One of the things I love most about being a DM is getting to play a wide range of characters as the NCPs. I have different accents for each race and few just random ones. I normally use Scottish for dwarves and Irish for halflings. Elves are just usually pompous, so that is easy. I act each character as well. I am curious who else does this?
I don't do major voices or accents, mostly because in the other game I play, our DM does them there. He's good at a few accents, but he'll spend a couple of minutes trying to get back the right accent for the right character and it's the tiniest bit immersion breaking for me. What I took away from that was to simply alter my speaking patterns. I have one recurring character who speaks in the third person and always refers to the party as "my friends." Another character who is a tweaked out drug addict, will switch back an forth between shouting and whispering and everything in between, but talks very quickly with random pauses in there. Still another character has a slightly higher, nasally voice, and draws out the last word of his sentences.
For me personally, I find this technique still gives the npcs there own unique voices, without me having to actually do accents or major vocal changes. For me, speech patterns are primarily the way to go.
I do voices and accents to get across the individual NPCs personalities a bit better. I wasn't planning on doing any but i tried one out on my first game and my players died laughing when the gruff Cleric called them "chuckle****s". I try not to strain myself doing them so they arent too far away from my normal speaking. I find speech patterns difficult to think of while doing dialog on the fly but I'm trying.
However, this is mainly for main characters / protagonists / antagonists. I don't always voice merchants or random chatter unless its crucial to the story :)
I have a long background in theater, so voices are a huge part of the characterization of most of my NPCs. It's also become my 'tell' as a DM if a character is important, I'll probably have a voice in mind as opposed to making it up.
The only thing I'd suggest is don't always stick to stereotypes? The established voices that have formed the basis for how most fantasy races speak is The Lord of the Rings, of course. Scottish Dwarves, Cornish Halflings, Welsh Elves, and Cockney Orcs, and Humans just being a 'normal' English accent.
I do what I can. Orcs have ended up being aggressive Russians. Elves are soft-spoken. Humans tend to be somewhere between Irish and West Country (English).
I have a few individual accents for certain NPCs. One sounds like a character from Family Guy who I can't place but know he was in there. One switches between Irish and Scottish depending on what comes out of my mouth when I try to play him (it's a running joke at this point, I just played into it). One is sort of pseudo-Spanish.
I love doing accents or creating voices for Major NPCs/PCs. For those looking to start, check out the link below, Taliesen Jaffe (TJ) and Satine Phoenix discuss interacting with players and TJ (a professional actor) gives some simple but effective tips not for accents but simply changing pitch (hi/mid/low) and speech patterns to easily differentiate between NPCs. He also encourages that the outstanding aspects of NPCs will come from your exaggeration of a specific characteristic or two. https://youtu.be/XQZR4smjUEc
I have a decent range from low to high that's helped, but i'm working towards doing accents. It's hard to develop by yourself, but i've been lots of show and movies with different accents and parroting after them seems to work. I hope to be incorporating them into the world soon, a character here or there at a time. I don't wanna go all out and end up butchering it.
I use Russian for Tieflings because they are few and far between in my campaigns! Their voices, to me, should be particularly different from other NPC's :) Plus, Russian accents are just fun to do :P
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One of the things I love most about being a DM is getting to play a wide range of characters as the NCPs. I have different accents for each race and few just random ones. I normally use Scottish for dwarves and Irish for halflings. Elves are just usually pompous, so that is easy. I act each character as well. I am curious who else does this?
I don't do major voices or accents, mostly because in the other game I play, our DM does them there. He's good at a few accents, but he'll spend a couple of minutes trying to get back the right accent for the right character and it's the tiniest bit immersion breaking for me. What I took away from that was to simply alter my speaking patterns. I have one recurring character who speaks in the third person and always refers to the party as "my friends." Another character who is a tweaked out drug addict, will switch back an forth between shouting and whispering and everything in between, but talks very quickly with random pauses in there. Still another character has a slightly higher, nasally voice, and draws out the last word of his sentences.
For me personally, I find this technique still gives the npcs there own unique voices, without me having to actually do accents or major vocal changes. For me, speech patterns are primarily the way to go.
I do voices and accents to get across the individual NPCs personalities a bit better. I wasn't planning on doing any but i tried one out on my first game and my players died laughing when the gruff Cleric called them "chuckle****s". I try not to strain myself doing them so they arent too far away from my normal speaking. I find speech patterns difficult to think of while doing dialog on the fly but I'm trying.
I definitely need to practice talking in different types of voices and practice switching back and forth.
I play a medium amount of board games.
For the voices of my NPC's I generally use these:
However, this is mainly for main characters / protagonists / antagonists. I don't always voice merchants or random chatter unless its crucial to the story :)
I have a long background in theater, so voices are a huge part of the characterization of most of my NPCs. It's also become my 'tell' as a DM if a character is important, I'll probably have a voice in mind as opposed to making it up.
The only thing I'd suggest is don't always stick to stereotypes? The established voices that have formed the basis for how most fantasy races speak is The Lord of the Rings, of course. Scottish Dwarves, Cornish Halflings, Welsh Elves, and Cockney Orcs, and Humans just being a 'normal' English accent.
I do what I can. Orcs have ended up being aggressive Russians. Elves are soft-spoken. Humans tend to be somewhere between Irish and West Country (English).
I have a few individual accents for certain NPCs. One sounds like a character from Family Guy who I can't place but know he was in there. One switches between Irish and Scottish depending on what comes out of my mouth when I try to play him (it's a running joke at this point, I just played into it). One is sort of pseudo-Spanish.
I love doing accents or creating voices for Major NPCs/PCs. For those looking to start, check out the link below, Taliesen Jaffe (TJ) and Satine Phoenix discuss interacting with players and TJ (a professional actor) gives some simple but effective tips not for accents but simply changing pitch (hi/mid/low) and speech patterns to easily differentiate between NPCs. He also encourages that the outstanding aspects of NPCs will come from your exaggeration of a specific characteristic or two. https://youtu.be/XQZR4smjUEc
I have a decent range from low to high that's helped, but i'm working towards doing accents. It's hard to develop by yourself, but i've been lots of show and movies with different accents and parroting after them seems to work. I hope to be incorporating them into the world soon, a character here or there at a time. I don't wanna go all out and end up butchering it.
#OpenDnD. #DnDBegone
DM: The Cult of the Crystal Spider (Currently playing Storm King's Thunder)
Player: The Knuckles of Arth - Lemire (Tiefling Rogue 5/Fighter 1)
I use Russian for Tieflings because they are few and far between in my campaigns! Their voices, to me, should be particularly different from other NPC's :) Plus, Russian accents are just fun to do :P