In this paper, representative ground motion ensembles for several major earthquake scenarios in New Zealand are developed. Cases considered include representative ground motions for the occurrence of Alpine, Hope and Porters Pass earthquakes in Christchurch city, and the occurrence of Wellington, Wairarapa and Ohariu fault ruptures in Wellington city. For each considered scenario rupture, ensembles of 20 and 7 ground motions are selected using the generalized conditional intensity measure (GCIM) approach, ensuring that the ground motion ensembles represent both the mean and distribution of ground motion intensity which such scenarios could impose. These scenario-based ground motion sets can be used to complement ground motions which are often selected in conjunction with probabilistic seismic hazard analysis, in order to understand the performance of structures for the question “what if this fault ruptures?”