Character voices

[Hypersmurf]

Hey, I'm playing that character at the moment!

Let me know what XP and loot he gets, then, so I can update my sheet!

But while he ended up unconscious after an ill-advised charge on more than one occasion, he was a blast to play. And occasionally, an ill-advised charge saved the party!

-Hyp.

 

[cthulhu_duck]

We've got a scottish accented Dwarf at the moment. The good thing is that the player manages to use the voice consistently for the character, and while I thought "Oh No" at first, I've warmed to it.

In modern games, if I'm playing a character from a different country whose accent I can do, I'll do that for some of the in character spiel.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Usually I do my Dwarves some variation of scottish when I'm thinking about it.

Mostly, though, I realize that I'm not a gifted method actor, and I usually GM, so I tend to take a more narrativist tone with third-personisms and the occasional booming "Announcer Voice" and a 'When we last left our intrepid heroes ...'.

My current character I visualize as played by Patrick Warburton, but unfortunately I just never could "get" him. He's sort of, personality-wise, if The Tick were a champion for The Christian Right.

My replacement PC I decided to go for something I COULD do ... silly French "Holy Grail" accents! Jean-Claude Phillipe Baptiste D'Argent, a Dragonwrought Kobold raised by a French-Canadian ... er ... Furyondish couple.

The group I play with now, they've moved the various D&D languages into silly accents ... Celestial is French, Terran is Russian, and our two Hill Dwarves sound like they're out of a Greyhawk production of O Brother Where Art Thou?.

 

[The_Universe]

I do voices. Sometimes silly for minor NPCs (when levity is needed), but generally reasonably serious. I make no claim to being particularly good at the voices (especially for female NPCs), but I do put in the effort. As a DM, it's almost a necessity if you have more than one speaking NPC "on screen" at a time.

 

[Li Shenron]

Any of you play D&D games where the players put on a 'silly' voice to give there characters personality ?

Silly voices don't give characters any personality. It's the words you put into their mouth which do.

We had a couple of players (and a DM) who sometimes gave a silly voice to a PC/NPC, and some cliches are just lame IMO:
- falsetto
- heavily rhethoric speech
- using old english words ("thee", "thy"...)
...can be very irritating and will awake murderous instinct in the DM

Otherwise, speaking in a different English accent is fine, as long as you don't exaggerate it. For instance, you can think of an actor/actress you like and base the accent on that. Not on a cartoon character tho...

 

[Wombat]

Any of you play D&D games where the players put on a 'silly' voice to give there characters personality ?

A few of them do put on "silly" voices.

More of them use character voices.

A couple use their own voices.

Hope that clears things up.

 

[irdeggman]

I have a player with a Drow Mute Mime Bard... very interesting. Sometimes he pantomimes around, sometimes just points, and sometimes he uses a mini-whiteboard at the table.

Which sounds like fun except the character can't cast any bard spells since all bard spells have a verbal component and Silent Spell can't be used on bard spells. (Only applicable to 3.0/3.5 rules)

 

[Kormydigar]

From memory, the Christopher Walken was a thing of beauty.

-Hyp.

I gotta say.............that's.....pretty funny. My current rogue character has this voice. In the same party we have Ranger- Sean Connery, Wizard-Frances McDormand from Fargo, and the gentle priest-John Lennon. Its quite a fun party.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

General shyness and insecurity usually keep me from doing "voices," but I have a nack for it. In Mutants & Masterminds I ran a mystical Batman-ish type with a generic Irish accent. I also ran an NPC vet Hero named Ironside. He had a very militaristic outlook, so I took heavy inspiriation from R. Lee Ermey from Full Metal Jacket. I kept it understated to avoid being silly, but every now and then I'd throw in a choice phrase. Everyone seemed to like him a lot.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Nope. We mostly paraphrase what is said anyway and don't try to act out the conversations.