Those Pesky Females

tl;dr: Talking as a female character if you have a masculine voice. How?

How do you do women in roleplay? You might find yourself choosing to play one, or if you're GMing the players will inevitably run into a girl that they have a conversation with. Either way, a man doing a woman's voice comes off as silly at best, borderline creepy at worst. How do you deal with this without it affecting the tone of the scene? I'm a male GM and I have a particularly deep voice. I could just tell my players what a female character says, rather than actually emulate her voice, but wouldn't that come off as less immersive? And if you're actually playing one, it could get even more stiff and tiring to constantly say "she says..." rather than, well, playing the role.
What are your experiences and advice?

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>voice games

I just speak in my normal voice. When I change any aspect of it, it is mostly to indicate advanced age or play with the accent to indicate a foreigner.

My only piece of advice is don't think about it too much. The trap here is overthinking.

Don't change voices. It's for retards

Don't worry too much, it's completely optional. At most, just have somewhat distinct voices for multiple characters, just to tell them apart. Speech patterns are more important than pitch- if you really want, do whatever higher pitch is comfortable, no falsetto nonsense. Everyone involved understands you're not a one-man show.

this

If any of my players actually tried to 'pass' as a woman with their voice it would make the rest of us cringe. There's nothing to be gained and everything to be lost. Just speak normally and don't worry about it.

I usually talk in my normal voice but sometimes I repitch my voice maybe half an octave up. I mostly change the manner in which I'm speaking for each character; I feel like spoken mannerisms are way more effective than tone changes to convey character. Accents fit into that too, but I won't force if it's an accent I'd be comically bad at. Or, maybe I will if the group likes it; sometimes a bad accent can turn into some kind of new crazy speech pattern that the group gloms onto, and the NPC becomes really well-liked because of it. One of those stars align kind of deals I guess.

Do what audiobook narrators do and just make your voice a bit higher and softer. Long as you don't overdo it it won't sound creepy.

Listen to an audiobook or twoz The narrators usually have a different tone that they use for women. Even if it doesn’t actually sound realistically feminine it gets the point across and if you’re consistent players will stop noticing it.

If you can do it, might as well.

If you aren't 100% confident in your ability to do it right, just don't. It's a role playing game, everyone else will fill in the blanks.

seconding this chap, mannerisms and patterns are what I've found to sell npcs of any kind the best.

A common meathod is to talk all breathy, but that sounds weird.
You may want to just give-up, and just say "x says yadda yadda yadda" in your normal voice.

Having a femme voice and trying to do growly bigman shit is hard, since those are the characters that it's more important to take seriously. Need to find a way to pitch it town without sounding like Seth Rogen.

>shitposting

You're probably not going to be able to realistically emulate a young woman's voice, and trying too hard can make you sound like you're in Monty Python. It's easier to do it when you're playing an older woman and don't have to go quite as high.

youtube.com/watch?v=oVV5a3m9MoA

But I'd say as long as it's clear when you're playing a character and when you're just talking, that's good enough. I played a frog character once, and just making my voice a tiny bit creaky was more than enough.

I speak slightly softer & at a slightly higher pitch. I have a bullfrog of a voice so I know I'm pretty deep toned. No one has complained & I don't feel silly.

I listen to a shitload of audiobooks and I find a female doing a male too be much more jarring

But then most of the ones read by a women were Kate Reading and I think she's actually just bad at her job

It's 2017. Play online and use text.

I have a very weird voice, sounds kind of like a teenager muppet, and no matter how much I try to make voices, they always sound like a teenager muppet trying to make funny voices, so even when playing actual male characters they never sounds like an actual character anyways.

if your going to talk in a higher pitch don't force it out from your throat you'll sound ridiculous. this is an area where if you're are anything less then a voiceactor its better off to half ass it.

I do it like professional audio book voice actor does it: Don't overdo it, just use the natural pitches of your voice. Instead, just select a fitting natural pitch and use a distinct speech pattern. Picture the person you are voicing, choose what their 2-3 natural resting emotions are (sarcastic, stuck up, enthusiastic, bleak) and what that means for speech patterns of theirs. I mean, just picture Severus Snape. He is bitter and condescending and you hear that in his voice.

Talk softly. Use a breathier voice. Speak from the throat, not the chest.

When DMing you should just do subtle changes like using a softer tone. Never go full on voice acting unless you're actually a good voice actor.

Speak softer but with still your normal voice.

Women do not put on a female voice when they talk so you can’t get in character if you’re doing one.

Pretty much this. Unless you are good at voiceacting then you should rely on mannerisms and speech patterns.

Yeah, I do lady voices.
I mean, it's still a dude voice, but this one is all haughty and shit, and this one is an old fucking granny.

Granny is easy to do for men.

I speak in a slightly higher voice. Not cartoonishly so or anything, just a bit higher, and with less hard consonants. It helps that my previous characters that lasted were a gruff cleric and a boisterous gladiator, so just going slightly softer spoken and higher pitch makes it a world of difference.

How about just not playing your opposite gender to save you time and confidence ?

>if you're GMing
Yeah, the easiest solution to OP's problem is just to never have any female NPCs talk.

I know those lips. It's one of the models for the birchplace shop.

>feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemales

>his worlds aren't entirely male when he gms

>The only way to reproduce in-universe is to assert your dominance to such a degree that the universe decides "yep they have to be pregnant at this point".

>How?
Speak softly.

Just make all females doctor girlfriend

I can do a rather convincing female voice, but only a psedo-Alto. Middle-aged women are pretty easy, but any younger and I can't manage it. I used to be able to sing many soprano arias when I was younger, but puberty hit like an oncoming train.

Just talk in your normal fucking voice.

I usually make important NPC's that get a lot of dialog male, just to avoid this problem altogether.

When it's just a random NPC, I don't really bother to describe them, e.g. "Four punks walk out of an alleyway to block your path. The front one, obviously their leader, is wearing a bulletproof vest and a military helmet with the insignia's crudely scratched off." I'll let him do most of the talking, and when one of the other mooks says something I'll let my players imagine whatever gender they are.

I also have the unconcious tendency to voice act men in either a gruff voice or a droning and nasal voice, so anytime I don't voice act in any manner it is recognizably different from a male voice.

Don't go for a high-voiced female. That's impossible for you to do properly. Shoot for the lower female range, or androgynous - Lumine or Mega Man Juno, if you're familiar with either.

I don't bother.

My natural voice is like Barry White without any of the seduction. I'd just sound like a cartoon crossdresser.

I only do it in an accent that's not my own, that way even if I fail at doing a girly voice theyll still know I'm speaking in character

>without any of the seduction.
I'll be the judge of that. Vocaroo me, user.

Mostly I either do a "she says" but otherwise I just try to pitch it up a tiny bit and make it a little breathier. The real thing is just determining how the character would talk, and worrying less about the gender. Do they stutter? Are they very laconic? Excited? Bored? Worry about that first and foremost.

Don't be afraid of feminizing yourself a little. It can be very liberating.

This is an example of a game where a fat, ugly, deep voiced dude plays a woman and doesn't change his voice or attitude at all. It's pretty funny, and proves that it doesn't really matter
youtube.com/watch?v=5q3v9nFT0iI

>5 hours in to first session
>"Now that you've met eachother, the adventure can begin!"

>not just talking in your regular, masculine voice
>playing women “as girls” instead of just being a female character
>playing a woman without crippling dysphoria problems and making it a fetish-play for no reason

According to my friends, I actually do "creepy little girl" pretty well.

I don't know how to feel about that.