Fellow DMs, lets have a Voice acting thread what kinds of ranges do you have? >clyp.it/1ted3s2j
do you have training methods to become better at it? >mostly just vocal exercises and lost of practice
do you have different voices for each NPC, a generic one for each brand of NPC, just the important ones, or don't even try? >I usually try to give each brand of NPC a different voice type, Shopkeepers sound different from blacksmiths, but all the shopkeepers sound the same. it gives enough information that the players know basically who's talking without me needing to spell it out.
I fucking hate voice acting at the table. I don't know why bit it annoys me so much
Anthony Sanchez
Without practice it usually get corny, but with a bit of exercise and work it can get very fun.,
Samuel Brooks
Voice acting is useful tool, but many players forget that there are great benefits of just doing mannerisms, or sometimes just describing what happens with your character.
I have a friend who is not really a great actor, or performer, but his descriptions are always on point, though he does a "narrator" point of view that helps with it.
Brayden Anderson
I can the normal reasonable NPC / normal voice, the "pirate/ork/scumbag/Australian" voice, the "refined/noble/elf" voice, the "evil overlord/golem/dragon" voice, and the "goblin/kobold/gnome" voice.
Tyler Morales
No person is objective judge of his own voice. And few gamers are sociable enough to get judgement from anybody else.
Anthony Carter
fair enough then what did you think of my example?\
very true. Mannerisms are very important. this works for lots of things too, a person who changes up their mannerisms, without changing anything else, can still be easily unrecognizable. seriously if you ever want to gain a better appreciation of the Clark Kent alter-ego fooling everyone around him just try switching up your mannerisms. it's astounding how many people will not recognize you.
Landon Jones
vocaroo the dragon voice pls
Charles Miller
I attempt voice acting quite often as the GM as I like to have scenarios with many different NPCs that yammer back and fourth. I sometimes use tools to make it sound robotic but I think my goblin and rat voices are somewhat interchangeable. I try to hide this with having unique mannerisms with how they speak but I think it's a little obvious that I'm not the best.
I think it's more organic to do it in this fashion and I was hoping that by doing this I'd inspire the rest to try or get lost in the fantasy. (I'm a new GM to a bunch of new players.) In the end I think it just left a clearer distinction between my rping and theirs. They usually are very metagamey and treat people like puzzles to solve instead of living beings. I pretty much do it now since I set the precedent.
Joseph Clark
>Range Not much, sadly. I have a high pitched voice, and the lowest I can go still isn't much.
I compensate with acting, accents, verbal tics, manner of speaking (some stutter, speak louder, slowlier, etc.). Thankfully, my native tongue has a bigger range of politeness levels than english does, so it's still easy to distinguish different characters by speech.
I try and customize important NPCs as much as possible, especially if there's more than one in a particular scene and I have to speak with myself. I'm not bad at all that, but I sure wouldn't say no to a lower "base" voice.
