D&D General Outrageous Accents

[TheSword]

Know your audience. Don’t do an accent that you think will offend people or make people think of real world racist slurs or insults.

Accents and acting poor or otherwise isn’t described in the books (aside from Tomb of Annihilation’s ill advised clicks and whirrs which no sane GM should attempt), so we can make it fit our own table. Unlike say NPC descriptions, tactics, backstory etc which is a matter of record once published in a book.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

All the recent discussion about increasing awareness of the degree to which racist tropes and language pervade, or have pervaded, D&D has led me to thinking about Cyragnome de Bergerac.

If you don't know, he was a gnome pc ran by... I think Roger Moore, or maybe Kim Mohan?... in the early years of D&D. He was mentioned in several articles and/or editorials in early-ish Dragon Magazines. He was a gnome pc with an outrageous French accent.

Anyway, the discussion of late has provoked some thoughts. Outrageous accents are a thing I've always enjoyed, but are they another example of a way many of us have played into racism without even realizing it? If it's okay to have a character with an outrageous French accent, is it okay to have a character with an outrageous Japanese or Chinese accent? What about the kind of stereotypical accent attributed to black Americans in racist works of the past, like Minstrel plays? I'm pretty sure that last one is offensive, but where is the line? Does the intent of the player matter? I'm pretty sure there's a line somewhere, but am uncertain where it lies.

Thoughts?

I will say my GM is of Scottish descent, and he does accents really well. But he keeps them to European accents (duergar are usually Russian sounding, drow are snobby English, dwarves are typically Scottish). And of course, his dwarven accent is on point.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

This, pretty much. I've worked with voice actors, and I'm not one. I try to make it clear when I'm speaking as a character, as opposed to speaking as myself, but I don't bother even trying with accents.

I will say that I agree with the no accents when I am GMing, I DO modulate my voice in various ways - go high, low, slow, fast, gravelly, nasally, etc. Also I try to add one body movement, whether that's a raised shoulder, or a tilt of the head, one or both eyes really wide etc. So that my NPCs have "character" without resorting to a real-world accent.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

My opinion is tempered by an experience was such at a con that I grabbed a pregen due to liking the skillset and powers. The GM then tells me to look at the traits - one of which was "speaks in an Aussie accent." He then told me that three of the other players at the table were from Australia. I started to put the sheet back, only for those three to tell me that I had to play that character. They were good sports, and it was pretty funny, but also a mite bit embarrassing.

Good on you for leaning in. I might have tried to weasel out by saying "Imagine whenever I speak in character, that they are speaking in an Australian accent".

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Does anyone want to skim through some of the more popular game streams and see what kind of accents the players and DMs are using? It would be interesting to see what they think is an acceptable accent for thousands of people to hear live as they watch the game.

 

[cbwjm]

Pretty much the only reason I don't often use accents is because I'm terrible at them. I'm not concerned about offending someone because I'm playing with friends and we all know that if I (or they) do try an accent that it is all in good fun.

 

[MGibster]

The only accent I actively avoid is Asian because I can't pull it off without sounding like a racist caricature best left untouched. I don't know how to do an accent for the various Native American groups so I don't even try and I certainly don't speak like I'm reading for the part of Tonto. But I'll happily use various American and European accepts though I certainly don't do a very good job with it. Sometimes I even do piss poor imitations of celebrities. My players still talk about the dwarven king who sounded like Christopher Walken.

I'm starting a game of Acquisitions Inc. in a few days and it'll be my first online game ever. I'm going to kick things up a notch and use accents and voice mannerisms to make NPCs a bit more memorable since we're not face to face.

Karen - The group's majordomo is a succubus who decided to leave the hospitality business, attend college, and now works as an office manager. Karen believes her spells hide her true form, but she's actually been cursed to think she looks like a regular human where everyone sees her true form. Is completely oblivious to any comments that she might be something other than human. -- Sweet southern belle accent.

Bud - Bud isn't part of Acquisitions Inc., he's a travelogue author in the vein of Volo and author of The Chronic Traveler: My Time in the Underdank. The marketeers thought it'd be a good idea to bring him aboard to write about the franchise. Free publicity is great! -- California stoner accent.

 

[delphonso]

I hesitated to bring this up on a couple of similar threads but I think the conversation here is pretty good.

I do a wide range of European and American accents without a second thought. I put in some effort on particularly marginalized groups (i.e., American Southern as uneducated, Romani as scam artists, etc.) And try to avoid or even flip those assumptions. My favorite being a Dwarven King who was just a Texan Good Ol' Boy.

I've lived abroad for years and feel uncomfortable doing accents from around me, even if I can do them well. I lived in Japan for a few years, and can put on an accurate Japanese accent, but it doesn't feel right. I only recently felt comfortable with an Arabic accent after listening to hours of lectures from a Jordanian professor, and reviewing my old Arabic textbooks. I currently live in China and doubt I'd ever use a Chinese accent in a game.

In the last few years I've been trying to do specific people rather than general accents. Caricatures of Adam Driver and Ronald Reagan have made their ways into my games lately. Vin Diesel is who I'm working on now, but I need to...I dunno, gargle whiskey and gravel to get my voice that low.

 

[Li Shenron]

All the recent discussion about increasing awareness of the degree to which racist tropes and language pervade, or have pervaded, D&D has led me to thinking about Cyragnome de Bergerac.

If you don't know, he was a gnome pc ran by... I think Roger Moore, or maybe Kim Mohan?... in the early years of D&D. He was mentioned in several articles and/or editorials in early-ish Dragon Magazines. He was a gnome pc with an outrageous French accent.

Anyway, the discussion of late has provoked some thoughts. Outrageous accents are a thing I've always enjoyed, but are they another example of a way many of us have played into racism without even realizing it? If it's okay to have a character with an outrageous French accent, is it okay to have a character with an outrageous Japanese or Chinese accent? What about the kind of stereotypical accent attributed to black Americans in racist works of the past, like Minstrel plays? I'm pretty sure that last one is offensive, but where is the line? Does the intent of the player matter? I'm pretty sure there's a line somewhere, but am uncertain where it lies.

Thoughts?

If I understand what you have in mind, "outrageous" accents are used for comedic effect. It is not necessarily a bad thing (depending on the campaign and gaming group, it can be appreciated or not), but almost everyone would be offended if someone else was constantly imitating her/his accent, so obviously you need to avoid doing the accents of your own players. For everyone else, keep in mind that it's like a joke, the first time you hear it it's funny, but the second time is already lukewarm.

So overall I would say don't do it if:

• you're player, unless the game is a one-shot -> in a longer game, soon everyone will hate you
• someone at the table has that accent or is from that country -> that person will probably be offended
• there is non-playing audience (e.g. you're streaming or playing in a public space) -> someone in the public may be offended
• the campaign has a serious tone -> it might kill the mood

I think I'd rather leave it for the DM to use (sparingly) as a way to render some NPC more memorable, and note that by "memorable" I do not mean something you'll remember fondly for years to come... I just mean plain-and-simple that the DM wants you to remember the NPC because you need it in the current adventure or campaign (accent/voice is just another tool). Because of this, I'd use it to characterize individual NPCs, not entire races.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

They were egging me on, making sure I threw in lots of references to putting "shrimp on the barbie" and drinking Fosters (with the caveat that they all thought it's a terrible beer). I'm sure I was turning a shade of pink, if not red, the whole time, though.

Good on you for leaning in. I might have tried to weasel out by saying "Imagine whenever I speak in character, that they are speaking in an Australian accent".