Where are you from....originally?

[Law]

I havent really used any for species in general but in our ad&d game Elminster somehow came out like Sean Connery. In Star Wars, the ancient Jedi master Phineas Wolf, who shares many of the Elminster mannerisms has taken on the same voice. I didnt like it at first but the group thought it was funny and liked it so much they wont let me change it. Now I actually need to practice and occasionally watch highlander prior to games to get in character.
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"Mister, we deal in lead."
-Vin (Steve McQueen) The Magnificent Seven

"Nothing wrong with a little shooting, as long as the right people get shot."
-Turk (De Niro) Righteous Kill

[Bobmalooga]

[Mikael Hasselstein]

[Bren]

[Fallon Kell]

[Bren]

I think it helps that we are trying to give characters personality, not claiming that the actor is actually the character. I also think that regarding Arnie, especially in his early movies his accent is funny and in some of his movies he seems like he is parodying himself. So his might be a good accent to avoid.

Perhaps a national or regional accent that is less identified with a particular person may work better for your group. Also, this is likely to work differently in ex-US gaming groups since which accents are local and which are foreign sounding will switch.

So for a typical group of American players, rather than have an Imperial officer sound or look like David Niven, instead give him a generic British upper class, posh, or BBC accent instead. To Americans this is likely to subconciously convey an educated, aristocratic, and possibly even Imperial background. On the other hand, based on a fairly extensive perusal of British Mysteries, a loud, brash nasally flat tone of voice conveys an entrepreneurial American Businessman to the Brits. So for them, a Corellian ship Magnate might speak that way. Also, it apparently helps if the character says g*d d@mn at least every other sentence. Really. Watch a few BBC episodes of Poirot, Miss Marple, or even Jeeves and Wooster if you don't believe me.

Hey those of you from non-US countries, do you use accents in your games and if so, what accents do you use and why?

[Mikael Hasselstein]

I once used the voice of Henry Kissinger (and a photoshopped image) to portray a self-styled political officer on an exploration ship. Oh, that was fun!

[Guardian_A]

When playing D&D, my dwarves always have a British accent. My elves tent do be disgustingly prim and proper. I've also run a Bounty Hunter in Star Wars who sounded alarmingly like John Wayne, . . .

I've also found that body language plays a large part of the characters I play. A relaxed or arrogant character tends to leave me leaning back in my seat, my feet up on the table and a cocky grin on my face, where as a diabolical villan might leave me pacing the room, a stern look on my face as I lean forward imposingly. Its also fun to kneel on the floor, barely looking over the edge of the table as we play when playing a short character, like a Ewok, or Gnome. One time, I tried playing Yoda that way, shuffling around the table, poking people with my stick, it was funny until someone broke my stick, . . . .

[TyCaine]

Broken stick, you have, replace, you must!

Being British born and bred gaming with a bunch of Brits, villains tended to have German or Russian accents, remembering this was 12-20 years ago and all of us having grown up on old WWII movies. Good guys would range from Upper Class British accents for nobles, to more local accents for general characters. Then some characters of interest might have Australian or American accents...

Now having spent the time over here, villains tend to be Brits (anything from upper class for officers, to lower class for grunts) I've noticed, more in keeping with Star Wars movies where the Empire seemed exclusively British almost...

Characters of interest retain American or Australian accents though it seems... With some lesser characters leaning more towards eastern European.

And I agree with Guardian_A, body language plays a big part in the games, helping the players imagine the character they are interacting with, sometimes with very comical results!


T.C.

[Fallon Kell]

[Bren]

[TyCaine]

[Bren]

[Fallon Kell]

[Bren]