Developing a voice for your roleplay character (WITHOUT accents!) 

Thanks to Penny Dragon Games for sponsoring this video! Check out their incredibly tragic and chaotic Kickstarter here: bit.ly/tragictreasure​ (just kidding, it's lovely and very well-organized!!)

I'M YELLING AT YOU IN THE COMMENTS BECAUSE YOU SAID WE SHOULD. I LOVE YOUR HAIR COLOUR. YOU NAILED IT.

"critical role george who is 8 actors in a trench coat is an outlier and should not have been counted" LMAO

I have a barbarian whose voice is basically just my customer service voice but with slightly more repressed rage beneath it. Constantly smiling really changes voice quality even if you're not doing much else.

critical role georg is always messing up statistical analysis

Also, VERY BIG THING!! Don't make fun of other player's voices!! Under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. They're putting themselves out there, and trying really hard, and just the wrong comment can make them not want to do it anymore. For instance, even though I'm an aspiring voice actor, I haven't been able to bring myself to try doing a voice at my table after a player made an offhand degrading comment. I lost a whole lot of trust at that, cuz I had practiced that voice for so long. She didn't mean to be mean about it, but it was still just so disheartening.

I once had a character who didn't use verbal contractions. As in, he'd say "cannot" instead of "can't", "did not" instead of "didn't", "he would" instead of "he'd", etc. Little things like that can do a lot to make a character feel unique, real, and whole. Does that make sense?

It pains me whenever I hear players and DMs say that they can't roleplay because they can't do accents. YOU DON"T NEED ACCENTS! I will now forever be sending people this video the second they mention accents as a barrier to roleplaying.

"Not every table with welcome character acting." My adrenaline shot up at this, I actually got scared imagining a roleplaying game like that.

"It can be scary to try something new and expose that you give a fuck." I feel this so hard. I feel foolish enough trying to voice my characters as is given that they are not the same sex as I am. Doesn't help when people comment when I try playing an overtly extroverted character when I personally tend to avoid conversation if I can get away it. It's hard enough disengaging my filter and play a character that will constantly speak their mind as is, thanks. My immediate reaction is go back into my own manner of speaking and it pulls me out of the game.

My DM just started trying out accents and voices within our last 3 games. He's getting pretty good at it, but we do have to keep reminding one of our players not to laugh at him so he doesn't get embarrassed. His biggest hang up is he has a sort of Irish accent for one character and he occasionally will accidentally slip into a Scottish or English accent instead, but we support him and let him work his way through it

As someone who has as really "feminine" voice, using a deeper and rougher voice for my new dwarf PC has been a challenge, but it's always fun to try new things!

"A nervous character might, um, stutter a little a-and repeat themselves, a-and they might be anxious to say anything too firm... if that works for you..." I love the "if that works for you," tacked on the end, you really nailed those voices! ♡

Ginny: Most D&D players are not actors, so this isn't targeted for actors. Me, an actor: welp, I'm watching anyways

The phrase that helps me get into my tempest cleric's voice is "oh, for Kord's sake..."

Ha ha ha ha! I can't get over how excited I get when you have a word from our sponsors... "that'd be a lot of compositing effort for an ad..." Comedy gold... I kinda want a compilation video of your ads.... like, honestly...

"Do you want a hug?" "That would be a lot of compositing effort for an ad" lol

In Star Wars the clone wars the voice actor for all the clones gave each clone a word to describe their personality like stoic or proud to help differentiate them since they all technically have the same voice but different personalities

"Are they someone who apologizes a lot, or who says 'does that make sense?' after they explain something?" Boy do I feel called out

I had this question a few month's ago, as I'm playing a young female elf, eventho I'm a dude. I desperately didn't want to do like a cliché high pitched voice, but DID want to really give her her own voice. In the end I really thought about her character, how she WOULD sound, and did that with my own voice. She's shy, softspoken, and a bit nervous. Similar to the example given here, she stutters abit and repeats herself when speaking. It works miracles, as it makes staying in character so much easier, and actually role playing so much more fun :D

I'm playing two characters atm. One is a tortle druid, who's basically a wandering therapist. I get into his character voice by going "Hmmmmm..." And nodding my head thoughfully. My second is a valor bard who's basically a budget paladin. His character phrase is "Oh bloody hell. Come onnnn!". This is all I need to do and I'm set XD

Another thing that you didn't mention and that I personally find very important and helpful, which I noticed you actually doing while demonstrating voices: Use your entire body to speak. When you were talking about the anxious character, you got really tense and were glancing around; when you were talking about the sultry character, you lowered your eyelids and took a more confident pose. These little things can help out a LOT when doing voices, and I don't see people talking about it nearly enough.

I love the spiders george reference, absolutely made my day

that Criticalrolegeorg joke was really good, nice

As a DM, one easy voice I’ve used for creepy and strange characters is to randomly speed up and slow down during each sentence and add emphasis to random words creates a unique voice without using an accent

“The best way to practice is if you have time to talk to yourself!” Me, talking to my husband, friends and cats in 6 different character voices daily: 🙃🤡

“that would be a lot of compositing effort for an ad” ROFL - Ginny, you’re a card.

My character almost always starts their sentences with “Wow,” “Okay,” “Yeah,” or some other fairly pointless space-filling word, so I always begin with one of those to get into the voice. That said, it’s made easier by the fact that they’re basically just me doing an impression of Scorpia from She-Ra. But that’s okay! You can definitely just do an impression, and it’s even better if you’re not good at impressions and people don’t recognize the character you’re mimicking. Also, I love Critical Role Georg.

I was in the forefront of role-playing in my group. One of favorite moments was when I played an Elf who spoke in yoda/ broken English style. When we finally got in an elven area he spoke with a better vocabulary and a lot smoother. The other guys dog piled on me for messing up my voice until I explained he went from speaking common to elven. Their minds were blown. We then ushered in an age of really really bad voices, lol.

"Seems like a lot of compositing effort for an ad." actually had me laughing out loud... while at work...

0:16 omg Ginny I nearly shot coffee out my nose, that was unreasonably funny hahahaha holy fuck caught me so off guard

I use Jacquimo from Thumbelina in order to get into my characters fake french accent. It's pretty hilarious when I sing if you follow your heart to get into my voice.

I voice a character when i draw so i can figure out how that person's voice. Say for example my female knight she has a deep voice for a female and is very intimidating and she is really fun to voice.

I love this. And that is an awesome shirt. Although I keep thinking "Hey, my eyes are up here!"

Love the voice I came up for my gunslinger. It's a little bit of a gruffer voice. My halfling rogue I use a little bit of an Irish accent.

To get into my senile Tortle gunslinger's voice, I say his name like a Pokémon 😂😂 (Old Reliable)

"Today's sponsor is just so tragic!" You have my undivided attention

Cockney Ginny Di is not something I realised I wanted until just now xD

One of my most successful character voices was my half-orc barbarian who I'm in the midst of retiring. Her voice was only a little deeper than mine but her cadence was very slow and deliberate with hard consonants. No accent, but it created a really effective personality and roleplay element that has made the character WAY more fun and effective.

This is exactly what I've needed since I started D&D! I have a hard time not just playing myself in my games.

I'm developing my first DnD carachter ever right now ( a necromancer Drow elf with a pretty tragic backstory named Meredith ) so these videos are really helpful! I imagine Meredith having kind of a deep and mysterious voice

I’m just about to play a tiefling and am really trying to make a unique voice and this video was really helpful

Just started but I already know this is great so THANK YOUUU the only reason I have enough voices for NPC's is because I switch languages and that leads to so much chaos XD

Wow, I'm working on a Vampire: The Masquerade character right now, and this is gonna be so useful! They're a Nosferatu, a sneaky and tech-oriented vampire clan with less desirable and attractive features due to the harsher transformations they go through. So, I decided to make my character a faceless video game streamer! I thought it would be a fun way to incorporate some more pop-culture references, but I've been struggling on how to characterize their voice. They had a really rough, and fairly recent transformation, and their throat got screwed up in the process. I obviously figured they would have to whisper most of the time, sound rough, like they were sick, but I hadn't even considered speech patterns, so this has given me a lot to think about. Awesome video!

Ginny: "Have a phrase that puts you into character" Me: "cool, cool cool cool..." *goes to dig up the playlist I already made for my criminal bard to pick out some lyrics he'd sing*

How to practis: 1. Read something, act a dialogue or a monologue, do this about three times per training day (maybe once each). 2. Visualize how would you act or sound for 15 seconds. Repeat between 50 to 75 times, three to five times per week. Once you have accquired the desired skill, you can change the visualization to other skills, this works for any cognitive and/or motor skills, and is better (or more effective) for things you can already do and want to get better at.

The voice of the character I'm mainly playing right now is my own imperfect copy of Matt Mercer's Enchanter Pumat Sol from C2. It's mostly just a deep, kinda nasally voice, with a touch of what I think is a Minnesotan accent (I don't really think of it as an accent, it just happens when I put my voice in that position). That character's voice is also really versatile, because he's a Charlatan who only uses that voice when he wants people to think he's cute and oafish. My plan, so far unrealized, is to give him a repertoire of voices/accents to switch between, depending on the situation and how he wants to present. But I've been so bad about actually practicing other voices. EDIT: oh, and my phrase for getting into character is, "Why, hellooo there!" Works great since I use it at the beginning of every dialogue.

Giny : it's gonna be uncomfortable and its normal Me : I needed that 5 years ago

I love role-playing in D&D because I'm a Theatre nerd who's only kinda good a improv.

I've always found practicing how your character says their name to be really helpful, both for finding their voice, and getting into character.

But I *am* an actor.... But, seriously, thank you for this. It really helps me as a GM think about the difference between the NPCs.

You didn't have to put so much production value into a ten second joke, but I'm glad you did

i come to this video every time i make a new character. this time im voicing a rather old elven woman, and "singing" 50s love songs in her voice is a reason to live for

Okay, I'm never skipping an ad break on this channel. They're just too good.

I would kind of love a party with a gnome with a deep booming voice and a Goliath who's voice is so high he barely speaks out of embarrassment lol

“That’s a lot of composting effort for an ad” I died Ginny, you killed me.

I really appreciate how much work you put into making D&D accessible and approachable to new players! I love sharing these videos with friends who are new to D&D and tabletop RPGs in general. It helps them feel more comfortable with where they're at and confident in the knowledge that they'll keep improving as time goes on!

This is SUCH a good basic voice acting guide for roleplay! I’m sharing this with my group, since we like to voice our characters and often have some good laughs when we lose the character voice or stumble over simple words that are accented. My tiefling monk was taught to talk by a dwarven orphanage matron, so she has a Dwarven accent. Except whenever I do any Scottish sounding accent, I ALWAYS slip into either Northern Irish or Cockney.

A bit of extra advice. Take your campaign notes (or memory) and write diary entries as your character for the session. I find most people write in a similar way that they talk. Not only will you get more comfortable knowing what your character feels/thinks about a certain thing and really get into their voice a bit better, but you will have an easier time knowing what your character will say on the fly. Once you do the journal entries, read it aloud in their voice. It's amazing how much it helps. I *really* clicked with my character with this and it helped me, the girl who cannot do voices to save her life, to really get his voice down. It is seriously a win-win-win situation (For reference, I have a very quiet character with a lot of thought behind each word. So when he speaks, it's a low, quiet, almost monotonous voice with lots of pauses between phrases. Took inspiration from Caleb's voice, just without the accent (fitting since they both have the Haunted One background. At least I think that was his background-))

For me it would have to be a kitty voice with random purrs, meows and trills along with lots of smart mouthed sarcasm.

I feel like you’re reading my mind with all the D&D tips you’ve been coming out with lately! Noob player who wants to get better and it can be overwhelming figuring out what to focus on and how! ❤️ Super helpful stuff!

a spiders Georg reference in this, the year 2021? I LIVE

As someone too self-conscious because I can't do accents in general, this is the video I didn't know I was waiting for 🙏

I’m absolutely so grateful for this. I’m working with my DM for my halfling’s (who’s got an Irish accent) hometown to have this modified North Dublin dialect, and it’ll be so strong and filled with so much slang (some real and some fantasy) that our fellow American players should have very little understanding of what’s being said, even when speaking in common. With regards to that, I think my DM may get so focused on trying to get the accent right that he may make all the inhabitants of the village sound the same as each other. Hopefully this resource can help bolster him.

"Do you want a hug?" "Sob, that would be a lot of compositing effort for an ad" "...Fair enough" 😆😆😆😆

I feel like at this point I'm just watching these videos for the ads, and I'm okay with this.

I know this video is 2 years old, but it is still excellent, and I wanted to say thanks! This is really good advice. I used to do accents for my characters, but I'm recovering from a stroke, which has given me dysarthria and screwed with the language centers of my brain a little bit, so can't do accents anymore, and I need a way to differentiate me from my character; Also, your tip of changing speaking rate, is literally a part of my speech therapy so I can re-teach my tongue how to move properly.

awwww I'm sorry everyone yells at you down here..... ILY!

This is exactly what I needed today. I've been struggling for weeks over possible voices for my new character. This video was very helpful and by the end I had had some quirks to help build off.

I am german and we use a RPG-System, which is very popular in Germany (besides D&D) which is called "The Dark Eye" in the US (i guess). But nevertheless: Although i am guiding my players for decades and got a lot of experience as a (as u would call it) DM, i really find your clips very educational, they always give me inspiration. And boy....they are entertaining. :) I love your work and would like to thank you in the name of the whole pen and paper role playing community.

One way I practice my voices for characters is I listen to songs where the singers have accents and I do my best to replicate them so when I try them by myself they can sound at least a little genuine

Ginny Di: "I have to deliberately slow my voice down" Me: *continues watching at 2x speed like I do everything else*

I really appreciate your videos, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. You make D&D content incredibly accessible, and inviting; especially in a hobby that's considered nerdy and has a good amount of gate keeping. Most big D&D youtubers are very open and don't gatekeep but you just have additional comfy vibes. Or something. I don't know, you just manage to make me very excited to try new things and actually go all in with my character ^^

Somehow I never consciously picked up on the fact that Jester says the same word at the start and end of many sentences but now that it has been pointed out I can think of enough examples it amazes me that I didn't.

Anyone else going to rewatch this video multiple time with a notebook out to take notes? It can't just be me.

I happen to love "Roll up your Attributes" and have actually linked it to one of the local TTRPG groups for their enjoyment.

My imagination went into a terrifying journey when you compared Mickey Mouse and Princess Peach and now I am deeply cursed

I love how much fun you have with the sponsors 💙

My Tiefling Ranger has been very fun, but I'm sad he's only a one shot. I _have_ been using an Irish accent for him, but aside from that: He has a somewhat high voice, being a thin, lanky dude. He speaks very quickly and is always full of energy, and is as spontaneous as an exited puppy. He's also very headstrong and set in his beliefs, and it is very hard to convince him of something once he makes his decisions, which makes him a bit of a wildcard for his partner. This gives him a finality and matter-of-factness to his speech. He speaks very literally and uses few metaphors, and constantly starts sentences suddenly that he hasn't thought about how to end. Sometimes at the end of his sentences, if he's in a good mood, he'll chuckle at nothing out of just pure good-natured excitement. My enter voice phrase is "I got a snake in my horns, and a skunk skin on my shoulders, I can see why you're backin away" which are words I like using in his accent, that help a lot in getting back into it

A perfect Meg voice! She's the best part about Hercules.

This is going to be so helpful!!!!!!!✨ What? She said yelling was allowed!

I love it when you open with “Hey friends!”, it makes me smile each time!

My dnd character is a bit nervous and soft spoken because he has a hard time trusting people. He also has the far traveler background so I decided to give him an accent as well. It took about a week for me to get really comfortable with it.

I played a Morlamaw in Starfinder and let me tell you, pretending to be a walrus is the most fun voice you can ever do 😂

Ode to those times we have to remind our Method Actor friends, “Dude, they were talking out of character, it’s okay.”

I've never watched a video that explained this concept SO WELL to me, omg thank you

Love your music selections!

3:54 My character is not talkative. He never speaks. He does not need a voice. Problem solved👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻

My voice sounds like *vengeance* One day I’ll get a response to this running joke.

OMG the sponsor ad!!! Masterful. Well done

OMG I died at the intro! I love your free sprit and your advice is spot on! Thank you bunches!

Why are Ginny's ads as fun as her videos half the time, I've stopped even considering skipping them

Wow thanks for reminding me about Glow being cancelled lmao

this is so helpful oml! absolutely love your energy :D

This video was really helpful, thank you! Also loving the ads each time haha

My tiefling barbarian is an ex circus performer, raised by a half-orc strong arm. The half orc has a really thick Georgian accent and he smokes a lot, so my barbarian has a sweeter, Southern Bell type of voice that sounds really friendly yet powerful.

Got me a cockney character. I end up throwing “bloody” and “innit” out there a lot.

The editing joke in the ad spot really got me 😂 I appreciate all the actionable advice in this! I'm so terrified of doing accents, but I'm trying to learn how to have fun with voices!

Loving all of this helpful and accessible D&D advice-including the amazing music videos! Thank you, Ginny!

"That would be a lot of compositing effort for an ad" Yes, yes it would lmao