I know some good gamers who have annoying habits.
One of which is playing characters with accents or who speak english as a second language, and insisting on doing the accent or poor english.
Ever watch "matalacopalypse" on cartoon network? Imagine gaming with guys who talk in character like the swedes from that show.
Or groundskeeper willie....
Or boris badenov...
Or apache chief. (Oh god, that one was bad....)
Or Hercule Poirot. (Ze horror, ze horror...)
When playing a character with an accent do you usually talk in the accent to play in character and if so do you run the accent as a joke or seriously? It's fun at times, but man can it get old...
I only talk in the accent if I can pull it off without the whole table giggling.
I have a friend who made our shortlived Witchcraft game way more hilarious than it was meant to be due to his bad Russian accent.
I always speak in accents, usually after a short while they morph into a very bad Arnie accent.
I find that this enhances the game experience.
Always do accents but I figure if I can run one at a Murder mystery weekend for 3 days and actually convince people I am Irish/South African/French/Italian/Scots its probably good enough for an RPG.
In my PBEM game I try to give each NPC a different 'voice' as well so hopefully the players can tell who is speaking without me havign to point it out. Seems to be working so far.
Always do accents but I figure if I can run one at a Murder mystery weekend for 3 days and actually convince people I am Irish/South African/French/Italian/Scots its probably good enough for an RPG.
In my PBEM game I try to give each NPC a different 'voice' as well so hopefully the players can tell who is speaking without me havign to point it out. Seems to be working so far.
Quote from: Saphim;396076I only talk in the accent if I can pull it off without the whole table giggling.
I'm the exact reverse , I only do accents as campy comic relief .
I reserve them for "lite" games , usally filler between "heavy" campagins .
My accents are terrible and I use them often.
I played Borat for two years in a Traveller campaign!
When your character has an accent, everyone knows when you're speaking in character...
It doesn't happen often, but yeah, we do it. I've had a soft-spoken Dublin accented fighter and a friend has had a monty python accented Frenchman. It becomes part of the character over a longer campaign.
Typically, I use accents seriously. And badly.
C'est la vie.
If I need to be serious and can't pull off an accent, I will instead usually adopt a special tone, meter or facial expression to signal to my players when I am switching to a different NPC voice. After awhile you have to get very creative. I think one of my more "out there" ideas (but most successful) was the use of beer cans.
In one of my campaign worlds there are intelligent constructs. For the purpose of this discussion they are functionally similar to Warforged. Anyway, if I needed to give an important construct a voice I would speak into an empty can. Even developed a collection of three sizes for some important NPCs.
You should try it some time. Don't waste the beer. Wash the cans between sessions. :D
I do accents, hilariously bad. I also have a series of "pro-wrestler" voices which I think are awesome. Stay in school, brother!
One of the regular players at regular LFR gamenight is from Ireland. He once asked me why I made all of the villians british. I said "I find the British to be sinister".
He said he agreed.
Quote from: Abyssal Maw;396146One of the regular players at regular LFR gamenight is from Ireland. He once asked me why I made all of the villians british. I said "I find the British to be sinister".
He said he agreed.
American cinematogrophy has long held the same belief. ;)
I'm fairly good with accents (due to a combination of luck, being multilingual, and a world traveller), and I use a lot of characters with accents in my games. They're generally well-received.
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Quote from: RPGPundit;396178I'm fairly good with accents (due to a combination of luck, being multilingual, and a world traveller), and I use a lot of characters with accents in my games. They're generally well-received.
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I just hope to god you never sound like peter ustinov's "Poirot".
Mon dieu, ze horror, zee horrrrror.
I'm good with accents, even with languages I can't speak. I have a very good hearing for accents and pronountiation. :) So I use them a lot.
When I want a comic effect, I will exaggerate them, of course.
It depends on my mood and the accent. When I do them, I like to go all out. But if I am tired or just not feeling it, I just say (the guy has a BLANK accent). For some reason, Scottish accents are very difficult for me.
Accents are challenging, adds to verisimilitude and laughs!
I try to mimic facial expression and hand gestures as well to add depth and immersion. Have even gone so far as to have some small items of equipment/clothing the character would use at the table!
:)
Quote from: Abyssal Maw;396146*snip*
One of the regular players at regular LFR gamenight is from Ireland. He once asked me why I made all of the villians british. I said "I find the British to be sinister".
He said he agreed.
ohh the humanity...:rotfl:
Quote from: Cylonophile;396221I just hope to god you never sound like peter ustinov's "Poirot".
Mon dieu, ze horror, zee horrrrror.
Which is pretty funny when you consider Ustinov's dad was Russian/German/Etheopian his mother was Russian/French/Italian and he spoke French, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Turkish and Greek fluently :)
Quote from: Cylonophile;396221I just hope to god you never sound like peter ustinov's "Poirot".
Mon dieu, ze horror, zee horrrrror.
I've done both, the silly accent, and the realistic ones.
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