So, I know that some players do, and some dont, so I was wondering what everyone's opinion on character voices was.
I personally try to give each of my characters a unique voice. I don't just mean in terms of accent or pitch, but I try to come up with verbal mannerisms, speech patterns, and sounds. For me, I have a tendency to talk at the table out of character with other people, and so sometimes it can get confusing as to what is in-character and out of character if my character doesn't have a voice that is distinct from my own. I like to do it with important NPCs as well when DMing, but only normally in home campaigns, where the character of the NPC is under my control.
Anyways, if you do unique voices for your characters, or if you intentionally don't, I'm interested to know why :D
I really don't try to. I think as one of my characters develops, some unique mannerisms do come out as a part of the personality, but it is all pretty subtle. Sometimes I phrase things in a slightly archaic fashion, but no thee's or thou's or anything heavy. Sometimes I do give my historic fantasy characters a bit of a generic "British" accent, but I think that is just from watching too much HBO.
Part of the reason for this is that I do not have a talent for voice acting at all. I can actually pull of some pretty decent British dialects, but that's all. It also takes me out of my comfort zone, so I do not enjoy the role playing as much if I am trying to develop a "voice". I spend my time thinking about the voice and feeling silly. This may be a bit the opposite of what you feel, but I find it easier to jump between 1st and 3rd person if I am keeping my same voice on. No one in my group really uses voices either, although some of those "British" accents of various qualities do creep into some phrases at least, so I think that sort of voice acting would stick out in a bad way.
Part of me does wish that I did more. I have been meaning to do more of what the OP suggests with the speech patterns. It won't happen anytime soon I think , but I am curious to see what other people have to say.
Hm... I'm debating to let my French elf ardent, Italian orcish wizard, or Austrian dwarven fighter answer this question.
I'll just leave it to my Mr. T gnomish monk (A.K.A badass):
"I pity the fool!"
Does it answer the question? Maybe not. But do you really want to question Tim's (Terminator for short) abilities to provide a straightforward answer??
*cue British accent*
You don't.
[/accents]
In case you didn't get the message, I do indeed do different accents, because all accents are awesome. Whether I'm DM or player, I just can't get enough. I dunno why; might be because of my ADHD or my pleasant distaste for bland characters.
I've done an Australian Half-Elf Battlemind with hit and miss success, a Warforged that was a run-down cowboy robot who would keep stuttering every so often as his voice-box skipped a bit. Not much else than that though.
So, I know that some players do, and some dont, so I was wondering what everyone's opinion on character voices was.
I personally try to give each of my characters a unique voice. I don't just mean in terms of accent or pitch, but I try to come up with verbal mannerisms, speech patterns, and sounds. For me, I have a tendency to talk at the table out of character with other people, and so sometimes it can get confusing as to what is in-character and out of character if my character doesn't have a voice that is distinct from my own. I like to do it with important NPCs as well when DMing, but only normally in home campaigns, where the character of the NPC is under my control.
Anyways, if you do unique voices for your characters, or if you intentionally don't, I'm interested to know why :D
This is going to sound obvious but I base my character's voice upon his class and race. If you take a look at where some of the races "originally" came from, it should give you some interesting ideas for accents/inflections and mannerisms. For instance, both kobolds and dwarves come from teutonic mythology, so a german accent and mentality might be appropriate. Halflings are ripped from Gaelic (Scottish/Irish) mythology and either of those accents can work, the same goes to the Eladrin, who are based on the Gaelic fair-folk as well. Similar roots can be found for most races.
The way class operates on speech should be obvious (and please note, I am including background and theme in Class). Wizards, for instance, are used to being exact in their thoguht process inorder to cast their spells properly. This would almost certainly carry over into their speech patterns and diction. A fighter might vary drastically in his speech based upon his social rank . For instance, I would expect a fighter based on the European knight (who generally came from the upper-class) to act in a completely different manner from someone who had fought his way up the social ladder. In this case, the former would probably be well educated (which would come through in his speech), while the latter would probably uses slang and imperfect sentence structure far more commonly. In this case, there would be no need to over-act it, instead simiply the difference between "How might I help you, my leige" and "'ere, what's all this fuss?" would do the trick.
I run a Bard with a pronounced southern drawl, who always refers to dubious platitudes his father said. Though when he's being diplomatic, he speaks loftily, and crisply, in a manner most clear and verbose. But when the fightin' gets tough, he gets a bit of a scottish lip to him. These come from, respectively, his life growing up on the farm, his "indentured servitude" to Halflings giving him that vaguely scottish/irish brogue when angry(which tends to come out mid-battle), and his time as a conman giving him his clean and compelling manner of speaking.
Back in the day though, I ran a hell of a fun Cleric of Gruumsh. Growling about, muttering about the weaklings who need healing, and of course, "FOR GRUUMSH! FOR ONE-EYE!"
i use voices with all my characters. but for me it's second nature: growing up, my dad would use various accents all the time, just to be random. me and my brother both do it now as well. we barely notice when we swich accents now because we've been doing it so long.
i also like to really consider everything i saw 'in character' to make sure it's something my character would say. while this might sound time consuming, i do this irl to make sure i don't make a fool of myself, so it's really easy to do for a character.
i have an elven druid who is very much a pack predator (he's a wolf), and so i use words like 'prey', 'alpha', and 'pack' to refer to enemies, the parties leader, and the party itself all the time. it really helps me feel like its the character speaking, and helps distinguish when i'm in character and when i'm not.
as a DM i always use mannerisms and diction to make the NPCs unique, because otherwise it can get confusing which of the three NPCs present are talking at any givin moment.
, but I am curious to see what other people have to say.
