There can be pressure on those both new and seasoned to TTRPG’s, especially GM’s, to do voices when roleplaying. After all, you see big personalities and talented actors online playing their games and able to do endless voices.
So, do you need to at your game? And does it take away from play if you don’t?
Dorian is really great at voices, though he has done professional voice acting training, did the narration for our audio book, and has done a variety of commercial work across his career. He can do different accents, mannerisms, and tones of voice.
I consider myself less prolific. I can do a couple of accents and switch between a few different tones. But otherwise, if I’m voicing multiple characters at once, most of them end up sounding the same.
Across our handful of players at the table, only one put on a voice. Most just altered their mannerism of speaking to be more aligned with their character. Sometimes that ends up being a very subtle difference, other times a major difference.
You should, by no means, feel obligated to whip out a bunch of crazy voices when roleplaying just because someone on TV does it. This is especially true if you’re not comfortable with it or feeling insecure.
My suggestion is to add “narration” to your dialogue to inform others at the table who you are roleplaying. For example, I’m female and when I do roleplay, I have pretty much one Man Voice I use for my male characters. It’s a little deeper and little raspy and that’s all I got.
So to help, I’ll add in narration tags.
“Wash seems uncomfortable and says…”
“Taliesin speaks up…”
“Sen shakes his head and says…”
It helps Dorian know who I am speaking as, which is crucial in situations where we have a large group of characters all together.
Helpful Tips!
- Your mannerism of speaking is usually more important than a perfect accent.
- Add dialogue tags before each character speaks to help clarify.
- Character voices may be immersive and fun, but they are not essential to enjoying a TTRPG.