How to get comfortable using character voices at the table

[Salgood]

I've been playing dnd for about six years and dming for about three of them and I've always shyd away from using voices while dming mostly just cause i get very embarrassed when I try to use them at the table and just end up reverting back to my normal voice i was just wondering if there was anything anyone could recommend to start getting more comfortable with using voices for npcs and tips on how to make good character voices.

[KorvinStarmast]

I've been playing dnd for about six years and dming for about three of them and I've always shyd away from using voices while dming mostly just cause i get very embarrassed when I try to use them at the table and just end up reverting back to my normal voice i was just wondering if there was anything anyone could recommend to start getting more comfortable with using voices for npcs and tips on how to make good character voices.

The more you do it, the more comfortable you will be doing it. To paraphrase an old Nike advertisement: Just do it.

But I get embarrassed

Why? Do the other players give you load of grief when you do? If that's going on, talk to them about "we are here to have fun, lighten up" or something along those lines.

[Easy e]

Here are some tips that work 100% of the time, 60% of the time. I personally am NOT a voice guy, but the have done the occasional one.

1. Have a group you are comfortable with
2. Have a voice you can do easily, do not try to stretch yourself.
3. Do not just have a voice, add a mannerism, hold up a photo/artwork of the NPC (This also is a visual queue to help you recall to do the voice!)
4. Do not give all the NPCs a unique voice, only an NPC that only appears once or twice in the session.
5. Realize you are playing a TT RPG and that is inherently silly anyway! Lean into it!

These might help you dabble a bit in this space. I typically shy away because my fellows players are VERY good at it. Secondly, I always forget to do it when I need to.

I hope that helps.

[AMFV]

I've been playing dnd for about six years and dming for about three of them and I've always shyd away from using voices while dming mostly just cause i get very embarrassed when I try to use them at the table and just end up reverting back to my normal voice i was just wondering if there was anything anyone could recommend to start getting more comfortable with using voices for npcs and tips on how to make good character voices.

Drink a couple beers before the game. Not enough that it makes you like... tipsy, but enough to take the edge off. (Assuming that you're of age that is). A lot of that is just being nervous and that can help with that.

[Jay R]

I don't use character voices. I have a speech impediment, and doing anything different with my voice calls attention to that rather than adding to the ambience.

So I've grown comfortable with the fact that the sound of my voice is not a tool for adding ambience. I need to use immersive descriptions, careful word choice, compelling storylines, and a consistent fantasy-medieval world to pull them into my world.

Use the tools you have, and grow comfortable with your approach, whatever that approach is.

[KorvinStarmast]

Drink a couple beers before the game.

It also helps you see those gnomes and goblins. It really does! And about those mushrooms on the pizza ... well, there are certain mushrooms that may enhance the experience, or make you puke as happened to me the first time I tried that

Use the tools you have, and grow comfortable with your approach, whatever that approach is.

Plus Eleventy. So much this.

[AMFV]

It also helps you see those gnomes and goblins. It really does! And about those mushrooms on the pizza ... well, there are certain mushrooms that may enhance the experience, or make you puke as happened to me the first time I tried that

Eh, Mushrooms don't really help your confidence and if you're drinking enough to be hallucinating your DMing is going to take a nose dive fast. It's like the Balmer curve from XKCD, you want to have a mild buzz so that you don't feel as silly.

[Kane0]

I practice on my spouse.

[Misereor]

i was just wondering if there was anything anyone could recommend to start getting more comfortable with using voices for npcs and tips on how to make good character voices.

Yep. Go for simple.
Don't start off with voices for sweet little old ladies, ancient dragons, or sibilant undead. Basically nothing that requires finesse or skill.

Instead for a first attempt, try playing something predictable, like the comically annoying, belligerent, and none-too-bright character. That way you can basically just use your normal voice, albeit at extra volume and in a more boisterous than usual manner. What matters is that vocally you are expanding your comfort zone (and possibly also getting the other players used to it, so that they eventually stop giving you funny looks). Comedy is a great way of doing that.

Once everyone is comfortable with that level of voice acting, you can work up to the sensuous lizard sorceress with a slight lisp, who tends to hiss at people who annoy her.

[False God]

Practice practice practice.

Or don't.

I've had mixed results using voices. There are some I outright can't achieve and it can come across as odd when only half the NPCs get a voice.

[Ionathus]

3. Do not just have a voice, add a mannerism, hold up a photo/artwork of the NPC (This also is a visual queue to help you recall to do the voice!)

This whole thread is helpful but I want to call special attention to this one.

Don't think of character voices as just an accent or a tone. Think about all the other things you can do to change how the words sound. You can achieve unique character voices just by enunciating words more distinctly, or slurring the words just a little bit, or talking slightly faster or slower, or talking with your lips slightly pulled back so your teeth show, or moving your voice "into the back of your throat" or "into your nose." You'd be amazed by how speaking in your normal voice but with a slight change to your mannerisms creates a totally different vibe.

Another trick: pull voices from fiction or distinctive personalities from your childhood. If you have a strong memory of your 5th grade teacher's speech patterns, you can probably do an imitation of them! So what if it's a bad imitation -- your players don't know who you're mimicking.

And that's the other most important point: with the exception of a few cool BBEGs that you want to be impressive, most of your voices don't have to be impressive. They just need to be unique. Don't fret about whether or not the voice sounds "cool", because very few people's voices sound cool in real life. Most of them just sound distinctive, which is your goal.

[Jay R]

And that's the other most important point: with the exception of a few cool BBEGs that you want to be impressive, most of your voices don't have to be impressive. They just need to be unique.

This is a crucial point. Even without doing voices, you can gain a lot of ambiance simply by using different speech rhythms.

If a Yoda-like character you are running, then backwards you must speak, hmm?

That sentence gave you some Yoda flavor, even though there was no voice at all; you read it.

Similarly, if the passive voice is always used by one character, and another one pauses … in the middle … of a sentence, and a third one uses absurd curses, by Conan’s copper codpiece, then they each have their own flavor, even without a voice change.

Perhaps an elven princess always speaks
In five iambic feet, as Hamlet does.
It isn’t really all that hard to do,
Then she becomes unique, and slightly fey,
And all your players soon become engaged.

[Ionathus]

And all your players soon become engaged.

The elven princess is also a member of the clergy??

[KorvinStarmast]

The elven princess is also a member of the clergy??

No, she's into polyandry.

[Easy e]

Yes, I listened to a L5R actual player and all the players really did to make unique voice was to change the cadence of their normal speech patterns, and ended their sentences on a downward beat when they were in character.

It worked surprisingly well. Hearing this simple trick allowed me to start experimenting a bit more with my own voices.

[False God]

No, she's into polyandry.

Why not both?

[KorvinStarmast]

Why not both?

Why indeed. Well played.

[Segev]

If you enjoy or want to enjoy doing voices, by all means, just do them. The key to any bit is to commit to it. Jim Carrey would flop so very hard if he only half-heartedly acted like his characters. They work because he embraces the role and acts like there's nothing to be embarrassed about. You're performing; that is all the excuse needed for your bombastic, silly, creepy, or otherwise unusual behavior. Lean into it and stay committed, and you'll have more fun. I hear some people find wearing a mask or having a puppet helps. Twiddle the figure being used for the character in lieu of a puppet. Have it march all over the scenary, chewing liberally, and pretend it is he figure talking.


All of that said, don't feel obligated to 'do voices.' You can just tell the players, in your own narrative voice, what the NPC says and how. "He confidently slaps you on the shoulder and loudly proclaims that your plan is stupid and that he loves it. He wants to know when we leave to enact it." "The sleazy guard sneeringly suggests that he needs to search you for weapons. He implies you look too poor to have business here, and that poor folks don't understand tipping."

[gatorized]

I've been playing dnd for about six years and dming for about three of them and I've always shyd away from using voices while dming mostly just cause i get very embarrassed when I try to use them at the table and just end up reverting back to my normal voice i was just wondering if there was anything anyone could recommend to start getting more comfortable with using voices for npcs and tips on how to make good character voices.

If you're not comfortable doing voices, don't. It's a game, not a job. You're not under any obligation to play the game in any particular way.

[Beleriphon]

If you want to add character to a character go with less voices, like accents or pitching up or down, and focus more on how you speak. Slowly, quickly, using catch phrases, or verbal tics. You can also add sounds to your speech. Winnie the Pooh for example kind of whistles when he talks.

Easy things to do are lambdacism and rhoticism. Labdacism is not pronouncing L sounds, rhoticism is not pronouncing R sounds. Both will tend to blur in W sounds. Think Elmer Fudd when using both together, or the Bishop in The Princess Bride when using just lambdacism.

You can use Malapropisms which is using the wrong word. For example all of you might say Nate has nothing but altogether tears when he's pretending to be sad. And people that can use both hand equally well are amphibious. This one takes practice, and a good vocabulary to pull of, I'd suggest using it when you want a character to come off as kind of foolish on an initial meeting and be prepared with the wrong words in advance.

It can help to get into character. If you're dealing with a creepy Hag hunch, roll your shoulders forward, stare straight at one player while addressing the whole group and try to blink as little as possible. You'd be surprise how quickly you start to talk like that character should look. In contrast if you're talking as a haughty noble recline in your chair and do your best to look like this:

Spoiler

Show

[Composer99]

So I guess the first thing to do is to ask: are you asking because you want to do voices more often, or because you feel that's part and parcel of DMing?

Whatever your answer, I feel like this thread already has lots of great suggestions of how to become more comfortable using voices, and how to get by without doing so.

However, the main thing is that I would say you should only do voices if you really want to. Don't feel obliged to do so.

Now, a more specific suggestion is that one thing you could do to create audio ambience, either as a substitute for or supplement to doing voices, is by creating sound effects with your voice. Wooden doors creaking, slabs of stone sliding across a surface, wind whistling through a crack in a window, that sort of thing. It's no substitute for paying for sound effects suites, but it has the benefit of being free.