Quote from: RPGPundit;589292I have yet to find a personality I couldn't become.  That's one of my biggest strengths as a GM, and my players regularly say so.

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One of the GMs in my group is like this, he can become any character and make you believe it.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;589344One of the GMs in my group is like this, he can become any character and make you believe it.

For some people, that's thanks to drama school; for me, its magick.

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Hmmm, I do quite a bit of voices, when I want a NPC to be memorable.
I've probably learned more French, German, Danish, Spanish, and Russian from impersonations, than active study (though I still feel my Russian accent is more "Boris & Natasha", than a genuine article...).

I DO fall into some tropes though, which my players have pointed out...
If the accent is Australian, they are invariably Good Guys.
If the accent is English, they are invariably Bad Guys. (I blame American movies, for this one)
If the character is hardcore military, they are invariably my R. Lee Ermey impersonation.

I've got pretty much any range of english-language accents; and over the past several years have been working my spanish; its very difficult to do some english accents in spanish (for example, my scottish accent is impeccable, but trying to do it in spanish is almost impossible).


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I can't do accents to well (to my chagrin). What I do make sure I do is to try to bring each and every character I introduce alive. I make sure not to overdo it until I'm sure the players are interested in the character. The more engaged the players are to the NPC the more personality I give to them. If asked, my personal friends/players all have a favorite character (or a couple) that I've introduced and those are the real keepers.

Interestingly enough, Indian, French and italian accents all sound the same in Spanish or English for me, but Scottish accents are impossible.

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Quote from: RPGPundit;589952Interestingly enough, Indian, French and italian accents all sound the same in Spanish or English for me, but Scottish accents are impossible.

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French and Italian aren't surprising, since they're also Romance languages (Latin-based). No idea about Indian's similarity, though.

I figure the "Scottish burr" and the rolling R's of Spanish don't work well together. And it's not like Sean Connery helped us any, with his portrayal as Ramirez in Highlander...

Quote from: Novastar;589955I figure the "Scottish burr" and the rolling R's of Spanish don't work well together. And it's not like Sean Connery helped us any, with his portrayal as Ramirez in Highlander...

...who was originally an Egyptian born around 900BCE.  

Quote from: stormbringer;590006...who was originally an egyptian born around 900bce.  

ye gods

As a player, I treat my characters as avatars and engage what interests me as it develops. So it varies, but not because I'm making any special effort to vary it. Common threads include selfishness and oddness that don't quite get to the point of sociopathy or craziness.

As a GM, personality fluff isn't my strong point. I make ample use of motive, means, relationships, etc. to vary NPCs. Every so often a unique cadence bleeds in for a villain, but that's about as voicey as I get. More of the personality comes through in actions or visual descriptions than in dialogue or voices.

Whatever my accent is, my voice is too low for certain ages or for female characters, and it would feel odd to alter my voice for some NPCs and not others.

Quote from: MGuy;589738I can't do accents to well (to my chagrin). What I do make sure I do is to try to bring each and every character I introduce alive. I make sure not to overdo it until I'm sure the players are interested in the character. The more engaged the players are to the NPC the more personality I give to them. If asked, my personal friends/players all have a favorite character (or a couple) that I've introduced and those are the real keepers.

In retrospect most of the interesting NPCs I used started dull and "grew" personalities over sessions. Usually they were characters the party found interesting somehow.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;588616Nothing to do with mechanics, just character personalities. Honestly speaking, as a GM and player what range of characters are you comfortable playing? For example do you have an easy time playing arrogant nobles and bored shop keepers, but a harder time playing a slang-speaking rogue or street thug? Maybe you can play old crones just fine, but are less at ease playing a Femme fatale?

Related to that, how do you devise your charater's personality? Do you let it emerge naturally through play, construct a detialed character history/personality before-hand, model the character on real people or images, etc.

As a GM, I play all kinds of people. I am not shy about it.

When I'm a player, my preference and comfort level is narrower.

I don't know exactly why this is the case, but I guess it's that I need to have a stronger connection to a PC than I do an NPC, and that means getting deeper into their heads than I need to for an NPC, and there's some kinds of characters I am not terribly interested in becoming on that level.

I can get into the personality of any npc.

The voices and accents are not something I am good at.

Hardest NPCs to do well are the sympathetic monsters. You know the generous kindly paedophile, the honourable heroic racist, they push the limits.

Quote from: jibbajibba;590559Hardest NPCs to do well are the sympathetic monsters. You know the generous kindly paedophile, the honourable heroic racist, they push the limits.

Do you have many calls for that kind of thing?

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