Do you use NPC "voices"?

[Man-thing]

absolutely

My kobold's are high pitched and yip a lot.
My Nagpas sound like the vulture men from the Dark Crystal

This week my players were in the "Buzz at the Bridge" and I made a constant buzzing sound with controlling the game whenever my party was within 20ft of the Giant Bees.

 

[shilsen]

I usually do changes in vocabulary, intonation, specific pronunciations, etc. much more than I do voices. They are easier for me to do, and on the whole I find that doing different voices for NPCs (at least in my group) is one of those ideas which is cooler in theory than practice.

 

[IronWolf]

I need to do some work on my NPC's. I would like to add at least some tone difference between then, I am not very good at acting or being consistant with voice changes, so it will be a challenge to pull it off without sounding goofy. I can certainly work on changing speech patterns and such for different NPC's and give them something else that is unique. Still working on it though.

 

[Al]

I do do NPC voices (though my players are constantly mocking them, especially the female ones ). If nothing else, it helps the different NPCs stand out, both in building a feel for that particular NPC and also to distinguish between various NPCs in any given scene, and between me as DM and me as NPC.

 

[Caius]

sometimes I'll try and use different speech patterns and the odd time accents or a different pitch in tone. sometimes I do voices by race. like I usually have halflings talking rather fast and excited, or the blunt rough scottish of a drawf.

why is it that most always make their drawves scottish?

 

[Desdichado]

why is it that most always make their drawves scottish?

Good question. I certainly don't. Last time I ran D&D with an accent, I made my dwarves sound more Russian.

 

[francisca]

Always. I always use accents and voices, non-verbal gestures with my hands, and facial expressions as well. This not only adds flavor, but can send a message to the party as to whether or not the situation is dire, light-hearted, etc...

I usually take notes on what was said. That usually jars me back "into character", as long as it was in recent memory (3 - 4 sessions ago).

RE: Scottish Dwarves. Dunno. I have often fallen into that myself, though you would think they would have Scandinavian accent. I recently read "Three Heart, Three Lions" by Poul Anderson. This book is at the top of the suggested reading list in the back of the 1E DMG. The list of D&Disms in that book is long: regnerating green rubbery trolls, swanmays, law vs. chaos, etc.. One of the main characters is Hugi, a dwarf (though actually more like a 1E D&D Gnome, as he was statted in Dragon back in the day). Hugi, indeed all of the Fey, has a Scottish accent. Perhaps a generation of budding DMs read this book and decided Dwarves should have a Scottish accent.

If you haven't read it, I recommend it. It's more of a fairy tale than epic fantasy, and a quick, light read. It's quite enlightening to read some of the fiction that the game was inspired by, if not based on.

 

[The Shaman]

As a GM, I'm terrible at voices. I will use a bit of inflection and repeat certain phrases or vocabulary to make characters distinct, but full-blown accents and a bunch of different voices for characters is just beyond me.

As a player I often find accents to be a bit distracting - Scottish-sounding dwarves tend to take me "out of the game," giving my suspension of disbelief a poke in the nose, for example.

 

[Warden]

The game that I just ran last night had at least 9 NPCs interacting with the players at various stages of a four-hour game.

Grog (ettin) - typical dumb monster, with the two heads talking gibberish to each other
Hobgoblin "Coach" - Mickey from Rocky series
The Kamouraska (devourer) - a German version of the Merrilvingian (hopefully, you know what I mean) from the Matrix films
Jester (werebear) - deep, rumbling voice, stern manner
Kordel (rakshasa) - Agent Smith from the Matrix films
Zeebo (gnome) - little Mexican drunk
Delary (doppleganger) - started off as a small country girl, but quickly changed into a smarter, more cunning version of a female warrior
Raphael (human) - Woody Allen with a stuttering problem
Patch (dwarf) - grumbling voice, constantly cursing the rats that he's trying to kill

...plus maybe a few more very minor NPCs thrown in for good measure.

Voices definitely help, but not on their own. In fact, for the Delary character (who's true form in never revealed, so she really just comes across as a human female), I just carry myself differently and use my normal voice -- pretend to play with my hair, cross my legs when I sit down, that kind of thing. I only like to use vastly different voices on characters that are far from human. Other times, I'll just stoop my posture, walking with a limp, or just do one little thing to tell the players that this is a different character.

 

[Wolf72]

yes, I use different voices ... they all sound bad, and more or less like me ...