Candlekeep. He produces deeply researched, long-form videos covering monsters, rules history, and lore across every major edition of the game.

A screenshot of a youtube channel titled AJ Pickett, showing a number of videos about Dungeons and Dragons lore and monsters.

The words 'd12GO!' and 'The universal RPG' over a pink sky with the tops of pink mountains.

Catch Brad running a game of d12GO! as a part of KiwiRPG Week 2026 live on our Twitch on Thursday 9th July, 6pm-9pm NZST / Thursday 7am BST / Thursday 2am EDT. The VOD will be linked here after the panel.

Designer Brad Zimmerman leads a game of the flexible and fun d12Go. A completely randomly-rolled game: what will the dice bring, and how will a team of brave players handle it?

 

Hey there, Kiwi RPG folks!

My name is Brad and I am the creator of a game called d12GO! The elevator pitch for d12GO is that it’s a universal system for running roleplaying games in any genre or setting, without having to spend a lot of time learning new games for each.

For this reason, it has been used by a lot of people who want to play a quick one-shot session, with minimal prep.

I love running improvised game sessions, but I also understand that these can be very daunting, especially for people who usually run pre-written modules or supplements and aren’t used to stretching their improv muscles.

In this post, I thought I would whip up a few things I’ve learned about running unprepped one-shot games, that hopefully you may find useful.

Once the group has decided on a genre and a system (e.g. playing a “Teen Detective Story” using “Monster of the Week” by Michael Sands, etc.), whip up some characters, then jump into the below steps.

 

1. Outline the Story Together

Ask the players for ideas about things to include in the story (unless you already have a pretty firm idea yourself). Maybe you’ve thought of WHAT is happening, but not WHY it’s happening or WHO is behind it. The players are just as responsible for worldbuilding as you are, so don’t feel like it’s all on your shoulders. 

Scribble down a few brief notes (for yourself), describing:

  • Where a story like this would likely start
  • What kind of events might take place in the middle
  • What the climax may look like

It’s important to remember that everything you outline for an improvised game can be vague and unpolished. Nobody in your group expects perfection!

 

2. Make Quick Character Intros

Longwinded character explanations and backstories are great when you have a whole months-long (or years-long) campaign ahead of you. But in a short game, they only serve to slow everything down and chew up valuable time at the table. 

Get the players to describe:

  • One or two key points about their character’s outer appearance
  • One or two key points about their behaviour or motivations
  • Whether or not their character is prepared (physically or mentally) for the situation

 

3. Lock in a Firm Starting Point

Once everyone knows who they are and how their character behaves in the game world, put all the player characters into the same place, with them already informed about the “main situation” of the story.

I’ve made the mistake of letting characters “find their own way to the story”, which resulted in a “one-shot” that lasted 8 sessions… I won’t make that mistake again and I hope you don’t either!

A good idea is to summarise to the players:

  • What the main situation of the story is (e.g. “The local theme park is under attack by what reports are suggesting is an army of mutated pumpkins”)
  • Then tell them exactly where they are (e.g. “You are standing together in the parking lot, as parkgoers flee all around you”)

 

4. A Call to Action!

From the established starting point, get the story underway immediately, by forcibly hurling the characters into the fray with a call to action. 

Depending on the type of story, this could take any number of forms, including:

  • An innocent NPC pleading for help (either face-to-face or via a remote means)
  • Signs of an impending disaster (e.g. a rapidly spreading fire, a falling tower, a space station plummeting towards a planet, etc.)
  • A hostile creature chasing them into danger
 
5. A Low-Stakes Challenge

Get the players rolling dice as soon as possible, but keep the stakes relatively low for this first outing. 

This challenge may be something like:

  • A social encounter (e.g. convincing someone to give you access to a location or resource, etc.)
  • A physical obstacle (e.g. a precarious rope bridge, a vine-covered rock wall, a locked mansion gate, etc.)
  • An easy combat situation such as goblins or minion-level creatures of some kind.

Ideally, overcoming this first challenge should grant the player characters access to a new location, a valuable resource, or more information about what’s going on. 

 

6. Check Back with the Players

This is something you can do at any time during the game, but it’s good to get a gauge early on (especially if the first challenge was harder than intended).

Ask how their characters are feeling about the situation that is unfolding. This might help you flesh out the remainder of the story. Maybe they’ve got theories or ideas you never even considered.

Ask them if their characters want to rest, gather resources (e.g. ammunition, safety equipment, transportation, etc.) before continuing.

 

7. A Medium-Stakes Challenge (and a twist?)

When they’re ready, prompt the players to keep moving further into the situation, to the next significant location or point of interest.

There, they should come upon another challenge. This should be noticeably more difficult than the last one, and ideally require a different skillset or strategy (i.e. don’t make this just a harder version of the first challenge).

This is also a great time to add a little (optional) depth or intrigue to the story by throwing in a twist or unexpected complication.

Some ideas for a twist/complication could be:

  • The person or organisation that sent you here was actually trying to get rid of you
  • The main antagonist is revealed and it’s someone from your past
  • A tool or useful resource suddenly stops being useful (either because it’s broken or the problem adapts to make it redundant)
  • The true scope of the situation is revealed and it’s not what you had assumed (either it’s much larger or much more isolated than anticipated)
  • An assumption you made about the situation turns out to be completely wrong

The medium-stakes challenge (and twist) should reveal the narrative path to the final confrontation. This may be a literal path (like a mountain pass or broken trail deep in the jungle) or a guaranteed sequence of events. 

Either way, the endgame should be apparent to the players by now, but they must be given time to prepare, instead of being forced directly into it.

 

8. The Climax

The climax of the story is heavily dependent on the type of story you’re telling, but may be:

  • A boss fight. This could be a singular powerful enemy, or a large group of enemies that need to be defeated or overcome. In either instance, it should be more difficult than the medium-stakes challenge, and the players should be made very aware of that fact. 
  • A large-scale disaster (e.g. a nuclear reactor counting down to explosion, a dam bursting, a high-speed chase, a thrilling escape scene, etc.)
  • A very difficult physical obstacle to overcome (e.g. climbing an icy cliff while being bombarded with attacks from above, piloting a malfunctioning spaceship as it hurtles towards a city, etc.)

Whichever of these climaxes your game includes, try to incorporate multiple phases to add depth and get the players to try out different skills. 

For example, the boss fight could start with weak enemies that are only trying to slow you down while the big bad gets ready. If the players somehow manage to circumvent the weaker enemies, reward them by letting them know the big bad isn’t at full strength. 

Or the nuclear reactor escape requires a set of keys in order to get to the outside (fetch-quest-style), and then you enter the fleeing phase. 

 

Important Things to Remember
  • The entire point of the game is to have fun. You know this, and so do your players.
  • Checking in with your players for ideas is always valid. This can be especially helpful with fun little details that don’t really affect the story (e.g. “There’s a person cornered by the monster and screaming for help. What does this person look like?”)
  • Drawing inspiration from existing media is absolutely fine. If you want to take some plot points from The Terminator or Power Rangers or Dragonball Z, no one will stop you.
  • Say “YES” more than you say “NO”. Obviously there will be times that a no is required, but if you err on the side of yes, your players’ ideas will help create something truly unique and memorable.
  • A one-shot game means there is no larger narrative at stake. You don’t need to worry about accidentally setting up a huge problem later on because THERE IS NO LATER ON.

 

So, yeah, those are my thoughts about running improvised one-shots. Please remember these are opinions based on my own experience and will almost certainly be contentious and downright incorrect to some game masters. 

Regardless, I hope you can take something useful away from this and go have some fun.

 

SUMMARY
  1. Outline the Story Together
  2. Make Quick Character Intros
  3. Lock in a Firm Starting Point
  4. A Call to Action!
  5. A Low-Stakes Challenge
  6. Check Back with the Players
  7. A Medium-Stakes Challenge (and a twist?)
  8. The Climax

 

Thanks for reading!

Brad Zimmerman

 

Watch d12GO! as an actual play stream, Thursday 9th July: 6pm-9pm NZST on KiwiRPG’s Twitch.

The words “TTRPGs Are Just Pōwhiri” beside a drawing of a figure with pink hair spray painting the words “F**K OFF”

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

A picture of four people sitting at a table with microphones in front of them, laughing. An audience of people sit facing them, their backs to the camera.

 

Written by Rosella Hart. Cross-posted on the Downtime Activites site. Downtime Activities is a live D&D game in Dunedin on the last Sunday of the month. The next session is on Sunday 26th July, 6pm. Get tickets here.

 

Monday 22nd June

The third show of our (hopefully ongoing) live campaign is on in 6 days. We have 3 actors, a rotating guest spot, a musican and a DM playing for a live audience once a month in sunny Ōtepoti / Dunedin, South Island, New Zealand.

Holy sh*t bookings are low. SIngle figures low. Worried. 

I have to revisit an exit strategy if no one turns up this week and next month. Crunch worst case numbers and plan B on how to keep this going / online / oneshots etc. Urg. Must keep remembering I knew winter would be hard, audiences hibernate down here. Past me set this up as a deliberate trial by fire; get funding to float the hardest time of year and see if there was a group hardcore enough to keep turning up for it. Better to know now than 8 months in.

As well as the usual to-do list – do all the stuff for Matariki firepit (bucket, blanket, extinguisher, poker, what am I forgetting??) Collect sticks for marshmallows BEFORE the weekend. Mental image of running around the town belt like a lunatic collecting sticks, 60 mins before the show. Cackling witch insanity. 

This week I have Shihad’s General Electric on repeat in the car for school drop off. This is speaking to me today:

And it’s always such an effort to believe

In what you want to be

I take a leather pouch when I go out

There’s no money in it

I’m starting to see the pattern of the month, the week before the show feels like a terrible scramble no matter how much I think I’ve done. My hopes to get a better podcast recording up of our last show before now have been dashed by my own technical ineptitude. Haha. A frustratingly intermittent buzz on the night in the recording, and everything I try makes something else go a bit wrong, like a kid mixing all the paint to make a rainbow, and ending up with Disappointment Brown.

I have the mediocre version online because I said I would get something up before this show, but constantly worrying that people will give up after 10 seconds because of the live sound quality. Who am I kidding? 3 seconds. We all have such high expectations now, so used to pristine studio sound.

Research and common sense suggests the old lighting dimmer pack and my rushed set-up that night is the culprit, so the dimmer pack is going in the naughty corner and all the power cables are being quarantined like the plague.

If that doesn’t work I’ll throw my toys out the cot. 

Tuesday 23rd June

Do the to do list. It’s like going crazy, I have ‘write a to do list’ on my to do list.

Dont leave all the front of house stuff to the last minute! (*future me reading this. Mocking laughter.)

I need to make some budget strategy calls about posters. I want to keep paying local artists to make new art each month, which I love, but it’s making no measurable impact on bookings. Not sure how to interpret it, too many variables. It’s hard to balance this stuff.

Last month’s session was toooo looooong I don’t even want to write how long in case anyone reads this (…4 hours)  How can we improve that? Keeping things to time seems a pretty common question for TTRPG live players. I think if we can just crack that time question while still playing the game, having fun and keeping a long form thing rather than continuous 1-shots (which would definitely be easier) then we’ve done it. Whatever ‘it’ is. I have no doubt that the ability is in the team, it’s just unlocking it.

I love the point of difference we have playing with an audience, getting real laughter, IRL community, and the focus it gives us as player, but it really is a LOT harder to make a live show…imagine being able to edit! If you must bow let it be to a stupidly tall mountain eh? I still think there a sustainable sized audience in Dunedin for this (Are you out there? Are you reading this?) If I can get the word out to keen people, maintain momentum once a month, we can all find the sweet spot, and I learn all the other skills I need fast enough…before the production runs out of money.

It’s like watching an unbearably high-stakes snail race. 

Wednesday 24th June

Radio interview for OAR went ok, I didn’t say anything completely ridiculous, or get any names wrong. I think. So that’s a good start – it’s here:

https://tinyurl.com/DandDonOAR

But I haven’t listened back to it because I know I’ll be annoyed with it, and time is a weird soup that only pours one way, so there’s not much point torturing myself. I can do that next week. 

10 seats booked. Sigh. 

Time actually IS a weird soup this week. Winter is setting in properly now, dark and cold by 6pm, our start time. I fear the temperature in Gasworks Museum where we perform. It’s a fantastic moody gas-punk space, and they’ve been so great about having us there, but if the boilers aren’t on… So if there’s any issues with that I’ll definitely have to cancel the show. Can’t afford to go anywhere else. Especially not with 10 bookings, ahaha (cue manic laughter)

Thursday 25th June

Still 10 bookings. Yukking my yum. Wish I didn’t have to look at it. 

Make another to-do list.

Possible uptake in website hits from the OAR interview yesterday (?) but not really noticable. No new bookings, so I guess TTRPG fans aren’t listening to local radio before 7.30am? Proving that they’re a sensible bunch and still asleep I hope. 

In tears of rage at the computer this morning, my Reaper project save being a total dick because computers are TOTAL DICKS.  Over it now, got it safely onto an SD card and in the hands of Hugh, who will probably fix the problems in about 5 minutes, because he’s flash and I can’t even call myself a beginner in the world of sound engineering.

In a good moment, I love how producing live performance makes me learn new things, even if it is out of desperate necessity. Honestly I wouldn’t get my shit together without the deadline of an audience. The list of traits that are common in actors, or tropes about actors at least, is basically a check-list of ADHD.

Meeting tonight via zoom. See if anyone has bright ideas.

Gasworks contacted me and said they’ve added some heating. So that’s nice. They also remind me there’s another heated room we can use. I had completely forgotten about that because it’s not as moody as the Engine Room, and I’m not keen for another variable. See how we go.

I hope the poster art for July arrives in my inbox tomorrow morning to help me through the next 48 hours. The fizz of seeing what other people create – stuff that exists because of the boring work I’m doing- is a morale boost to get through the decision making, checklists and money shit. Freudenfreude. 

Thank god the new Dimension 20 episode dropped today. Listening to the sweet tones of BLMs storytelling has a direct positive influence on the quality of dinner I cook for my family and how clean I get the kitchen.

Friday 26th June

Last night’s meeting was good. Must remember that working alone all the time is quite bad for my brain.

Do everything I haven’t already done. MY CHARACTER SHEET. MARSHMALLOW STICKS.

Going forward I need a cut off time where I stop doing anything about future performances and only work on tasks for the upcoming show.  For example… 30 minutes spent this morning fucking around trying to get something on podcast analytics was NOT AS IMPORTANT as figuring out how to record the show on my mixer in two days, since my expert won’t be there to set it up for me. I knew this, but had put it straight in my denial box until today. He’s set it up for you! Fly little bird! 

This morning there was a Black Back Gull on the road. I circled back after dropping my boy to school and someone was moving it, still alive. Dude had to go to work so I put the bird in my car. Went through the process of figuring out where to take him. Gently driving down the road with this placid gull- they’re usually so reactive and fierce- just chilling in the front seat. 

Watching me drive. 

And I’m watching him wondering if he’s going to live, or if it’s internal injuries. 

I got to the wildlife hospital, the second I stop the car he comes out of the stunned condition, starts flapping around. They’re fucking big buggers in the front seat of a small car. I open the doors and he launches out and flies straight off.  Applause from his audience of one. 

I think every gull I see is him now. 

It doesn’t have to be real to be true. 

About all gulls being him I mean, this did actually happen. Here he is in my car.

A picture of a Black Back Gull, a large sea gull sitting in the passenger seat of a car on a blanket, surrounded by detrius from postering.

Saturday 27th June

Two new bookings. One day to go, grand total of 12 booked seats. I did clear the SD card and get marshmallow sticks yesterday. Yay me.

Sunday 28th June.

SHOW DAY.  Also my 49th birthday. No time for that today, we had fish n chips in the park for lunch so I wouldn’t not eat before the show again.

Monday 29th June.

How nice it would be to write the payoff of “everything went perfect, heaps of people showed up”

Here’s what actually happened.

Went up with 19 paid tickets, plus 5 odd comps. For the capacity and vibe of the show that’s actually a nice number and the are a GREAT audience. No shit, I love performing for them. But for financial sustainability when my funding runs out, it’s maybe half the minimum.

Gasworks, bless them, had installed some radiant heating in the roof especially for us. But it was still too cold after about 2 hours (more about time in a minute)

The firepit started off great, once I got it to a position that didn’t give me the shits about burning the place down (aahahaha not really Gasworks, just jokes) in back of the room providing a lovely crackly glow and ambience, people toasting marshmallows, nice. As it went on though… Yeah, not so smokeless when it starts to die down. Secondary combustion at high temperature, right? I knew that ‘cause physics, right? So, incrementally the room starts filling with smoke during the show. Like a fucking farce, Noises Off. What did I think was going to happen? Idiot. 

So. Won’t be doing that again.

I did all the power supply and sound and light set up myself (more or less)  like a little red hen, and it worked, and I understand it now. Also, quarantining power got rid of the buzz. I haven’t checked the recording, I’m sure I will weep over some aspect, but until then that’s a win. Acutally a big win that I needed to work. I was racing against time, didn’t get some stuff done,  and pretty stressed out though.

And once again we run massively over time. Not four hours, but still too long. I feel discouraged.

Dis Courage. My character Cailtin O’Shea got to captain a ship last night. Hers didn’t sink.

Not the time to stop bailing though. Caitlin very nearly died in the show, her life flashed before her eyes in a vision of fey whisky rainbow piss.

 I’m alive and all I’m doing is making a show, not fighting dragon acid. The map past me set out for present me was to keep trying shit and assess after the July show. So, one more shot before the knives have to come out.

Next month I’m moving out of the Engine room and into the smaller, but definitely warm, fitting room space. We will still have the firepit & marshmallows but put it outside, where we can maybe have it as a visible backdrop through the windows. We will somehow need to address the length of the show. Plus getting people in the door, publicity, postering etc etc. That’s a tomorrow problem. In fact, it’s all a future me problem. 

I need to do the dishes and get somthing out of the freezer for dinner.

Rose. x

Downtime Activities is proudly funded by the Dunedin City Council Professional Theatre Fund and auspiced by Stage South trust

Check us out at Downtimeactivities.nz

The words 'Ways to Support Your Fav Creators this KiwiRPG Week' in a light yellow text, with cyanotyped ferns behind them on a dark blue background.

With many different creators across many different areas of KiwiRPG week, there’s one thing we all have in common – we love when people see our stuff and support us!

Kia ora, my name is Riwhi, and I make games! Throughout the wonderful KiwiRPG week, I’ll be on two streams and one panel, plus the opening and closing ceremonies as a committee member, so I’m sure you’ll all be sick of me pretty quickly 😉

Below is a list of ways that I’ve identified that you can support creators in the TTRPG space – from game creators and designers to streamers and video creators, to artists, there’s ways to support all sorts of awesome mahi (work) from lots of creatives.

 

Supporting game creators/designers:

To start with, the area I am most familiar with: game design and creation. Those of us who decide to strike out from the base D&D and Pathfinder, and add to those and other games, or make our own entirely. Weirdos (affectionate), basically.

Buy their games

This is incredibly obvious, but it would be a glaring omission if I didn’t include it. So, as is evident by the heading, buy games! When you have enjoyed a creator’s work, and you see they’ve put out a new game, buy it, if it interests you. If it’s a Pay What You Want game, tip a couple of dollars. If they’ve got a function to add community copies for extra spent on the game, add a bit more on if you can, so that more people can enjoy these awesome games.

Engage with them on social media

This one is good on multiple levels. First, following them on social media means they have a bit more credibility in the eyes of The Algorithm (because this is an unfortunate thing that we need to work with to survive ☹) and potential customers (not that I believe that small follower numbers means ANYTHING AT ALL about how good of a designer someone is, and vice versa), but also, it means you get updates about new stuff they make! Maybe even sneak peeks?!

But beyond following them, you should also engage with their posts! If they talk about a game they made, reblog/reskeet/repost/whatever the hell it to boost how many people know about it. Like their posts. Reply to their posts! If they post about something new and you buy it, comment on their promo post saying what you enjoyed about it, what was interesting, what stuck out. We LOVE it when people talk to us about the things we make, I promise! If you’re not being an asshole about it, we wanna hear it.

Tell people about their games

Found something you like? Tell literally everyone who stops long enough to listen about it.

I’m only mostly kidding…

Spreading the word is wonderful! I’ve had markets where people have told me that their flatmate/partner/friend/cousin’s sister’s dog gave them my games because that person (or dog) thought they’d love it and they did, which is the biggest compliment, and also so helpful! Spreading the word is a sacred duty.

Tell other TTRPG people, tell non-TTRPG people, tell those folks you know who only play D&D – maybe you can get them onto other games!

When sharing about games, say why you like them. What is it that sticks out?

Another very key point about telling people about those cool games you love: make your own posts on social media! When TTRPG creators do it about our own games, it’s because we’re biased. So if you come in, and honestly talk about why you love a game, it goes a really long way! Also, then we have a testimonial to use in our own promos, so it’s extra cool 😉

Review their games

Let’s be real here, none of these points have been particularly niche. These are all things that are pretty common sense. Buying games, sure, give the creator money. Follow them on social media, mmhm, that’s just how the world functions these days. Tell people about their games, well, you need to do that to play them with other people, so whatever. Even this one, review games, easy breezy, of course, of course.

Okay, THEN GO DO IT!

I just checked, and my most downloaded game with just over 750 downloads on itch, has 15 ratings. Only 2 of those have words attached beyond the star rating. While itch is really weird about reviews, and only publishes them to people who follow you, it’s still hugely important to have them! As mentioned before, then they can be used as testimonials, they still get released to your followers, and also they are so so so wonderful to receive as a creator! Every single review I get boosts my motivation to write things 1000 times over. Very literal ‘support’, in the ‘ways to support’.

So, go review your fav TTRPGs and your fav creator’s work. It means a lot!

Also, often if you take a community copy, there’ll be a request for a review in return – please do that!

 

Supporting Streamers:

Admittedly, I watch less streams and videos than I intend to, or even want to, and I don’t want to leave these creators out, since there are many in the KiwiRPG community, and quite a few in the KiwiRPG week lineup, so here are some ways you can support these folks too!

Watch their streams (obviously)

Again, saying the obvious purely so no one is like ‘well you didn’t say to actually watch their streams soooo’. No pedantry allowed! Preddy simple here.

Engage in the stream chat

Especially if it’s a solo stream, from what I’ve heard from streamer friends, it makes their jobs a lot easier, giving them something to respond to, but also you can have cool convos with other people in the chat.

Engage with them on social media (again)

An added bonus of most streamers (to my understanding) will post about their stream schedule, or post when they’re live, so you can be aware of when they’re playing.

Give them feedback on what you enjoyed! ‘Caught the stream today, LOVED when Johnny Bob (three raccoons in a trench coat) threw a Molotov cocktail at the president, the look on the GM’s face was incredible!’

Tell people about their streams (again)

‘Hey I just found this awesome new TTRPG stream, you should check it out! My favourite character is Johnny Bob (three raccoons in trench coat). Maybe we could watch together?’

Easy peasy!

Post about the stream on your social media of choice, beyond just resharing their posts. It goes a long way!

 

Supporting podcast creators:

Do I have to say all the same stuff? It’s pretty much identical:

Listen to their podcasts (including the backlog)

Engage with them on social media and in the comments

Tell people about the podcast

Review the podcast wherever you listen to it

 

Support video creators:

We all love videos about TTRPG stuff, and if you don’t, I simply can’t help ya! Very similar stuff here as above, to be honest. Pretty much the same stuff here.

Watch their videos (obviously) including their backlogs

Engage with them on social media

Leave a comment!

Tell people about their videos

Recommend them on social media, in your discords, to people in your offline life, in your TTRPG groups

Like, subscribe and hit—

*I am forcibly removed from the blog before I can finish saying that*

 

Supporting Artists:

Can’t forget our wonderful artist friends! Unsurprisingly, it’s the same, by and large.

Like and comment on their posts/videos

Engage with them on social media, even the posts that aren’t just their posted art

Tell people about their art

Buy prints if they have them!

Print out their art and eat it

😊 I am not taking questions about this at this time, thanks.

 

To finish off

Okay, okay, I’ve said the same thing over and over enough times. You all get the gist. Support TTRPG creatives however you can! Above and beyond the things here, sometimes they’ll have Patreons or Kofi accounts, and these can help give them that financial supplement to keep making the awesome art you love. Generally, creators will be pretty clear in telling you how you can support them, and if not, I guarantee they’ll be willing to answer a question asking that.

Have I missed something you see as super important? Whakamōhio mai, let me know in the comments or by tagging KiwiRPG on social media!

Happy KiwiRPG Week 2026, folks!

– Riwhi

Dungeons & Comedians online special 2021, featuring David Correos, Abby Howells, Chris Parker, Brynley Stent and GM Brendon Bennetts

It’s a recipe for sure-fire entertainment: a group of Kiwi comedians must use all their ingenuity to come up with hilarious solutions to unexpected challenges, all the while seeking the approval of the mercurial dictator of fun and judgement known as… the Taskmaster!

But wait! Why, if you just swap out “task” for “dungeon” you also get a pretty solid description of a Dungeons & Dragons game! It’s no wonder so many contestants on Taskmaster New Zealand have also danced among the tumbling d20s and entered the world of playing D&D for an audience. 

Here, then, is the definitive guide to which Taskmaster NZ contestants have elfed up for the cameras, and where you can watch or listen to their goblinoid antics!

Continue reading “The Complete Guide to Taskmaster NZ Contestants Playing D&D” →