Roleplaying accents?

[STARP_Social_Officer]

And here's a third one.
Do you use different voices or accents when playing PCs or NPCs?
I usually do, because it helps players and the DM know when I'm "in character" and when I'm not. Pretty much everybody does an American accent when we play Shadowrun or our current Spycraft campaign (I do a Texan accent, and I don't want to blow my own trumpet here, but it's pretty accurate if I say so myself). Aristocratic PCs and NPCs tend to have English accents (at least when I run them).
We once ran a Shadowrun campaign where we had the my character, a Scottish dwarf (Glaswegian accent), an English human (the guy running her did a passable West End accent) and an Irish street samurai (no, really) called (I'm sorry) Rick O'Shea. The three of us did the accents quite well but it started to give the DM the irrits.
Also, we find accents "catch on" and people find themselves doing the wrong one.
I once played a black guy and tried to do Lawrence Fishburne. That didn't work out so well. Of course, I also ran an NPC who had a raven familiar who talked like Eddie Murphy. That worked better.
Your turn.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Always.

I try to do regional or racial accents whenever possible (for example, in my Ivalice game, it was Romanda=American and occasionally Canadian, Ivalice=English and Scottish, Ordalia=French), since I can do a fairly wide range of different voices within a given accent.

I'm always irked when a GM doesn't do this, because telling NPCs apart requires either simplified scenes, additional exposition or some other 'tell,' such as picking up the miniature of the character who's speaking. I'd rather have a GM do accents poorly than not at all.

I don't mind other players not doing accents, though, and most of my group doesn't.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Also, we find accents "catch on" and people find themselves doing the wrong one.

Yeah, I've noticed that. There's a high degree of Welsh/Pakistani slippage.

I love accents, it's the most important part of doing a character imo. None of my group are tremendous voice actors, our accents are fairly primitive - Cockney, German, Scots, Irish, Australian - and our characters somewhat cartoonish and OTT, though the game is basically serious.

 

[Jeysie]

Although my group has been known to go to the trouble to type out "accents" (I had an ex-farmboy Paladin NPC with a thick country accent I did once that comes to mind, for one), we usually just stick to dialects and speech patterns.

Peace & Luv, Liz

 

[Nifft]

I have the proud ability to mangle any accent, and thus I'm not sure my regional accents are well represented. The effort is made, though.

Cheers, -- N

 

[shilsen]

I always use an accent for my PCs and NPCs. Which always happens to be the same one. Which is Indian. Because I am.

In short, no

 

[awayfarer]

My players just entered Aundair in Eberron. I picture the Aundarians as being very french but we play online and I don't want to try and type an accent.

 

[SavageRobby]

I try to do accents for my important NPCs, and try to fit various accents/dialects to game regions. They provide nice differentiation between the DM voice and NPCs, and a good cue for players to know they're be addressed as characters. And you know, they're kind of fun, as long as I don't take them too seriously. One of my group's favorite NPCs, Marcelius, was well known and somewhat beloved for his simply horrible french/spanish/italian accent. Years later, I can still say a few words in that atrocious accent and and everyone cries "Marcelius!"

 

[IanB]

I'll do different voices but I try to stay away from mimicking a specific real-world accent, because invariably when I do that the NPC stops being Lord Ramagupta as far as my players are concerned and instead becomes "that guy who sounds like Apu." Or whatever. It really robs the NPCs of their gravitas.

 

[kenobi65]

I will sometimes do accents, but more for my PCs than for NPCs, interestingly enough.