Quote from: soviet;626805I always talk in character but I can't really do accents so everyone sounds a lot like me. I try to mix it up by varying the speech patterns and mannerisms though.

This.

Always use voices always add nuance. The idea is that i never have to say who is speaking the players just know by the voice some are accents some are just tone and modulation and vocabulary.
I have been running a murder mystery business for 15 years convincing paying members of the public i am american, irish, french, south african, etc etc and that is over 3 adlibbed sessions of 6+ hours so.
I dont tend to get up though cos i an really lazy.
However,  i only have 1 eastern european accent which considering my wife of 12 years is czech and i have a house in prague is terrible. I just can't get the polish, czech, ukranian, hungarian split so it all sound russian.... Meh.

I will do everything and anything, I am a total clown.

My favorite (and most challenging) character to voice is Marienburg Rose - an old, Dutch (in WFRP Marienburg = Holland) whore (turned madam).  She's a fun lady.  (I do my damnedest not to have her just turn into Goldmember in a dress.)

Very little. I usually do some basic voices, nothing too specific other than "old"/"kid"/"crazy", etc. And once the PCs establish a relationship with a shopkeeper or barkeep or whatever, I don't do the character unless they need to interact for some reason. "We go back to the shop and pick up some more rations and arrows" doesn't merit any in-character discussion; "we go back to the shop, dragging this ogre in chains behind us" might require something in-character, though.

I might do a gesture if that's the easiest way to convey what gesture an NPC or monster makes, but I don't do gesture for atmosphere.

As a player, I don't really like much play-acting. I prefer just enough in-character stuff to maintain the illusion that this is a "real" world. I'm not there to act, and sometimes get annoyed at people who are. So, for better or worse, that's the way I GM, too: the way I want people to GM when I'm playing.

Put me on the clown/ham list.  Traditionally I'm a standing-GM as well, stomping about; since I've been GMing online the last year or so, I've found I had to adjust my style and do even more with voice to make up for the inability to limp around the room.

I love doing accents and mannerisms. I probably suck at it, but people probably humor me because they're too lazy to GM.

If you aren't acting (play acting, it's all the same) then you are doing it wrong.

There's nothing worse than a group of gamers, not just the GM either, who, despite being dedicated gamers, suddenly become all self conscious. I don't know what it is about these people but when the game starts suddenly they become like schoolkids hearing the word 'Uranus' for the first time.

Get into it! You created your character, play him! If you're the GM, then you've got a world as your gallery. Go nuts. We aren't here to win oscars and if people ridicule it then they aren't people to play with. There's nothing worse than people that don't make the effort to play their character!

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;627271If you aren't acting (play acting, it's all the same) then you are doing it wrong.

Christ, I'm having badwrongfun again? If I'd only known, all this time. :rolleyes:

Play-acting is a gaming-playstyle preference - like including narrative mechanics, or playing with minis or not. Not everyone who games goes for that kind of shtick. It has fuck-all to do with being self-conscious.

I don't do it much. I'm not really very animated, so I have a feeling if I forced it, it would become off-putting.

The acting bit becomes less and less as the player number decreases.  It could be said that it rises as the number of players rises too.  Half empty / Half full.  In anycase, the acting becomes cumbersome with small groups in my experience, with the mechanics of the game becoming more central.  So, I play complex games for very small groups and light games for large groups.  That's how it works for me anyway.

Oddly, I've had the opposite reaction: the smaller the group, the more play-acting.
It's really a time thing; with a smaller group, each person gets more face-time, so we're able to delve deeper into character.

Quote from: K Peterson;627297Christ, I'm having badwrongfun again? If I'd only known, all this time. :rolleyes:

Play-acting is a gaming-playstyle preference - like including narrative mechanics, or playing with minis or not. Not everyone who games goes for that kind of shtick. It has fuck-all to do with being self-conscious.

Yeah, apparently I too have been having twenty-odd years of badwrongfun.

I enjoy playing a character from the 1st person point-of-view, and making decisions based on how s/he sees the world... but I don't need to talk in funny voices and adopt certain mannerisms to do so.

I occasionally do accents and mannerisms, and I probably suck at it as well.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;626780So, to all the GM's out there, how much playacting do you do? Talk in character? Different voices, speech tempo, foreign accent? Walk and gesture like them? Pantomime sword swings and the like? Or sit at the table and narrate?

What's your preferred style?

Lots of playacting. So much that I minored in theatre in college. I find it makes the game more fun for me and the Players.

The trick I've learned is that it isn't neccessarily knowing how to playact a character, it is knowing when to do that and knowing when to narrate.