The funny part about a twang accent for me is the fact I have a southern accent with a faint twang. No matter how much I put myself into character, a roleplayer with a really convincing twang will ALWAYS bring out my natural accent in the middle of a session. Its given us a good laughs a few times as my super refined and posh character all of a sudden gets twangy and southern!
Jonathan Keeble narrates The Winter King audio book. He brings it to life with his subtle character voices. His accenture is easy to mimic and I can see the vast range just a few subtle changes can make in a character voice. I practice my table talk by mimicing him when I'm listening.
One thing that’s affected my character voices is actually my beatboxing (which I’m starting to do competitively!). Extended vocal techniques can give you very unique character voice, and it’s super helpful!
This is definitely a video I will draw from. I love using voices as a DM, though usually I can only pull out different versions of Southern US accents. I don't have a Southern accent naturally, so my players can tell that it's an NPC
My main reason for not doing voices that much is I try them and then I mess up, slip into another and then second guess myself. So basically I'm not good at them. This is the FIRST time I've seen it explained based on pitch and cadence as a foundation and this is the trick my neurodivergent brain needed. Thank you Cody! I'm glad you and the family are ok and you're back to making more regular videos. I missed your style and approach to teaching these concepts!
That low/high fast/slow thing was very smart. I'll definitely use it not just for games, but I have this thing where I read books aloud to my best friend, currently going through the warcraft books. So this will help a lot to add a little bit of extra layer when you have characters like big burly orcs, alien draenei, magical dragons, monsters and humans and new yorker goblins and so much more. Getting all their actual voices vould only be sensible IF i were an actual voice actor, but that pitch/speed thing will at least give it a bit of character! :) Plus I do add some vague dialects now and then even if i'm not good at it. my friend is happy anyway, and my failed dwarwish (scottish) which sometimes becomes sorta scottish/russian makes her laugh, so that's a plus. :P
My catalogue of accents has shrunk over the years so a lot of my character voices rely more on those pitch and gruff/raspy tricks. Very happy someone put it into words!
I love doing voices as DM. The best time me and my players had was when I ran an Elder Scrolls based campaign and one of my players had a backstory connection to Sheogorth of the Shivering Isles. The best part of it was with Sheo being the prince of madness, I leaned into player-Npc interactions. Aka Sheogorth with literally peer through the veil and see the players at the table and make comments my pc's were utterly confused with. Example, we played in my kitchen and the characters met Sheo in a dungeon, but he commented on the lovely decorum of my nerdy cutlery.
OMG. My skills at DMing have improved like.. idk.. a 15% just by seeing this. I just needed a freaking diagram! Love you for this for ever Cody, and my players will also! You were allways awesome to me, but now you're freaking unbelievable!!! THANKS!!!
This was super helpful. Five of us all started a campaign last night. Three of us are first time players and the DM is a first time DM. Sharing this with them right away bc all of us were wanting to go all in but didn’t know how! We’ll definitely be checking out your other content.
The P/S square is actually the P/S/V cube. Volume is a great tool for differentiating between people with otherwise the same voice. An overconfident goon might bluster loudly, while a noble might speak slowly and quietly to force everyone to fixate on their every word.
Yeah, things like this is why I love to watch your videos. Because as a person who personally loves to give every one of my characters a voice, it's good that people are out there telling others that it's not NECESSARY. I've had people compliment me about it, but then say "Man, I wanna do a voice, but I can't do it that well". Neither can I! I just go for it, and if it sounds good, it sounds good. If it doesn't, meh. I'm still having fun with it. At the same time, I've played in plenty of games where I'm the only one doing a character voice, and that's cool too. You really just have to pick a voice you like and run with it. Examples range from a character I had named Ish Ham, who was a male Dwarven Barbarian who was always spoiling for a fight, where I took my natural voice and made it more gruff and that's it, to Syncora, a female Elven Druid who lived out in the wilds, where my voice was higher of course, but also changed to be more soft-spoken and contemplative in tone. Edit: Found another comment below that I should throw in because I TOTALLY agree. Despite throwing voices around for my games, this video was still incredibly helpful, because it offers insight into HOW to do a voice objectively, rather than just saying "Go with the flow and follow your gut" like most other people (yes, I'm calling out my own advice in this comment. Sue me).
Dude, this is an excellent video. I really like the exploration of pitch and speed. Practicing these techniques and the voices is something I do all the time; when I'm alone in the car (talking to myself), while I'm in my office (talking to myself), while I'm doing laundry...basically I'm like a crazy person most of the time because I'm trying out different voices.
I love the little square that you use, and I figured I might share my own system. I use something similar which is my "battleship system". I have a little legend of slow, fast, medium and high low medium, but also mannerisms like condescending, brash, dim witted, intellectual, etc. My square goes slow medium fast across and low medium high down, each square labelled 1-9 going across. Then each NPC gets assigned their little code. B7 would be brash/bold (I add extra letters if needed) with a slow tempo and high pitch. DW 1 would be dim witted with a slow tempo and low pitch. This makes it kind of fun to create NPC's and extremely efficient. It also reminds me of when I played battleship. I absolutely love this video, keep it up!
First off, great video, Cody! I love the P/S square, and that shorthand is going to be really helpful! Second off, both as DM and player, I love doing character voices. Usually, I throw an accent on there - old Texas man bard, a New York/Jersey gnome rogue (with him, I used a double device to stay in character with a toothpick prop), a young cleric with a Spanish flair, etc. But even just the P/S square voice style has worked well. I had a half-orc barbarian that was slow in speech but with a strong deep voice, a lot of speaking from the chest. It's really fun (and sometimes really helpful for newbies) to have my normal DM narrator/player voice and then all the other character voices to distinguish when there is roleplay drama and when I'm just trying to convey something to the player in the chair/the DM. Again, love the video! Thank you!
This is a great set of lessons for people who are new/shy about doing a character voice. I have a terrible ear for accents. Nonetheless, I've been doing voices for my characters (PC and NPC) for decades, if only so that people can tell the difference between when I (the player/GM) am talking and when the character is talking.
I appreciate the disclaimer about speech impediments. I'm about to start playing a character with one and when I told the DM, she informed me one of the other players actually has one, though he has it pretty under control now and it was mostly prevalent as a child. So I spoke with him about using one and he was okay with me doing it as long as it was accurate (as can be) and sincere. He also understood that for the character, (and in real life) impediments aren't just a voice thing, but also shape a personality. "Impediments can be a powerful tool to shape a character or NPC, but just make sure you're not doing it to mock." -My fellow player.
Nice one, I'm a vocalist (Singer) and I usually use some of my singing techniques for this kind of thing. So I'd also reccommend taking one or two, because some of these techniques can be straining on your vocal chords in the beginning :) Checking out vocal coaches here on youtube would also be an alternative, but being there in person and getting direct feedback can't be beaten. Cheers from Norway!
My first DnD player experience, the DM gave ME in character the initial chance to introduce myself... All I said was "Hey, I'm Cheez, the Goblin Necromancer" in a very mono-tone voice. I was under the influence & taken off guard as well, a little anxious maybe. My DM takes a swing of his beer, leans in next to me & says quietly with a smile on his face "Is that reeeally how a Goblin Necromancer sounds like?" It just clicked in my head, he was 100% right. I shot out of my chair & in this Goodfellas, Joe Pesci type voice/accent I yelled out "HEYYYY how ya doin', I'm Cheez da Goblin Necromanceh, pleasuh pleasuh" & everyone at the table instantly got into it, laughing our asses off. It was AMAZING! All to say, I always try to do the voice. DnD is all about collective effort & when you all give, you all get, its so freakin awesome. The voice is part of the fun & adds a unique part to the experience.
Pretty much nailed it in there! That's basically how I did learn to do voices, starting with pitch and speed. Also heavy metal singing gave me knowledge about my false chords which I can use to do some deep rumbly monster voices now. One thing I like to say to people is to try and get into the character. If you're role playing a dumb ogre, use the intonations that you would use when you're mocking someone that did something dumb. Might be a bit caricatural, but with enough practice you can tone it down and make it part of the character's characteristics.
This, my friend, was a great and useful video. And highly enjoyable. And for what it's worth, this unknown 20+ year DM/writer is thoroughly grateful and impressed. Mercer himself, i wager, would approve.
2:20 Nice graph! You might have considered demonstrating speed a bit more. One great thing about using a slow-speaking character is it gives you more time to think about what they're going to say! 5:50 I believe Ralph is pronounced 'rayf' for Mr. Fiennes. 10:30 One trick I recommend to my audience is to play against stereotypes - use the gollum voice for a massive hill giant; use the deep orc voice for a tiny faery. It's all about creating memorable characters that your players will find endearing, or learn to hate - whatever is your goal. I had a player who loved my Sean Connery voice, I used it on a character that they suspected was going to betray them, but they like having him around so much it made it easier for me as DM to carry through the plot.
Thank you SO much for this!! I can't wait for more content about voices at the table. This is something I've personally been afraid of trying because I didn't know where to start.
I thank you for putting the "if you are uncomfortable..." right up front. I'm one of those that do not see Mat Mercer as DND Jesus because the professional voice acting RUINED games in my area. I quit DMing because of the ruthless expectations that Critical Role introduced into the culture. If you don't do great voices you're not a good DM... I found this video helpful in multiple ways. It introduces character voices in an easy laid back manner and provides guidance as to how to advance as you get more comfortable. But always comes back to the "if you're not comfortable..." Well done. I'll start trying to do this a bit for my characters I was a singer in a band that signed with a big label, but, unfortunately, things didn't work out and I'm uncomfortable with doing voices for characters... I can easily modulate my voice... But for me, it feels weird to "play pretend" voices... unless I'm playing a Goblin... never thought about it, but I ALWAYS do that when I play my goblin bard... I guess I'll just have to learn to expand to different characters and get comfortable with different aspects.
Fantastic suggestions!!! What I do is give specific voices only to important NPCs, which makes them stand out. Before each session, I practice talking like each of the important NPCs that the party might encounter. It helps me work out kinks with tone, pitch, and overall inflections as well as mannerisms and specific vocabulary. And I make sure to jot down specific notes about their voices to remind me what I had practiced.
I do voices at the table, both as a DM and a player! And I'm always looking for ways to improve because always learning. This gives great structure to what I kind of already did without really understand what I did do. Thanks!
Thank you for breaking it down so easily! This is the aspect that makes me the most anxious about being a new DM because I am really bad at it, so getting this breakdown really helped me to make the topic more approachable - super helpful! :D
I had developed a similar system for myself learning to DM but it was always a off the hip sort of thing and never organized or formalized in any way, I always just decided how I wanted a npc to sound and went with it with no real planning. This will help a lot to keeping voices on track. Thanks for sharing this!
I love doing voices, it's absolutely amazing, even if I'm not good at them. My party still talks about the throwaway NPC that I made sound like a kiwi while they can't remember the villain that had a fairly normal voice. It works, it really does.
Great video! It might be worth mentioning that if you have hearing impaired and/or older players, you might need to adjust which accents you use or ditch accents altogether. I RP with a friend with a severe hearing impairment, and the only voices we can do are low/slow ones, and it’s much easier for her if we just use natural voices. She can’t hear higher pitches at all, and she has trouble distinguishing what someone says if they talk too fast or speak with another accent. My older relatives have trouble with high voices but not lower ones, but they don’t necessarily say when they can’t understand what someone says because they get embarrassed having to ask someone often to repeat themselves. My hubby doesn’t always tell me when he can’t hear me (perhaps that’s on purpose, lol), so I have to try to remember to lower my pitch a bit in noisier environments-like the gaming table. That being said, I loved the video and plan on putting some of your ideas to work in my Curse of Strahd campaign (of COURSE Count Strahd speaks with an Eastern European accent, non-cheesy version!).
My players often love the voices I throw in... in some cases, talking to that NPC more than necessary because they are enjoying too much. These tips in the video are awesome in some ways I feel implementing them more myself will up my game. I tactic I often use when picking voices is if I get a feeling of a notable NPC being similar to a character from a show I lean towards mimicking that type of voice or accent, hence many of my town guards sound a tad like cockney londoners.
One of the best bits of advice Ive heard is that some of the best characters are bad imitations. I make a list of the several serviceable imitations I have and assign those to NPCs they will see more regularly. The rest of the one meet type NPCs get the pitch and speed treatment.
this is amazing to make a template, such a brilliant video idea and it tackle such a key element of the game to both DM but even player to find what will be your voice through the entire game
I am CR fan, and their group works very well together and their voice acting skills are very good (as they should be, that's what they do for a living). Voices can be fun, but they are not a core pillar of fun at the table. They can make NPC quite memorable, but talking for long periods of time in that voice can be exhausting. Keep it short and fun and it will add a bit to your game. You have to be able to laugh at yourself, and you'll soon realize it's for fun and it will come easier. When choosing a style of voice for my characters, I pick sayings, and use them frequently.
Great video! I find that kind of like descriptors of BBEG's of small groups, it just takes one thing to make a voice. A lisp, a twitch, a body movement, or a particular accent. It doesn't have to be full immersion for each npc.
When you mentioned the "Californian" voice I was anticipating The Dude quote "Like, that's your opinion man." Totally think you could pull him off as a layed-back NPC. lol. Great video!
I do voices as a DM because I find them fun. I don't care what the players think. I would do them if they hated them. The fact that I am actually quite gifted naturally is simply gravy.
This is a simplified version of what the TH-camr "Improve your Voice" advises in his video titled "How to Create 100 Distinctly Different Voices" I love it!
I haven’t DM’d yet (but I’m next in line, godspeed), but I do play a pseudodragon in one of our campaigns that I have a great time making a voice for. It’s sharp and ‘growly’, if that makes sense. And so far it’s the only character the rest of the party tries to impersonate when they’re talking about her outside of the actual game, which I rather enjoy. Great video, keep up the great work!
I have a player at my table who wants to do a voice, because he sees how much fun it can be, but he has said he doesn’t know where to start. I will send him this video!
This has been incredibly helpful. Thanks you. The categorization is incredibly helpful for maintaining a consistent voice across real life time and multiple different campaigns.
First time DM here and thanks for the video. Good reminder that less can be more. It is easy to overthink these things in my experience. Looking forward to part two
Long-time forever DM and love using voices. My biggest issue is that I often reuse the same voice across several characters too close together. I guess I can just say that well, lots of people sound similar in the real world. One thing I do find helps, is establishing the voice/character of an NPC through the use of voices early on but then later narrating the character's actions in third person. The players will have the character's mannerisms and voice/accent in mind when you do this and you can save your throat a little wear and tear. This is also helpful on those occasions when you may not feel up for being a voice actor and just want to focus on running the game or playing your character.
Great video. I find I do voices for the first time a character speaks in that conversation or session, and then trail it off. My players can still remember the voice and they still hear it when I am talking normally
Great video, i never was that much into voices as a dm, just higher and lower pitch here and there, but the 9 cube spectrum is awsome and easy. Will incorporate that for sure. The explainations of this video will make my next game session soo much fun haha. Thx Kody
Great video, very helpful! One thing though, and I'm sure you know more about this than I do... Voices are fun at a real table, even goofy voices which might seem ridiculous. Because of COVID, many of us learned to play online. We can use Roll20, D&D Beyond, or several others for the character sheets and maps/miniatures as needed and either Discord or Zoom for a video meeting to see each others' facial expressions and reactions to in-game events. I found voices to absolutely not work in such a scenario. I don't know if it's because of the video conference itself or because these games have people from different places. Take for example, we're playing in an Alabama game store. I give a character a Jersey accent. As silly and juvenile as it sounds, everybody knows what I'm doing and immediately visualizes the NPC when I use that accent. Online you may have someone in Alabama and someone else in NJ. Neither of them understand that voice. Personally, I've found the same to be true with cadence and tone as you suggest in this video, when playing online. We know it can work, because... Critical Role. However, I've never been able to get it to work nor have I seen anyone able to do anything other than cause confusion. Do you have any further advice toward the specifics of voicing online versus sitting at an actual table? I'm sure you have other topics to address in upcoming videos, but would it be possible to revisit this video at some point to address the differences in online or physical table games?
I love doing voices and accents and impressions and this helps a lot with widening what I can do for random voices so thank you so much. For advice for people doing accents or impressions, watch clips of people with those accents and type out EXACTLY WHAT YOU HEAR. This changes the words from a normal spelling to a phonetic one. You can use this process to also do impressions of characters from film/tv.
The 'Redwall' series by Brian Jaques is great at doing this, and is a great mine for character backstories / storylines / villains /most other things at the same time!
As someone who's had a little training, I'm actually impressed with how on point this video is. 90% of voices is just controlling pitch and cadence, then just adding something small on top of it. Even most accents are still mostly just doing that, then knowing "ven to svitch some letters". Also short lesson if you want a non-insulting Japanese-ish accent, 99% of that is knowing that, in the Japanese language, all, and I mean ALL R's and L's are the same letter, which has an "RL" sound to it, where you only go half way into the "L", sort of like a half-rolled "R". It's also good to understand that all Japanese Vowels are constant in sound, so A,E,I,O,U comes out "Ah, Eh, Ee, Oh, Oo". ", to to say the name "Marriko", it would come out "Mah-Rlee-koh". All that to say, most of an accent comes down to understanding some of the basic pronunciation of their original language, which is going to be so ingrained in someone's speech, they'll usually use those same rules, even when moving to another language. I'm speaking on Japanese here cause I studied it for 2 years in highschool, and I'm still learning it as time allows.
My favorite technique is to "assign" a known voice to the NPC. It can be an actor or TV/movie character that I'm familiar with, or maybe a person that I know from real life that the players don't. My vocal impression and mannerisms don't even need to be accurate, just as long as it's consistent. I'll make a notation next to the NPC's name in parenthesis that tells me how they are going to talk. Ex: Innkeeper Toblen Stonehill (Uncle Jessie from Dukes of Hazzard), or Triboar Lord Protector Darathra Shendrel (Tiffany from work). Gives me an immediate mental touchstone for how the NPC looks and acts. You can also crack your players up with OBVIOUS voices that they know in unconventional usages. Ex: Strahd (Christopher Walken)
Lovely video. Also, just saying, one of my favorite joke characters I ever played was in a goblin one shot where all my friends played as your standard squealy stabby goblins. I played as the goblin nicknamed “Bland”, because he had a bad speech impediment. While all the other goblins would say “Get the stabby for big chief grabber!”, bland would say in a plain human voice “Excuse me, sir. We’re trying to acquire a sword for our leader. I’m afraid if you don’t provide it we may have to take it for you.”.
Great video and well delivered. Once I watched this I found that picking a characteristic (Gruff/Raspy/Breathy) first and then going P/S was easier for me. Cheers.
This makes doing voices seem much more approachable. Something I've done to differentiate characters is to change the way they speak. Like, one person talks very formally and another more casually. Or one person rambles as another uses as few words as possible.
I will say one part I always had a hesitation with was how it actually sounded, versus how I was using pitch, tone, etc. I have found almost all cellphones have voice recorders now, and it's pretty easy to listen to yourself and get some idea if you are hitting the desired effect or not.
I remember seeing one of the great voice actors, I think it may have been Mel Blanc in and interview in the 80s talk about building voices pretty much like this video. 1. Start with the regional dialect. 2. Pitch higher or lower 3. Faster or slower 4. Louder or softer 5. Vocal quality(e.g. gruff, nasally) 6. Finally, for the most memorable NPCs(or PCs) add a quirk like: -Dolores's nervous sqeak(from encanto) -Porky Pig's stutter -Foghorn Leghorn's repetition. For example I played a character who spoke with: A slight Scottish accent Slightly lower pitch Slightly slower Average volume A hair of gruff quality Then I bit the side of my tongue while i talked to limit range of motion and annunciation. It added up to a very distinct character
I was encouraged by this video and by the comments (so far) that folks seem to be refraining from using voice patterns that promote awful ethnic stereotypes (or the co-opting of such, even if they are respectful and dignified uses of accents). I have been in groups, or seen streams, where players use incredibly offensive "Asian" or "Latin" accents. That is the first rule at my table for voice acting...don't go there with real-world accents. It's far safer, easier, and more effective to adjust your own voice to fit the general characteristics of your PC (much like Cody is talking about in this video). I appreciate Cody's technique because it is simple but distinctive, but safely generic. It's even easy to track what voices you used for certain NPCs when they return to the story, or if you need a reminder after a long time between sessions.
My first 2 characters I did not do voices. My most recent character (campaign just finished) was a female tiefling. I wasn't always consistent but I enjoyed trying & with each consecutive character I will keep trying because it's fun! This video was a HUGE help & lots of great tips & i'll be referencing it probably multiple times to create the feel I want for my Goliath Moon Druid next.
Interesting video and you totally got Stitch and Gollum 😁. Since I'm Italian, I don't think that the next video will be so useful in its details, but maybe it will provide some general principle that can be applied regardless of the language one speaks.
You may be surprised: a lot of what makes accents work is oral posture (sorta the default position the parts of your mouth are in). While the specific "swap this sound for this sound" stuff might not help, changing oral posture may get the accent started in other languages. The fun part is, this is fantasy. You don't need your accent to be accurate to a real world example. Your goal is to be distinctive and consistent. Your attempt at a Russian accent might not actually sound very Russian, but if you make the same attempt for every dwarf, your players will know when you're doing your "dwarven accent."
In a campaign I ran some years back, an observant player pointed out that I'd accidentally given a particular NPC two different accents the two times they'd interacted with him. I steered into the skid by trying to give him a different accent every time they interacted with him after that.
It's a good feeling when you give no description to an NPC but start using their voice and the whole table immediately identifies who it is. Even when it's an NPC that wasn't in this campaign haha
Great video. Love Critical Role (Have noticed at least two of the regulars rarely do any real "voice" work when they play..) also. Enjoy your channel. Getting some great tips and ideas. Thanks
I find basing npc characters on real life people we know is the best fun for everyone. They can be comically bad impressions of people we all know in real life or famous people. Silly or exaggerated works great. A character version of our tiny grumpy family dog was the BBEG in a recent adventure. The sporty girl from school is my daughter's arc nemesis. My wife is the spider queen who is afraid of spiders. It works because it is fun for the players to work out who the people are as they meet them and the picture is forming in their head. Dropping a story beat into their background that is the same a the real life person acts a the keystone to cement them in the players mind. Also if my impression is so bad they can't recognise them it is fine because they have a picture of their version of the npc anyway and if they don't perfectly line up it is fine. It is more about me being relatively consistent in their portrayal and having a more real life fleshed out persona. Also letting your players choose who the real life person is great fun too.
Holy shit this video was so helpful
Pinned because the fact that it was helpful, surprised you... and that made me laugh. 😂
HARD agree! Most helpful video on this whole channel for me.
Also, volume! I have an NPC people recognize immediately by voice because of his way of speaking, the clarity of his voice AND BECAUSE HE IS LOUD
Same. I have this really bombastic bard where he's just LOUD.
Great point. Or quiet whispery.
there are 1000000 quick and easy voice acting tips for having unique voices!
I call this the Mike Lindell voice. th-cam.com/video/2F_JzutLhl0/w-d-xo.html
The funny part about a twang accent for me is the fact I have a southern accent with a faint twang. No matter how much I put myself into character, a roleplayer with a really convincing twang will ALWAYS bring out my natural accent in the middle of a session. Its given us a good laughs a few times as my super refined and posh character all of a sudden gets twangy and southern!
10:08 The Lilo and Stitch voice reminds me of [Full House] Uncle Joey’s hand puppet named Mr. Woodchuck.
Great tips. I'll definitely try to apply these to my characters.
Your Smeagle is also incredible. Best part of the video
Jonathan Keeble narrates The Winter King audio book. He brings it to life with his subtle character voices. His accenture is easy to mimic and I can see the vast range just a few subtle changes can make in a character voice. I practice my table talk by mimicing him when I'm listening.
He is amazing
@@harrij.9542 We can be friends!
One thing that’s affected my character voices is actually my beatboxing (which I’m starting to do competitively!). Extended vocal techniques can give you very unique character voice, and it’s super helpful!
This is definitely a video I will draw from. I love using voices as a DM, though usually I can only pull out different versions of Southern US accents. I don't have a Southern accent naturally, so my players can tell that it's an NPC
My main reason for not doing voices that much is I try them and then I mess up, slip into another and then second guess myself. So basically I'm not good at them. This is the FIRST time I've seen it explained based on pitch and cadence as a foundation and this is the trick my neurodivergent brain needed. Thank you Cody! I'm glad you and the family are ok and you're back to making more regular videos. I missed your style and approach to teaching these concepts!
Just remember, sucking at something is the first step to becoming sort of okay at it. The more you do something, the more confident you will become!
That low/high fast/slow thing was very smart. I'll definitely use it not just for games, but I have this thing where I read books aloud to my best friend, currently going through the warcraft books. So this will help a lot to add a little bit of extra layer when you have characters like big burly orcs, alien draenei, magical dragons, monsters and humans and new yorker goblins and so much more.
Getting all their actual voices vould only be sensible IF i were an actual voice actor, but that pitch/speed thing will at least give it a bit of character! :)
Plus I do add some vague dialects now and then even if i'm not good at it. my friend is happy anyway, and my failed dwarwish (scottish) which sometimes becomes sorta scottish/russian makes her laugh, so that's a plus. :P
Excellent ORIGINAL tutorial. I'm surprised this topic hasn't been done before. Great content Cody!!
My catalogue of accents has shrunk over the years so a lot of my character voices rely more on those pitch and gruff/raspy tricks. Very happy someone put it into words!
Dude, I've always felt my voices were top notch, but with these templates you've given us, it unlocks infinite possibilities.
7:06 he sounds so genuinely terrified here, and fair enough I guess, the internet is kinda vicious sometimes
I love doing voices as DM. The best time me and my players had was when I ran an Elder Scrolls based campaign and one of my players had a backstory connection to Sheogorth of the Shivering Isles. The best part of it was with Sheo being the prince of madness, I leaned into player-Npc interactions. Aka Sheogorth with literally peer through the veil and see the players at the table and make comments my pc's were utterly confused with. Example, we played in my kitchen and the characters met Sheo in a dungeon, but he commented on the lovely decorum of my nerdy cutlery.
That is excellent
OMG. My skills at DMing have improved like.. idk.. a 15% just by seeing this. I just needed a freaking diagram! Love you for this for ever Cody, and my players will also! You were allways awesome to me, but now you're freaking unbelievable!!! THANKS!!!
This was super helpful. Five of us all started a campaign last night. Three of us are first time players and the DM is a first time DM. Sharing this with them right away bc all of us were wanting to go all in but didn’t know how! We’ll definitely be checking out your other content.
Been dming for nearly 3 years, and been voicing characters for basically the entire time, yet this video was still super helpful!
The P/S square is actually the P/S/V cube. Volume is a great tool for differentiating between people with otherwise the same voice.
An overconfident goon might bluster loudly, while a noble might speak slowly and quietly to force everyone to fixate on their every word.
Yeah, things like this is why I love to watch your videos. Because as a person who personally loves to give every one of my characters a voice, it's good that people are out there telling others that it's not NECESSARY. I've had people compliment me about it, but then say "Man, I wanna do a voice, but I can't do it that well". Neither can I! I just go for it, and if it sounds good, it sounds good. If it doesn't, meh. I'm still having fun with it. At the same time, I've played in plenty of games where I'm the only one doing a character voice, and that's cool too. You really just have to pick a voice you like and run with it. Examples range from a character I had named Ish Ham, who was a male Dwarven Barbarian who was always spoiling for a fight, where I took my natural voice and made it more gruff and that's it, to Syncora, a female Elven Druid who lived out in the wilds, where my voice was higher of course, but also changed to be more soft-spoken and contemplative in tone. Edit: Found another comment below that I should throw in because I TOTALLY agree. Despite throwing voices around for my games, this video was still incredibly helpful, because it offers insight into HOW to do a voice objectively, rather than just saying "Go with the flow and follow your gut" like most other people (yes, I'm calling out my own advice in this comment. Sue me).
Dude, this is an excellent video. I really like the exploration of pitch and speed. Practicing these techniques and the voices is something I do all the time; when I'm alone in the car (talking to myself), while I'm in my office (talking to myself), while I'm doing laundry...basically I'm like a crazy person most of the time because I'm trying out different voices.
This man really said he's not a voice actor and then spent 12 mins showing us why he should be
I love the little square that you use, and I figured I might share my own system. I use something similar which is my "battleship system". I have a little legend of slow, fast, medium and high low medium, but also mannerisms like condescending, brash, dim witted, intellectual, etc. My square goes slow medium fast across and low medium high down, each square labelled 1-9 going across. Then each NPC gets assigned their little code. B7 would be brash/bold (I add extra letters if needed) with a slow tempo and high pitch. DW 1 would be dim witted with a slow tempo and low pitch. This makes it kind of fun to create NPC's and extremely efficient. It also reminds me of when I played battleship.
I absolutely love this video, keep it up!
First off, great video, Cody! I love the P/S square, and that shorthand is going to be really helpful!
Second off, both as DM and player, I love doing character voices. Usually, I throw an accent on there - old Texas man bard, a New York/Jersey gnome rogue (with him, I used a double device to stay in character with a toothpick prop), a young cleric with a Spanish flair, etc. But even just the P/S square voice style has worked well. I had a half-orc barbarian that was slow in speech but with a strong deep voice, a lot of speaking from the chest. It's really fun (and sometimes really helpful for newbies) to have my normal DM narrator/player voice and then all the other character voices to distinguish when there is roleplay drama and when I'm just trying to convey something to the player in the chair/the DM.
Again, love the video! Thank you!
This is a great set of lessons for people who are new/shy about doing a character voice.
I have a terrible ear for accents. Nonetheless, I've been doing voices for my characters (PC and NPC) for decades, if only so that people can tell the difference between when I (the player/GM) am talking and when the character is talking.
I appreciate the disclaimer about speech impediments. I'm about to start playing a character with one and when I told the DM, she informed me one of the other players actually has one, though he has it pretty under control now and it was mostly prevalent as a child. So I spoke with him about using one and he was okay with me doing it as long as it was accurate (as can be) and sincere. He also understood that for the character, (and in real life) impediments aren't just a voice thing, but also shape a personality.
"Impediments can be a powerful tool to shape a character or NPC, but just make sure you're not doing it to mock." -My fellow player.
Nice one, I'm a vocalist (Singer) and I usually use some of my singing techniques for this kind of thing. So I'd also reccommend taking one or two, because some of these techniques can be straining on your vocal chords in the beginning :) Checking out vocal coaches here on youtube would also be an alternative, but being there in person and getting direct feedback can't be beaten.
Cheers from Norway!
My first DnD player experience, the DM gave ME in character the initial chance to introduce myself...
All I said was "Hey, I'm Cheez, the Goblin Necromancer" in a very mono-tone voice. I was under the influence & taken off guard as well, a little anxious maybe.
My DM takes a swing of his beer, leans in next to me & says quietly with a smile on his face "Is that reeeally how a Goblin Necromancer sounds like?"
It just clicked in my head, he was 100% right. I shot out of my chair & in this Goodfellas, Joe Pesci type voice/accent I yelled out "HEYYYY how ya doin', I'm Cheez da Goblin Necromanceh, pleasuh pleasuh" & everyone at the table instantly got into it, laughing our asses off. It was AMAZING!
All to say, I always try to do the voice. DnD is all about collective effort & when you all give, you all get, its so freakin awesome. The voice is part of the fun & adds a unique part to the experience.
Voice videos are always good times. Some great tips in here to unpack and practice. Thank you for sharing, Cody!
Pretty much nailed it in there! That's basically how I did learn to do voices, starting with pitch and speed. Also heavy metal singing gave me knowledge about my false chords which I can use to do some deep rumbly monster voices now. One thing I like to say to people is to try and get into the character. If you're role playing a dumb ogre, use the intonations that you would use when you're mocking someone that did something dumb. Might be a bit caricatural, but with enough practice you can tone it down and make it part of the character's characteristics.
Maaaaan, you rock! Your voice acting is great! And your Gollum voice is just brilliant.
This, my friend, was a great and useful video. And highly enjoyable. And for what it's worth, this unknown 20+ year DM/writer is thoroughly grateful and impressed.
Mercer himself, i wager, would approve.
2:20 Nice graph! You might have considered demonstrating speed a bit more. One great thing about using a slow-speaking character is it gives you more time to think about what they're going to say!
5:50 I believe Ralph is pronounced 'rayf' for Mr. Fiennes.
10:30 One trick I recommend to my audience is to play against stereotypes - use the gollum voice for a massive hill giant; use the deep orc voice for a tiny faery. It's all about creating memorable characters that your players will find endearing, or learn to hate - whatever is your goal. I had a player who loved my Sean Connery voice, I used it on a character that they suspected was going to betray them, but they like having him around so much it made it easier for me as DM to carry through the plot.
Thank you SO much for this!! I can't wait for more content about voices at the table. This is something I've personally been afraid of trying because I didn't know where to start.
I thank you for putting the "if you are uncomfortable..." right up front.
I'm one of those that do not see Mat Mercer as DND Jesus because the professional voice acting RUINED games in my area.
I quit DMing because of the ruthless expectations that Critical Role introduced into the culture.
If you don't do great voices you're not a good DM...
I found this video helpful in multiple ways. It introduces character voices in an easy laid back manner and provides guidance as to how to advance as you get more comfortable.
But always comes back to the "if you're not comfortable..."
Well done. I'll start trying to do this a bit for my characters
I was a singer in a band that signed with a big label, but, unfortunately, things didn't work out
and I'm uncomfortable with doing voices for characters... I can easily modulate my voice...
But for me, it feels weird to "play pretend" voices... unless I'm playing a Goblin... never thought about it, but I ALWAYS do that when I play my goblin bard...
I guess I'll just have to learn to expand to different characters and get comfortable with different aspects.
Fantastic suggestions!!! What I do is give specific voices only to important NPCs, which makes them stand out. Before each session, I practice talking like each of the important NPCs that the party might encounter. It helps me work out kinks with tone, pitch, and overall inflections as well as mannerisms and specific vocabulary. And I make sure to jot down specific notes about their voices to remind me what I had practiced.
I do voices at the table, both as a DM and a player! And I'm always looking for ways to improve because always learning. This gives great structure to what I kind of already did without really understand what I did do. Thanks!
Thank you for breaking it down so easily! This is the aspect that makes me the most anxious about being a new DM because I am really bad at it, so getting this breakdown really helped me to make the topic more approachable - super helpful! :D
I had developed a similar system for myself learning to DM but it was always a off the hip sort of thing and never organized or formalized in any way, I always just decided how I wanted a npc to sound and went with it with no real planning. This will help a lot to keeping voices on track. Thanks for sharing this!
I love doing voices, it's absolutely amazing, even if I'm not good at them. My party still talks about the throwaway NPC that I made sound like a kiwi while they can't remember the villain that had a fairly normal voice. It works, it really does.
Great video! It might be worth mentioning that if you have hearing impaired and/or older players, you might need to adjust which accents you use or ditch accents altogether. I RP with a friend with a severe hearing impairment, and the only voices we can do are low/slow ones, and it’s much easier for her if we just use natural voices. She can’t hear higher pitches at all, and she has trouble distinguishing what someone says if they talk too fast or speak with another accent. My older relatives have trouble with high voices but not lower ones, but they don’t necessarily say when they can’t understand what someone says because they get embarrassed having to ask someone often to repeat themselves. My hubby doesn’t always tell me when he can’t hear me (perhaps that’s on purpose, lol), so I have to try to remember to lower my pitch a bit in noisier environments-like the gaming table.
That being said, I loved the video and plan on putting some of your ideas to work in my Curse of Strahd campaign (of COURSE Count Strahd speaks with an Eastern European accent, non-cheesy version!).
My players often love the voices I throw in... in some cases, talking to that NPC more than necessary because they are enjoying too much. These tips in the video are awesome in some ways I feel implementing them more myself will up my game.
I tactic I often use when picking voices is if I get a feeling of a notable NPC being similar to a character from a show I lean towards mimicking that type of voice or accent, hence many of my town guards sound a tad like cockney londoners.
One of the best bits of advice Ive heard is that some of the best characters are bad imitations. I make a list of the several serviceable imitations I have and assign those to NPCs they will see more regularly. The rest of the one meet type NPCs get the pitch and speed treatment.
I enjoy trying voices for characters. These are great tips. Practicing while driving by yourself helps a lot.
this is amazing to make a template, such a brilliant video idea and it tackle such a key element of the game to both DM but even player to find what will be your voice through the entire game
I am CR fan, and their group works very well together and their voice acting skills are very good (as they should be, that's what they do for a living). Voices can be fun, but they are not a core pillar of fun at the table. They can make NPC quite memorable, but talking for long periods of time in that voice can be exhausting. Keep it short and fun and it will add a bit to your game. You have to be able to laugh at yourself, and you'll soon realize it's for fun and it will come easier. When choosing a style of voice for my characters, I pick sayings, and use them frequently.
Great video! I find that kind of like descriptors of BBEG's of small groups, it just takes one thing to make a voice. A lisp, a twitch, a body movement, or a particular accent. It doesn't have to be full immersion for each npc.
When you mentioned the "Californian" voice I was anticipating The Dude quote "Like, that's your opinion man." Totally think you could pull him off as a layed-back NPC. lol. Great video!
PART TWO LET’S GOOO This video was hilarious an made my day.
I do voices as a DM because I find them fun. I don't care what the players think. I would do them if they hated them. The fact that I am actually quite gifted naturally is simply gravy.
This is a simplified version of what the TH-camr "Improve your Voice" advises in his video titled "How to Create 100 Distinctly Different Voices"
I love it!
What's most useful to me is shorthand notes for NPCs that let me immediately make the same voice again.
I haven’t DM’d yet (but I’m next in line, godspeed), but I do play a pseudodragon in one of our campaigns that I have a great time making a voice for. It’s sharp and ‘growly’, if that makes sense. And so far it’s the only character the rest of the party tries to impersonate when they’re talking about her outside of the actual game, which I rather enjoy.
Great video, keep up the great work!
Awesome job, Cody. Really useful.
I have a player at my table who wants to do a voice, because he sees how much fun it can be, but he has said he doesn’t know where to start. I will send him this video!
And with this... new life flows into my campaign
This has been incredibly helpful. Thanks you. The categorization is incredibly helpful for maintaining a consistent voice across real life time and multiple different campaigns.
First time DM here and thanks for the video. Good reminder that less can be more. It is easy to overthink these things in my experience. Looking forward to part two
Long-time forever DM and love using voices. My biggest issue is that I often reuse the same voice across several characters too close together. I guess I can just say that well, lots of people sound similar in the real world.
One thing I do find helps, is establishing the voice/character of an NPC through the use of voices early on but then later narrating the character's actions in third person. The players will have the character's mannerisms and voice/accent in mind when you do this and you can save your throat a little wear and tear. This is also helpful on those occasions when you may not feel up for being a voice actor and just want to focus on running the game or playing your character.
The more NPCs in a game, the better it is for your players if you don't have to constantly tell them who is talking at any given moment.
Great video. I find I do voices for the first time a character speaks in that conversation or session, and then trail it off. My players can still remember the voice and they still hear it when I am talking normally
Awesome! ^^ Thanks! I know SO many players who can't for the life of them portray even two characters that don't sound the same. Really helpful!
Cody! Glad you're making videos. I always look forward to all your content!
Great video, i never was that much into voices as a dm, just higher and lower pitch here and there, but the 9 cube spectrum is awsome and easy. Will incorporate that for sure. The explainations of this video will make my next game session soo much fun haha. Thx Kody
How did I miss this?? Thanks yet again, Taking 20!
Great video, very helpful! One thing though, and I'm sure you know more about this than I do... Voices are fun at a real table, even goofy voices which might seem ridiculous. Because of COVID, many of us learned to play online. We can use Roll20, D&D Beyond, or several others for the character sheets and maps/miniatures as needed and either Discord or Zoom for a video meeting to see each others' facial expressions and reactions to in-game events.
I found voices to absolutely not work in such a scenario. I don't know if it's because of the video conference itself or because these games have people from different places.
Take for example, we're playing in an Alabama game store. I give a character a Jersey accent. As silly and juvenile as it sounds, everybody knows what I'm doing and immediately visualizes the NPC when I use that accent. Online you may have someone in Alabama and someone else in NJ. Neither of them understand that voice.
Personally, I've found the same to be true with cadence and tone as you suggest in this video, when playing online. We know it can work, because... Critical Role. However, I've never been able to get it to work nor have I seen anyone able to do anything other than cause confusion.
Do you have any further advice toward the specifics of voicing online versus sitting at an actual table? I'm sure you have other topics to address in upcoming videos, but would it be possible to revisit this video at some point to address the differences in online or physical table games?
I love doing voices and accents and impressions and this helps a lot with widening what I can do for random voices so thank you so much.
For advice for people doing accents or impressions, watch clips of people with those accents and type out EXACTLY WHAT YOU HEAR. This changes the words from a normal spelling to a phonetic one. You can use this process to also do impressions of characters from film/tv.
The 'Redwall' series by Brian Jaques is great at doing this, and is a great mine for character backstories / storylines / villains /most other things at the same time!
As someone who's had a little training, I'm actually impressed with how on point this video is. 90% of voices is just controlling pitch and cadence, then just adding something small on top of it. Even most accents are still mostly just doing that, then knowing "ven to svitch some letters".
Also short lesson if you want a non-insulting Japanese-ish accent, 99% of that is knowing that, in the Japanese language, all, and I mean ALL R's and L's are the same letter, which has an "RL" sound to it, where you only go half way into the "L", sort of like a half-rolled "R". It's also good to understand that all Japanese Vowels are constant in sound, so A,E,I,O,U comes out "Ah, Eh, Ee, Oh, Oo". ", to to say the name "Marriko", it would come out "Mah-Rlee-koh". All that to say, most of an accent comes down to understanding some of the basic pronunciation of their original language, which is going to be so ingrained in someone's speech, they'll usually use those same rules, even when moving to another language. I'm speaking on Japanese here cause I studied it for 2 years in highschool, and I'm still learning it as time allows.
When you were speaking in the "fast-talking higher pitched voice ... with a gruff charactaristic," it reminded me of Danny Devito
My favorite technique is to "assign" a known voice to the NPC. It can be an actor or TV/movie character that I'm familiar with, or maybe a person that I know from real life that the players don't. My vocal impression and mannerisms don't even need to be accurate, just as long as it's consistent. I'll make a notation next to the NPC's name in parenthesis that tells me how they are going to talk. Ex: Innkeeper Toblen Stonehill (Uncle Jessie from Dukes of Hazzard), or Triboar Lord Protector Darathra Shendrel (Tiffany from work). Gives me an immediate mental touchstone for how the NPC looks and acts.
You can also crack your players up with OBVIOUS voices that they know in unconventional usages. Ex: Strahd (Christopher Walken)
Walken Strahd would be great fun.
i dm'd my first campaign the other day. without even realising, the entire table end up with cockney accents! it was superb!
Lovely video.
Also, just saying, one of my favorite joke characters I ever played was in a goblin one shot where all my friends played as your standard squealy stabby goblins. I played as the goblin nicknamed “Bland”, because he had a bad speech impediment. While all the other goblins would say “Get the stabby for big chief grabber!”, bland would say in a plain human voice “Excuse me, sir. We’re trying to acquire a sword for our leader. I’m afraid if you don’t provide it we may have to take it for you.”.
This is so user friendly and breaks down some simple tricks, what a good way to encourage roleplay.
Some of the best vocal advice I've heard. Thank you!
Honestly this might be the best tutorial I’ve seen on this subject… you are awesome!
Okay now you’re just showing off lol great video man, loved the inspiration!
Great video and well delivered. Once I watched this I found that picking a characteristic (Gruff/Raspy/Breathy) first and then going P/S was easier for me. Cheers.
From personal experience, I'm pretty good at voices, and when I do it for my players they absolutely love it.
This makes doing voices seem much more approachable.
Something I've done to differentiate characters is to change the way they speak. Like, one person talks very formally and another more casually. Or one person rambles as another uses as few words as possible.
I think I might actually be able to do character voices after this! Thank you!
Cody!!! Welcome back my dude!
I will say one part I always had a hesitation with was how it actually sounded, versus how I was using pitch, tone, etc. I have found almost all cellphones have voice recorders now, and it's pretty easy to listen to yourself and get some idea if you are hitting the desired effect or not.
Brilliant! This couldnt have come at a better time!
I remember seeing one of the great voice actors, I think it may have been Mel Blanc in and interview in the 80s talk about building voices pretty much like this video.
1. Start with the regional dialect.
2. Pitch higher or lower
3. Faster or slower
4. Louder or softer
5. Vocal quality(e.g. gruff, nasally)
6. Finally, for the most memorable NPCs(or PCs) add a quirk like:
-Dolores's nervous sqeak(from encanto)
-Porky Pig's stutter
-Foghorn Leghorn's repetition.
For example I played a character who spoke with:
A slight Scottish accent
Slightly lower pitch
Slightly slower
Average volume
A hair of gruff quality
Then I bit the side of my tongue while i talked to limit range of motion and annunciation.
It added up to a very distinct character
Best starting point to learn. That's helpful without any intimating high professional can't-never-reach examples.
I was encouraged by this video and by the comments (so far) that folks seem to be refraining from using voice patterns that promote awful ethnic stereotypes (or the co-opting of such, even if they are respectful and dignified uses of accents). I have been in groups, or seen streams, where players use incredibly offensive "Asian" or "Latin" accents. That is the first rule at my table for voice acting...don't go there with real-world accents. It's far safer, easier, and more effective to adjust your own voice to fit the general characteristics of your PC (much like Cody is talking about in this video). I appreciate Cody's technique because it is simple but distinctive, but safely generic. It's even easy to track what voices you used for certain NPCs when they return to the story, or if you need a reminder after a long time between sessions.
My first 2 characters I did not do voices. My most recent character (campaign just finished) was a female tiefling. I wasn't always consistent but I enjoyed trying & with each consecutive character I will keep trying because it's fun! This video was a HUGE help & lots of great tips & i'll be referencing it probably multiple times to create the feel I want for my Goliath Moon Druid next.
Hat's off for a guide I'll actually be able!
This is probably the best video from you yet!
This is easily one of the best videos you've done. Love the ideas here.
Interesting video and you totally got Stitch and Gollum 😁. Since I'm Italian, I don't think that the next video will be so useful in its details, but maybe it will provide some general principle that can be applied regardless of the language one speaks.
You may be surprised: a lot of what makes accents work is oral posture (sorta the default position the parts of your mouth are in). While the specific "swap this sound for this sound" stuff might not help, changing oral posture may get the accent started in other languages.
The fun part is, this is fantasy. You don't need your accent to be accurate to a real world example. Your goal is to be distinctive and consistent. Your attempt at a Russian accent might not actually sound very Russian, but if you make the same attempt for every dwarf, your players will know when you're doing your "dwarven accent."
That Voldemort impression gave me chills
1:48 My main reason for wanting to do voices is wanting the players to be able to realize who's talking.
In a campaign I ran some years back, an observant player pointed out that I'd accidentally given a particular NPC two different accents the two times they'd interacted with him. I steered into the skid by trying to give him a different accent every time they interacted with him after that.
I actually just started voicing more when GM'ing , even if I have played for years on end. Its growing on me, and this video helps.
It's a good feeling when you give no description to an NPC but start using their voice and the whole table immediately identifies who it is. Even when it's an NPC that wasn't in this campaign haha
Thank you for making this first part of D&D Voices for Dummies. I'm not shy about doing voices, but I still found this helpful!
Great video. Love Critical Role (Have noticed at least two of the regulars rarely do any real "voice" work when they play..) also. Enjoy your channel. Getting some great tips and ideas. Thanks
I find basing npc characters on real life people we know is the best fun for everyone. They can be comically bad impressions of people we all know in real life or famous people. Silly or exaggerated works great.
A character version of our tiny grumpy family dog was the BBEG in a recent adventure.
The sporty girl from school is my daughter's arc nemesis.
My wife is the spider queen who is afraid of spiders.
It works because it is fun for the players to work out who the people are as they meet them and the picture is forming in their head.
Dropping a story beat into their background that is the same a the real life person acts a the keystone to cement them in the players mind.
Also if my impression is so bad they can't recognise them it is fine because they have a picture of their version of the npc anyway and if they don't perfectly line up it is fine. It is more about me being relatively consistent in their portrayal and having a more real life fleshed out persona.
Also letting your players choose who the real life person is great fun too.
I want to see more outtakes for this video :D