Also remember, If your cultural accent isn't perfect, you're probably not playing a character from that region anyway. You're playing a character from a fantasy world that has an accent that only somewhat resembles an accent from the real world. * You may have to remind the other players of this.
@@scw55 My Tabaxi was a hermit in a swamp for decades and now has reemerged in the world obsessed with jewels and clothes and candy and sounds like Ethan Nestor.
Dude you rock... Wait! I meant; "Esper the Bard, your facility with the Etherworld is comparable only to the accessibility and excellence of your tutelage!"
I do a lot of writing and text-based roleplay. I've even done acting and quite a lot of drama work so I've a pretty good grasp on being in character and roleplay in general. However, when it comes to RPing through voice online with friends or whatever it may be, I fall short. I think it's performance anxiety that gets the best of me and really puts me on the spot no matter how well I understand my character and the scene around me. For those that suffer the same problem; do not be shy to let loose. The biggest thing about anxiety is worrying that you will look dumb. However, being afraid to go all out and pussyfooting around RP and talking OOC to summarise your actions makes you look even more like a fool than messing up your lines slightly or being a little weird. Mistakes actually make for good RP as well. It's super hard to talk perfectly all the time. A few stutters or fuck-ups are fine in character, even if you're playing a genius. They keep them human. ...Or whatever their race may be.
This is great advice Master Bard. My old DM always said "Every character you enjoy making is already in there. Just try to bring them out. View things how they view them. React to them how they would react.".
Roleplaying isn't about funny voices, but it is factually about speaking in the first person, inhabiting the character that's doing the dialog. That makes a huge difference in how you and others around the table take part in the story. The bigger part is in owning the limitations and flaws of your character. Making a decision that doesn't create a benefit on your character sheet but that makes logical sense for a person in the position of your character. Finding more and more of those exceptions is how you define your character in the space of the game.
amazing video! I'm about to play an unconventional Minotaur Barbarian and I don't want him to be just a meat shield warrior with no brain, so I'm researching ways to build him, thanks!
This needs more recognition. I can't tell you how much this has helped me. I looove dnd. But it always so awkward roleplaying. I never could get the handle of impersonating my characters. That being, I was terrified to roleplay as males. But this upcoming campaign, I'm playing as my first male character 😊 I may not sound exactly how I imagined him. But the slowed speach and lower tone gave me a great grasp on him.
One of my favorite videos in all of D&D thus far in 2020. As a DM inspiring to widen his range of voices for NPCs, this was an encouraging presentation. Well done!
Great video. Really good advice. It's funny though, because my group has the opposite problem. We had a big epic battle against the minions of a night hag, a bunch of giant frogs and toads, and afterwards one of our players commented. "We haven't had a fight in a while..." and someone replied. "We keep talking our way out of them." That was when I pointed out that our druid might have been able to talk to the frogs and toads, so another missed opportunity. Some of the other encounters we've talked our way out of recently: we convinced the commander of a mercenary army to convince his army we'd been friends all along after killing his employer; we recruited an enemy sentry to be our pet redshirt (he watches the horses while we fight); we made cautious friends with a group of bandit hunters; and we convinced a hippogriph that we were neither food nor an enemy. We went six sessions, and other than a friendly duel, we rolled only social dice; and that duel was to convince a bunch of Orcs that we deserved respect. It's a great group to play with
A tip that also helped me a lot is get a cathphrase for your character for especific situations, like when they are: hungry excited scared angry in trouble etc, theres no limit! or you can use the same for all That makes them more unique and you will always know when to say what!
Thank you for all this! As I was watching I slumped my shoulders forward, closed the right side of my mouth, & half closed my right eye & the voice just came out. Your tips really helped me out!!
Esper, if that may be your true name, I give you humbly great gratitude, for your videos are so transparent, real and weird. Thank you for being one of the lone "just-talking-youtubers" I like to listen to. Your advices are actually pragmatic and easy to use!
Congratulations on nearing 100k! I must have found your channel 10 years ago. Always great content! This one is particularly great timing for me as I just joined a group and, to help my role play and lore, I've started reading the Drizzit saga. I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on meta discussions with your group on RP. Some of my group enjoys it and others don't. We tend to fade as the session progresses.
This is a video that I was unconsciously waiting for. It really is a great tool for DMs and also for players. Thank you very much for your contribution to the world of ESPER Role! A big hug from Argentina friend!
avoiding slang is a big one for me, real immersion breaker and I always catch myself doing it - which kinda takes you out of the moment when you say something and immediately think "ah shit, that came out wrong". gotta practice that more.
And Smith im personally like that, i play d&d for the combat and puzzles while roleplaying is is a bit of a challenge. im not quite “i intimidate the guard” but more along the lines of “[PC name] looks towards the guard, giving a glare while placing his hand on the hilt of his sword”
This is something I do for all my characters....I voice act all my characters from Drow to yuan-ti and human..I also do some acting while I play AL👍🏼👍🏼💯
The funnest players in AL are the ones who RP. It doesn't matter if we're super successful, if every encounter goes by easily, or if our skill checks are spot-on...the RPing and socializing is always better with players who are interested and try to bring their characters to life.
Onuma this is very true it makes the game way more interesting when more people RP during the game.....if players seeing me RP gets them inspired to do the same then I’m super happy....this has happens several times and everyone has more fun then just rolling dice👍🏼👍🏼💯😎
i picked a boston accent for my character and it’s my first time playing dnd & the campaign starts in like a week or two so the accent / “in character” tip was a huge help
Great tips all of them and I've used many myself. For me starting out, even the slightest changes in pacing and cadence can make a world of difference. Thanks for taking the time.
biggest piece of advice i found for myself from this is to read good fantasy novels. I never read for enjoyment and the thought simply hadn't occurred to me how much that would help my RP
This was awesome. Thank you. I’m new (playing pathfinder), and only a few sessions in. I just broke my shyness with RP and I’m all in baby. Now I need to learn how to voice act a little. The tip of “showing and not telling” is absolute GREAT advice.
My suggestion: Listen to audiobooks, reading can be tough for some people (I know it is for me), but listening to audiobooks can really help you get some examples of good voice acting, especially considering it is usually one person doing all the voices. As a DM, listening to other DMs voice act and listening to audiobooks really helped me get an understanding of "what this character should sound like" (having an image of the character can help too).
01:40 Man I been DMing for 26 years and I can only recall one time I had a true to god TPK and wouldn't you know it this instance of total party kill was also due entirely to player stupidity (a player set of a bomb in a cave under a mountain no joke). But I can tell you this much a TPK is really rough it's hard on players, and it can completely knock the steam out of a dungeon master.
I feel bad I had forgotten about this channel. Back in, 2010? 2011? this channel got me back into D&D with his games he would post. "In The Hands Of My Enemy" I believe was one of them I watched. And one about "golden wishes" and "shattered dreams". Maybe "shadowed dreams". Either way, it got me back into it and now it's a full fledged part of my life, even with a YT channel and some self published stuff! Thanks Esper! It's good to see you again! Thanks for helping me get back into the game! :)
Thanks a ton for watching my videos throughout all these years. Crazy to think it's been over a decade now! I miss making those narrated adventures so much.
This is all great advice! I've been DM'ing for several years now and one thing I noticed in newer roleplayer's or even a few who haven't "broken the ice" into roleplaying their character fully, is that your first bit of advice about adjusting your pitch and sentence structure seems (anecdotal so) to be very commonplace and after that point it's much easier for the rest to fall into place.
One tip I've used for accents, is think of someone who has that accent (an actor, entertainer or even a TH-camr) and watch and practice doing an impersonation of them. Don't try to just do the accent in general, just try to impersonate that person. Keep them in mind while you're doing it. Even if it's not a good impersonation of them exactly, you'll probably get their speech patterns close enough to make for a halfway decent accent.
Just happened across your channel via this video popping up in my recommended list. Your simple tips for voices I will definitely put to good use, it will greatly increase the types of voices I use when running NPCs. After so many years of running games I cannot believe that many of the basic tips you laid out never really crossed my mind. Subscribed to your channel and looking forward to going through your other videos! Keep up the good work!
Session before last, the PC party was "handed a note" (a letter of reference) by an NPC to take to another NPC. At the beginning of the last session, I tossed the players a prepared note, which was addressed from the first NPC, to the second and then folded in a classic manner and wax sealed (real wax seals are cheap) Resulting n a nice little prop for the game to encourage role play. The players pretty much ignored the note until they got to the location where they were to deliver it, and make a request for something they wanted. The player playing the PC with the note, naturally held it up as they made request to enter town to see the addressee. When they meet the addressee, and hand over the note, I made a show of acting the part of him examining the note, adjusting my glasses, commenting that the seal was unbroken, showing approval, reading a bit and commenting on my own note that the players had not read yet. While discussing the meaning of the note, what the PCs wanted and about to get into what the first NPC wanted for himself, a player made a comment aloud (that very much sounded in character, especially with an in-character discussion going on.) and I had the NPC they were talking to take offense about what that comment would mean to him in that situation, completely changing tone of the meeting. Make the characters the PCs interact with seem real. *************************** The note: (yes, its a campaign expanding from Lost Mine of Phandelver) To my lord, the MasterMiner, Alebrew: Having proven their worth in clearing many foul creatures of the lost mithral mines of the Smelter clan, I request your indulgence to hear the bearer's request for aid in restoring a recently discovered ancient dwelling. Yes, this is also to inform yo that the mine has been found and we are commencing operations to resume mining the rare and precious minerals necessary for crafting of mithral weapons and arms. I also request yo send the clan historian and sage, Willowgart Birchstone to aid in identifying an ancient relic located in the mine. Your servant, G, Rockseeker of the Deep Crag Clan Gundarin Rockseker
Nice. Lol this hardest but extremely fun voice ( if you can call it that) was my dwarf. He was kicked in the head as a child and shattered parts of his skull. Being a dwarf he wasn't going to let that slow him down. But a as the injury healed, it screwed with his pronouncement of words. To the point the voice sounds like a really thick Scot mixed with a back woods southern draw. But ran together like "Boomhauer" from King of the Hill. But as a twist, when he drinks for some reason he can talk normal. From incomprehensible to think dwarven. To light dwarven to no accent (mid west accent) and I was using a Irish accent to go into high elven. Lol yep I was hammered drunk. So much fun just for the role play.
Oh man, I /have/ to play an australian cleric now. Dunno why, but your mention of alternate accents from english immediately struck me with "australian cleric"... It's gonna happen for sure.
Ok, but you read that book better than about 90% of the audio book readers I've seen thus far. (There are some pretty good ensemble cast audio books though).
I just came across you but as soon as you talked about your more reserved character I saw your face change and you became them so quickly. Keep on pursuing your passions!! ❤️
When I DM I try to encourage acting, but I'm going to be honest... my players are all chaotic stupid and I don't think it'd be much different. I don't mean it in the bad way, it's the comedic stupid
Ah found this late but I'm watching this as review for a session I have later today and honestly it really helps. I play a character with a heavy finnish inspired accent that I occasionally have to practice to remember all of his little quirks. (Specifically his by now trademark phrase "that would be preferable") This video really holds up and I honestly believe I'll be referencing this for years to come.
I'll be trying that. I'm the only girl in the party and started playing male characters. My friends just keep referring to him as her and she and it gets annoying. I'll have to try lowering my voice and try some of those tips. Can't wait for next session. Maybe it'll push them to find a voice too!
honestly this really helped, i never thought that i could forego using a different accent and change my pitch and cadence. good luck on your goal to 100k
Dude, this is going to help me so much. I’ve always had some trouble role playing and voice acting due to my anxiety and just overall stage fright, but I end up annoying myself because I want to be better for everyone else. Obviously I’m not gonna be Matt Mercer or anything overnight, but this has given me somewhere to start! Liked & subbed 💕
I’ve gotten much of great dialogue from Jack Vance’s books. The Dying Earth series, the Planet of Adventure trilogy, and the Lyonesse Trilogy are all amazing for their dated words. Dated in some social norms such as attitudes towards women, but they’re very creative!
Before I played with voice I'd come up with unique saying for my character. Sometimes I'd twist common ones such as "oh my god" to "Flock of leaves!" "Mountains Breath!" etc...For my elf druid (also in a book I wrote). I also assign different nationalities to each characters and look up common saying like my Sweedish Goliath would say "log-on" "Pull me backwards" "You planted your last potato!" Of course in the game world she wasn't Sweedish I made this part of her culture. I've made-up curse words or for partial nationalities of a character Id just curse in that language. I received compliments on my cute and different additives to the various characters. Try it. If it's a game at home you don't have to worry about plagiarizing so use someone else's quotes from a movie that inspires you.
I moved to a foreign country 20-some years ago. Since then, I got out of practice doing accents. I also went from being good at doing accents in English to being bad at doing accents in a couple of languages. (Being able to do lots of different accents in a foreign language is cool though.) I often, get my accents mixed up now. That hardly ever happened to be before. There were some good bookshelves here.
All of my Characters have their own catch phrase, I don't say it the same way every time but everyone around the table knows I am talking in Character when I say it. It also helps to bring me back in to Character at the start of every section.
My DM is a hardass on slang/references, any time someone describes a plan or a person as kind of like something from modern day or even says "jesus christ" he goes "who/what is that, i've never heard of that before" and it always kind of derails things a bit but I kind of appreciate it more now that I'm realizing it's for a purpose and not just to be obstinate.
Is your character suave? Say very little, but use your face (or describe your expressions, briefly) and use your hands carefully. Smile when you talk, even while intimidating. Is your character military? Speak firmly and directly. Don’t hem and haw, avoid “uh” and similar pauses. Are you a leader, or even an officer or knight? Bark orders (but don’t shout outside combat). If you’re a good leader, invite questions at the end of your dialogue. If you’re a hardass, invite no questions and talk over arguments. Are you a bard? Go wild. Be sing-song, or boisterous, or be meek. Bards can be anything. Posture is always important. As a Cavalier, I like to sit up straight and look down to one side or the other while speaking. (this affects my voice, and makes it seem more like I’m up on a horse, talking down to somebody)
Wow this will really help I think for a lot of new players. I will make sure that it becomes a part of the basic introduction for my Student ascociation group that I am running with 6 other DMs. Thanks a lot!
One of my players is a top tier voice actor who plays a mostly mute Crocodan (a Lizardfolk homebrew he made) who uses tribal sign language, grunts, crocodile noises, and very basic words to communicate. Meanwhile I'm a pretty new DM and the support he throws my way when I attempt to do voices is inspiring. For instance, I decided to do a French accent for the owner of a French bistro that Brutus (the Crocodan) and Seru (a rainbow colored homebrew dragonborn) stumbled upon on a stroll through Waterdeep. I'm pretty sure it was trash but Brutus was just like YASSSS.
My natural voice is actually what was a voice I used in D&D. As I became more confident I just took on the voice of my more confident PC, it is not massively different but it is odd that when I play a nervous character I just speak like I did when I was about 16.
I tried a surfer voice. It was a lot of fun and everyone liked it. Also you can make up words and people pretend they know what youre saying which is great.
One of my most recent characters is a cleric based on a Southern televangelist that has a pious outward persona but in private is a drunken lech. He is a blast to play. His name is Teavy Preacher. Southern drawl, hellfire and damnation cliches and hits on all the barmaids.
The dwarfs in the world of our campaign have a swiss accent (don't ask why it just kind of happened) and everytime our GM does it we end up laughing really hard
Record “Voice” note beside character record! Game Masters, especially, may need a reminder which voice to run for a specific NPC, but once you have multiple NPCs made up, you might forget-or worse-mix up-some voices. So right beside the name, I make a voice note (something brief) like “apoplectic” or “mild, timid” or “Peter Lorre.” By the way, keep it secret when you steal a famous voice; your players will enjoy it longer if they hear the familiar voice but can’t recognize it immediately.
Once in 3.5 d&d my ENTIRE PARTY was so bad at ROLE PLAYING that they all died. I have to be honest that's what I got form the first part of this... Ahem: my friends are idiots and I just had to TPK them. They should have known this dragon was too powerful for the party. If only they had known how to roleplay...
Good thing to do is to play around with tongue placement and jaw placement/movement when speaking, it can change tone and pronounciation quite noticeably.
In over forty years of gaming, I have encountered all of one, single, solitary actual 'role player' if we define such by the outlined criteria. And that was a professional actor.
Great advice! I will say though, as a DM always put your players needs first and don't force them to do things that aren't fun for them. If your players don't want to roleplay, don't TPK them like the story at the beginning. No judgement, just food for thought. Ease them into roleplay and encourage them, don't punish your players for not doing what you want
Thanks for the advice and as for weird characters being memorable our groups fav is thompson the rat he is a doctor who studies magic and is very socially awkward being unable to read a room lol
Amazing video and resource. I DM and love doing voices. I’ve started recording my major NPCs and baddies so I don’t mix the voices up. One of my proudest moments was when I did a voice of a NPC the party hadn’t seen in a while and they all got excited and knew exactly who he was just by the voice.
Our group is bilingual (more like trilingual but yeah), so having consistent speech is difficult. The ones that manage to speak just one language are the best at consistency, while im bad at articulating my thoughts. Thats why i have to rely on my characters behaviours and just hope the actions speak louder than words.
I'm not very good with culturally based accents, but I've managed to really feel like I'm setting myself apart from my characters in my last two campaigns! In the first one, I play an awakened mouse named Fabio the Unsqueaking, who is a knight of a fey court. I went full out on the obnoxiously high pitched voice, but with noble-kight turns of phrase. It makes everyone laugh which always feels good. My newest character is a bubbly, psychotic cheerleading artificer named Kara (she's a complicated gal). I've adopted a slightly higher pitch, a bit of a valley girl pattern of speech, and I throw a lot of energy into everything I say. It's really fun to feel like my character is genuinely a separate person from me and to try and slip into her mindset! Gonna keep trying to improve, maybe try my hand at some of the foreign accents and different types of characters.
Here's a few books I've read that have an older English fantasy feel, but in various ways/genre: The Aeronaut's Windlass (Steam punk) The Storyteller's Dictionary (a Kickstarter book, but available for digital and physical) City of Copper (a shitty middle eastern fantasy romance/Arabian story, but the dialogue is pretty good) Others feel free to list their suggestions.
Reading fantasy has been a huge help to me when it comes to dialogue. Plus, some of the insults people come up with are hilarious. I've been reading R.A. Salvatore's Legend of Drizzt books as of late; and I burst out laughing at the end of "The Crystal Shard", when Wulfgar's farewell line to Kemp was "May the fleas of a thousand reindeer nest in your genitals!"
I have my first game soon and I'm feeling actually somewhat terrified. This video has helped a bit but I still don't quite get the last one, knowing what to say. I never could in social situations anyway but the advice of memorizing lines from books and shows has never really worked because the odds that the exact situation which you can use it coming up is pretty much zero.
Sometimes it feels like characters are alive and they can act and speak by themselves. You just need to stop being you for a while, and let that character use your voice and your body to express. It may surprise you how many things they can do and say that you never will.
Also remember, If your cultural accent isn't perfect, you're probably not playing a character from that region anyway. You're playing a character from a fantasy world that has an accent that only somewhat resembles an accent from the real world. * You may have to remind the other players of this.
💯
And when you're really stuck, that NPC is actually faking a bad accent!
My Tabaxi speaks like a typical Tabaxi which sounds like an offensively Spanish accent that's a little French.
@@scw55 My Tabaxi was a hermit in a swamp for decades and now has reemerged in the world obsessed with jewels and clothes and candy and sounds like Ethan Nestor.
Dude you rock...
Wait! I meant;
"Esper the Bard, your facility with the Etherworld is comparable only to the accessibility and excellence of your tutelage!"
He's speaking the language of the gods.
Roleplaying is just story writing, but you only control one character. A cooperative narrative.
Unless you’re the Dungeon Master. ;)
@@mythologicalmisfits323 even then you aren't the main character
- Sun Tzu
Yep
Yes, this would be most valuable to my party and I. Thank you bard for your words of wisdom! *Makes sure to tip Esper on the way out of the tavern*
Toss a coin to your Esper??
Dracos Diabolis o’Bards a plenty
Small tip, but made me realize I should try a higher pitch for my short character.
*small* tip for a *short* character
I would even call it a tiny tip
Not if you’re a scottish dwarf
@@sharkoj our dwarfs are swiss 😂
I tend to do a slow deep voice for large characters like my loxodon rogue and I tend to mix it with a indian or Mediterranean accent
The best part of fantasy accents is that any strange way you talk can officially be the way people from a location in your fantasy world speak.
"If you want to truly get better at roleplaying, you have to enrich your mind."
Nailed it.
A wonderful video, love your acting tips!
I do a lot of writing and text-based roleplay. I've even done acting and quite a lot of drama work so I've a pretty good grasp on being in character and roleplay in general.
However, when it comes to RPing through voice online with friends or whatever it may be, I fall short. I think it's performance anxiety that gets the best of me and really puts me on the spot no matter how well I understand my character and the scene around me.
For those that suffer the same problem; do not be shy to let loose. The biggest thing about anxiety is worrying that you will look dumb. However, being afraid to go all out and pussyfooting around RP and talking OOC to summarise your actions makes you look even more like a fool than messing up your lines slightly or being a little weird. Mistakes actually make for good RP as well. It's super hard to talk perfectly all the time. A few stutters or fuck-ups are fine in character, even if you're playing a genius. They keep them human. ...Or whatever their race may be.
I’m forever impressed with the quality of your channel. Thank you for your contributions and inspiration, sir.
I'm glad you find it so, thank you as well!
This is great advice Master Bard. My old DM always said "Every character you enjoy making is already in there. Just try to bring them out. View things how they view them. React to them how they would react.".
Amazing. The first tip is a god damn game changer
"I like doing Mediterranean-inspired accents"
Proceeds to become Mario
I've met only one Italian in my life and he pretty much has that accent. Pretty stereotypical personality too, come to think of it.
@@Randomness65535 did he do the hand thing
@@cthonicaidoneus don't remember but I could imagine him doing that
Super Mario Sunshine
Roleplaying isn't about funny voices, but it is factually about speaking in the first person, inhabiting the character that's doing the dialog. That makes a huge difference in how you and others around the table take part in the story. The bigger part is in owning the limitations and flaws of your character. Making a decision that doesn't create a benefit on your character sheet but that makes logical sense for a person in the position of your character. Finding more and more of those exceptions is how you define your character in the space of the game.
Agreed. "A funny voice" does not automatically = roleplaying
What I love doing, is acting out my failures and natural 1’s, my GM generally has you act out what you do and I started to love it
6:09 it's the potion seller!
Rafael Brandão YUSSSSSS!
"In a perfect world, men like me would not exist. But this is not a perfect world"
amazing video! I'm about to play an unconventional Minotaur Barbarian and I don't want him to be just a meat shield warrior with no brain, so I'm researching ways to build him, thanks!
This needs more recognition. I can't tell you how much this has helped me. I looove dnd. But it always so awkward roleplaying. I never could get the handle of impersonating my characters. That being, I was terrified to roleplay as males. But this upcoming campaign, I'm playing as my first male character 😊 I may not sound exactly how I imagined him. But the slowed speach and lower tone gave me a great grasp on him.
That's fair! I have horrible social anxiety, but this game has alleviated some of that - alongside professional help, of course - and it's fun.
One of my favorite videos in all of D&D thus far in 2020. As a DM inspiring to widen his range of voices for NPCs, this was an encouraging presentation. Well done!
Great video. Really good advice. It's funny though, because my group has the opposite problem.
We had a big epic battle against the minions of a night hag, a bunch of giant frogs and toads, and afterwards one of our players commented.
"We haven't had a fight in a while..." and someone replied.
"We keep talking our way out of them."
That was when I pointed out that our druid might have been able to talk to the frogs and toads, so another missed opportunity.
Some of the other encounters we've talked our way out of recently: we convinced the commander of a mercenary army to convince his army we'd been friends all along after killing his employer; we recruited an enemy sentry to be our pet redshirt (he watches the horses while we fight); we made cautious friends with a group of bandit hunters; and we convinced a hippogriph that we were neither food nor an enemy. We went six sessions, and other than a friendly duel, we rolled only social dice; and that duel was to convince a bunch of Orcs that we deserved respect. It's a great group to play with
A tip that also helped me a lot is get a cathphrase for your character for especific situations, like when they are:
hungry
excited
scared
angry
in trouble
etc, theres no limit! or you can use the same for all
That makes them more unique and you will always know when to say what!
Thank you for all this! As I was watching I slumped my shoulders forward, closed the right side of my mouth, & half closed my right eye & the voice just came out. Your tips really helped me out!!
Outstanding! I'm seriously considering making another video with voice acting tips.
Esper, if that may be your true name, I give you humbly great gratitude, for your videos are so transparent, real and weird. Thank you for being one of the lone "just-talking-youtubers" I like to listen to. Your advices are actually pragmatic and easy to use!
Thank you for watching Maik! May your adventures be many!
Good tips
Getting into character is a great part of the game.
Congratulations on nearing 100k! I must have found your channel 10 years ago. Always great content! This one is particularly great timing for me as I just joined a group and, to help my role play and lore, I've started reading the Drizzit saga. I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on meta discussions with your group on RP. Some of my group enjoys it and others don't. We tend to fade as the session progresses.
A decade-long viewer, that's outstanding. All the best with your new group.
Wade you've convinced me to subscribe.
This is a video that I was unconsciously waiting for. It really is a great tool for DMs and also for players. Thank you very much for your contribution to the world of ESPER Role! A big hug from Argentina friend!
I'm really glad to hear that. Viva la aventura ché!
avoiding slang is a big one for me, real immersion breaker and I always catch myself doing it - which kinda takes you out of the moment when you say something and immediately think "ah shit, that came out wrong". gotta practice that more.
If roleplaying was just always, "I tell the guard..", I'd probably be more into just miniature battle games (personal opinion, no judgement)
And Smith im personally like that, i play d&d for the combat and puzzles while roleplaying is is a bit of a challenge. im not quite “i intimidate the guard” but more along the lines of “[PC name] looks towards the guard, giving a glare while placing his hand on the hilt of his sword”
@@piemaniac9410 I totally understand that! ☺
This is something I do for all my characters....I voice act all my characters from Drow to yuan-ti and human..I also do some acting while I play AL👍🏼👍🏼💯
The funnest players in AL are the ones who RP. It doesn't matter if we're super successful, if every encounter goes by easily, or if our skill checks are spot-on...the RPing and socializing is always better with players who are interested and try to bring their characters to life.
Onuma this is very true it makes the game way more interesting when more people RP during the game.....if players seeing me RP gets them inspired to do the same then I’m super happy....this has happens several times and everyone has more fun then just rolling dice👍🏼👍🏼💯😎
i picked a boston accent for my character and it’s my first time playing dnd & the campaign starts in like a week or two so the accent / “in character” tip was a huge help
Great tips all of them and I've used many myself. For me starting out, even the slightest changes in pacing and cadence can make a world of difference. Thanks for taking the time.
biggest piece of advice i found for myself from this is to read good fantasy novels. I never read for enjoyment and the thought simply hadn't occurred to me how much that would help my RP
This was awesome. Thank you. I’m new (playing pathfinder), and only a few sessions in. I just broke my shyness with RP and I’m all in baby. Now I need to learn how to voice act a little. The tip of “showing and not telling” is absolute GREAT advice.
My suggestion: Listen to audiobooks, reading can be tough for some people (I know it is for me), but listening to audiobooks can really help you get some examples of good voice acting, especially considering it is usually one person doing all the voices.
As a DM, listening to other DMs voice act and listening to audiobooks really helped me get an understanding of "what this character should sound like" (having an image of the character can help too).
100% agree with this. Find some good narrators and you can learn a ton from them.
01:40 Man I been DMing for 26 years and I can only recall one time I had a true to god TPK and wouldn't you know it this instance of total party kill was also due entirely to player stupidity (a player set of a bomb in a cave under a mountain no joke). But I can tell you this much a TPK is really rough it's hard on players, and it can completely knock the steam out of a dungeon master.
I feel bad I had forgotten about this channel. Back in, 2010? 2011? this channel got me back into D&D with his games he would post. "In The Hands Of My Enemy" I believe was one of them I watched. And one about "golden wishes" and "shattered dreams". Maybe "shadowed dreams". Either way, it got me back into it and now it's a full fledged part of my life, even with a YT channel and some self published stuff! Thanks Esper! It's good to see you again! Thanks for helping me get back into the game! :)
Thanks a ton for watching my videos throughout all these years. Crazy to think it's been over a decade now! I miss making those narrated adventures so much.
I'm brand new to D&D and I'm nervous that I'll get ridiculed for sounding stupid.
Everyone is so worried about sounding stupid themselves that they won't notice 🖒
Esper, thou art a true artist among yer brothers and sisters among the guild of the bards!
Keep up the great work, man. Greetings from Germany
This is all great advice! I've been DM'ing for several years now and one thing I noticed in newer roleplayer's or even a few who haven't "broken the ice" into roleplaying their character fully, is that your first bit of advice about adjusting your pitch and sentence structure seems (anecdotal so) to be very commonplace and after that point it's much easier for the rest to fall into place.
6:08 "King Siegemeyer, enough of these games, i'm going into battle and i need only your strongest potions... wait wrong npc fuck"
Duuuude, your voices are fuckin awesome.
One tip I've used for accents, is think of someone who has that accent (an actor, entertainer or even a TH-camr) and watch and practice doing an impersonation of them. Don't try to just do the accent in general, just try to impersonate that person. Keep them in mind while you're doing it. Even if it's not a good impersonation of them exactly, you'll probably get their speech patterns close enough to make for a halfway decent accent.
Just happened across your channel via this video popping up in my recommended list. Your simple tips for voices I will definitely put to good use, it will greatly increase the types of voices I use when running NPCs. After so many years of running games I cannot believe that many of the basic tips you laid out never really crossed my mind. Subscribed to your channel and looking forward to going through your other videos! Keep up the good work!
Session before last, the PC party was "handed a note" (a letter of reference) by an NPC to take to another NPC.
At the beginning of the last session, I tossed the players a prepared note, which was addressed from the first NPC, to the second and then folded in a classic manner and wax sealed (real wax seals are cheap) Resulting n a nice little prop for the game to encourage role play.
The players pretty much ignored the note until they got to the location where they were to deliver it, and make a request for something they wanted.
The player playing the PC with the note, naturally held it up as they made request to enter town to see the addressee.
When they meet the addressee, and hand over the note, I made a show of acting the part of him examining the note, adjusting my glasses, commenting that the seal was unbroken, showing approval, reading a bit and commenting on my own note that the players had not read yet.
While discussing the meaning of the note, what the PCs wanted and about to get into what the first NPC wanted for himself, a player made a comment aloud (that very much sounded in character, especially with an in-character discussion going on.) and I had the NPC they were talking to take offense about what that comment would mean to him in that situation, completely changing tone of the meeting.
Make the characters the PCs interact with seem real.
***************************
The note: (yes, its a campaign expanding from Lost Mine of Phandelver)
To
my lord, the MasterMiner, Alebrew:
Having proven their worth
in clearing many foul creatures of the lost mithral mines of the
Smelter clan, I request your indulgence to hear the bearer's request
for aid in restoring a recently discovered ancient dwelling.
Yes,
this is also to inform yo that the mine has been found and we are
commencing operations to resume mining the rare and precious minerals
necessary for crafting of mithral weapons and arms.
I also
request yo send the clan historian and sage, Willowgart Birchstone to
aid in identifying an ancient relic located in the mine.
Your
servant,
G, Rockseeker of the Deep Crag Clan
Gundarin
Rockseker
Nice. Lol this hardest but extremely fun voice ( if you can call it that) was my dwarf. He was kicked in the head as a child and shattered parts of his skull. Being a dwarf he wasn't going to let that slow him down. But a as the injury healed, it screwed with his pronouncement of words. To the point the voice sounds like a really thick Scot mixed with a back woods southern draw. But ran together like "Boomhauer" from King of the Hill.
But as a twist, when he drinks for some reason he can talk normal. From incomprehensible to think dwarven. To light dwarven to no accent (mid west accent) and I was using a Irish accent to go into high elven. Lol yep I was hammered drunk.
So much fun just for the role play.
Oh man, I /have/ to play an australian cleric now. Dunno why, but your mention of alternate accents from english immediately struck me with "australian cleric"... It's gonna happen for sure.
I've played a variety of RPGs over my 45 years of gaming. Still can learn from this. Great Channel!
Esper, the voice actor. I really like a lot your roleplaying. It's simply but effective.
Ok, but you read that book better than about 90% of the audio book readers I've seen thus far. (There are some pretty good ensemble cast audio books though).
Your reading of Conan was awesome. I would buy an audiobook with your narration.
I just came across you but as soon as you talked about your more reserved character I saw your face change and you became them so quickly. Keep on pursuing your passions!! ❤️
When I DM I try to encourage acting, but I'm going to be honest... my players are all chaotic stupid and I don't think it'd be much different. I don't mean it in the bad way, it's the comedic stupid
Ah found this late but I'm watching this as review for a session I have later today and honestly it really helps. I play a character with a heavy finnish inspired accent that I occasionally have to practice to remember all of his little quirks. (Specifically his by now trademark phrase "that would be preferable")
This video really holds up and I honestly believe I'll be referencing this for years to come.
I'll be trying that. I'm the only girl in the party and started playing male characters. My friends just keep referring to him as her and she and it gets annoying. I'll have to try lowering my voice and try some of those tips. Can't wait for next session. Maybe it'll push them to find a voice too!
honestly this really helped, i never thought that i could forego using a different accent and change my pitch and cadence. good luck on your goal to 100k
Dude, this is going to help me so much. I’ve always had some trouble role playing and voice acting due to my anxiety and just overall stage fright, but I end up annoying myself because I want to be better for everyone else. Obviously I’m not gonna be Matt Mercer or anything overnight, but this has given me somewhere to start! Liked & subbed 💕
I’ve gotten much of great dialogue from Jack Vance’s books. The Dying Earth series, the Planet of Adventure trilogy, and the Lyonesse Trilogy are all amazing for their dated words. Dated in some social norms such as attitudes towards women, but they’re very creative!
Before I played with voice I'd come up with unique saying for my character. Sometimes I'd twist common ones such as "oh my god" to "Flock of leaves!" "Mountains Breath!" etc...For my elf druid (also in a book I wrote). I also assign different nationalities to each characters and look up common saying like my Sweedish Goliath would say "log-on" "Pull me backwards" "You planted your last potato!" Of course in the game world she wasn't Sweedish I made this part of her culture.
I've made-up curse words or for partial nationalities of a character Id just curse in that language.
I received compliments on my cute and different additives to the various characters. Try it. If it's a game at home you don't have to worry about plagiarizing so use someone else's quotes from a movie that inspires you.
Outstanding. I've created some new exclamations and such before, and thought it was so cool to have such unique things for a character to say.
I moved to a foreign country 20-some years ago. Since then, I got out of practice doing accents.
I also went from being good at doing accents in English to being bad at doing accents in a couple of languages. (Being able to do lots of different accents in a foreign language is cool though.)
I often, get my accents mixed up now. That hardly ever happened to be before.
There were some good bookshelves here.
All of my Characters have their own catch phrase, I don't say it the same way every time but everyone around the table knows I am talking in Character when I say it. It also helps to bring me back in to Character at the start of every section.
My DM is a hardass on slang/references, any time someone describes a plan or a person as kind of like something from modern day or even says "jesus christ" he goes "who/what is that, i've never heard of that before" and it always kind of derails things a bit but I kind of appreciate it more now that I'm realizing it's for a purpose and not just to be obstinate.
Came here bc I currently am playing a Grecian gladiator Barb, subbed once you did the Mediterranean voice, excellent.
Is your character suave? Say very little, but use your face (or describe your expressions, briefly) and use your hands carefully. Smile when you talk, even while intimidating.
Is your character military? Speak firmly and directly. Don’t hem and haw, avoid “uh” and similar pauses. Are you a leader, or even an officer or knight? Bark orders (but don’t shout outside combat). If you’re a good leader, invite questions at the end of your dialogue. If you’re a hardass, invite no questions and talk over arguments.
Are you a bard? Go wild. Be sing-song, or boisterous, or be meek. Bards can be anything.
Posture is always important. As a Cavalier, I like to sit up straight and look down to one side or the other while speaking. (this affects my voice, and makes it seem more like I’m up on a horse, talking down to somebody)
My main method is to think of a favorite character of a movie, and ape that. (Josey Wales, Patton, Hunt for Red October, etc).
You are great. Thanks for sharing.
Wow this will really help I think for a lot of new players. I will make sure that it becomes a part of the basic introduction for my Student ascociation group that I am running with 6 other DMs. Thanks a lot!
One of my players is a top tier voice actor who plays a mostly mute Crocodan (a Lizardfolk homebrew he made) who uses tribal sign language, grunts, crocodile noises, and very basic words to communicate. Meanwhile I'm a pretty new DM and the support he throws my way when I attempt to do voices is inspiring.
For instance, I decided to do a French accent for the owner of a French bistro that Brutus (the Crocodan) and Seru (a rainbow colored homebrew dragonborn) stumbled upon on a stroll through Waterdeep. I'm pretty sure it was trash but Brutus was just like YASSSS.
My natural voice is actually what was a voice I used in D&D. As I became more confident I just took on the voice of my more confident PC, it is not massively different but it is odd that when I play a nervous character I just speak like I did when I was about 16.
I tried a surfer voice. It was a lot of fun and everyone liked it. Also you can make up words and people pretend they know what youre saying which is great.
One of my most recent characters is a cleric based on a Southern televangelist that has a pious outward persona but in private is a drunken lech. He is a blast to play. His name is Teavy Preacher. Southern drawl, hellfire and damnation cliches and hits on all the barmaids.
This got me both hyped for Friday and disappointed with last Friday!
The dwarfs in the world of our campaign have a swiss accent (don't ask why it just kind of happened) and everytime our GM does it we end up laughing really hard
You're saying exactly what I'm thinking. Enjoyed the video very much.
Great tips bro!
Record “Voice” note beside character record! Game Masters, especially, may need a reminder which voice to run for a specific NPC, but once you have multiple NPCs made up, you might forget-or worse-mix up-some voices. So right beside the name, I make a voice note (something brief) like “apoplectic” or “mild, timid” or “Peter Lorre.” By the way, keep it secret when you steal a famous voice; your players will enjoy it longer if they hear the familiar voice but can’t recognize it immediately.
Once in 3.5 d&d my ENTIRE PARTY was so bad at ROLE PLAYING that they all died. I have to be honest that's what I got form the first part of this... Ahem: my friends are idiots and I just had to TPK them. They should have known this dragon was too powerful for the party. If only they had known how to roleplay...
Great video! I have been wanting to learn how to do accents just for fun in life anyway. I appreciate all of your great content.
I love that you picked one of my favorite short stories as your example.
Good thing to do is to play around with tongue placement and jaw placement/movement when speaking, it can change tone and pronounciation quite noticeably.
What a helpful video, thank you for it!
In over forty years of gaming, I have encountered all of one, single, solitary actual 'role player' if we define such by the outlined criteria. And that was a professional actor.
Great advice! I will say though, as a DM always put your players needs first and don't force them to do things that aren't fun for them. If your players don't want to roleplay, don't TPK them like the story at the beginning. No judgement, just food for thought. Ease them into roleplay and encourage them, don't punish your players for not doing what you want
7:49 "Fellow bretheren, come and let us kick some goblin arse"
What ho Goblins. Let us kick bottoms my friends!
I'm here to beat goblins and chew hardtack, and I'm all out of hardtack.
@@Cbyneorne
- i'm here to kick names and take ass!
- What?
Brother! Together we shall percuss some goblin hides!
Thanks for the advice and as for weird characters being memorable our groups fav is thompson the rat he is a doctor who studies magic and is very socially awkward being unable to read a room lol
I imagine you're a very good DM, sir. My respect
Amazing video and resource. I DM and love doing voices. I’ve started recording my major NPCs and baddies so I don’t mix the voices up. One of my proudest moments was when I did a voice of a NPC the party hadn’t seen in a while and they all got excited and knew exactly who he was just by the voice.
Our group is bilingual (more like trilingual but yeah), so having consistent speech is difficult. The ones that manage to speak just one language are the best at consistency, while im bad at articulating my thoughts. Thats why i have to rely on my characters behaviours and just hope the actions speak louder than words.
I'm a big fan of roleplaying, and have made many characters over the years who our group remembers still to this day.
But fuuuuuck voices are SO HARD
Thanks for posting! Excellent content ❤
Honestly I would love for you to go on and on more about this :)
I'm not very good with culturally based accents, but I've managed to really feel like I'm setting myself apart from my characters in my last two campaigns!
In the first one, I play an awakened mouse named Fabio the Unsqueaking, who is a knight of a fey court. I went full out on the obnoxiously high pitched voice, but with noble-kight turns of phrase. It makes everyone laugh which always feels good.
My newest character is a bubbly, psychotic cheerleading artificer named Kara (she's a complicated gal). I've adopted a slightly higher pitch, a bit of a valley girl pattern of speech, and I throw a lot of energy into everything I say. It's really fun to feel like my character is genuinely a separate person from me and to try and slip into her mindset!
Gonna keep trying to improve, maybe try my hand at some of the foreign accents and different types of characters.
"King Sedgemeyer...suck it" *gestures toward platemail codpiece with his stubby Dwarven hands*
you deserve much more recognition
Here's a few books I've read that have an older English fantasy feel, but in various ways/genre:
The Aeronaut's Windlass (Steam punk)
The Storyteller's Dictionary (a Kickstarter book, but available for digital and physical)
City of Copper (a shitty middle eastern fantasy romance/Arabian story, but the dialogue is pretty good)
Others feel free to list their suggestions.
I don't know if I can do this, but wow this was great advice!
Reading fantasy has been a huge help to me when it comes to dialogue. Plus, some of the insults people come up with are hilarious.
I've been reading R.A. Salvatore's Legend of Drizzt books as of late; and I burst out laughing at the end of "The Crystal Shard", when Wulfgar's farewell line to Kemp was "May the fleas of a thousand reindeer nest in your genitals!"
I have my first game soon and I'm feeling actually somewhat terrified. This video has helped a bit but I still don't quite get the last one, knowing what to say. I never could in social situations anyway but the advice of memorizing lines from books and shows has never really worked because the odds that the exact situation which you can use it coming up is pretty much zero.
Sometimes it feels like characters are alive and they can act and speak by themselves. You just need to stop being you for a while, and let that character use your voice and your body to express. It may surprise you how many things they can do and say that you never will.
7:00 "Avoid modern lingo and slang." Me with my party saying "sus", "poggers" and "Fortnite dance"
Just found out that I am very good at talking like a senile old man... not sure when that’s gonna be useful, but it’s cool
Excellent stuff and classic Conan!