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Regarding DM voices I find the voice follows if I use a mannerisms for certain npcs. Catty Necromancer lady - flipping my hair and gesturing as if I'm always holding a wine glass. Old Dwarven merchant with trust issues - stroking my chin and glaring more. Fish boat captain that REALLY wants to be an adventurer and is finally getting the chance - clenching my fists expectantly and never focusing my eyes on one thing. Their voices just kind of stem from that
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Apr 6, 2018 20:37
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Mendrian posted:I don't think this is a universal truth. Right, sorry, I should say: there's other things than voices to make NPCs distinct. There's how they carry themselves, how they act when they talk, how authentically or inauthentically they say things, what vocabulary they have and use. You can and should talk about how people talk, it can save you a lot of time coming up with words to put in their mouths.
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Apr 6, 2018 20:47
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MonsterEnvy posted:Yes they can for sure be applied to Greyhawk, as Greyhawk uses the Great Wheel Cosmology. Pretty much along with the Princes of Elemental Evil, Imix, Ogrémoch, Yan-C-Bin, and Olhydra there are Princes of Elemental Good. What is the source material for this? Ben-Hadar seems like a cool dude I would want in my D&D campaign and I'd like to learn more.
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Apr 6, 2018 22:10
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If you don't want to do voices, just start with "Imagine he/she sounds like Shrek/Captain Jack Sparrow/Queen Elizabeth II/Michael Caine/[appropriate Simpsons character]" and their brains will fill in the rest. If your players are meeting the local lich lord and you describe him as "Mr Burns with Skeletor's face", you probably won't have to do any more work yourself.
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Apr 6, 2018 22:27
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Anyone have a link to the sensible CR table that was scaled to player level and party size? iirc it was basically just a mathematically fair stat array for an enemy group of equal size to the party to compete. e: nevermind I just found the page. Here if anyone doesn't have it: https://songoftheblade.wordpress.com/2015/09/09/improved-monster-stats-table-for-dd-5th-edition/ Novum fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Apr 6, 2018 |
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Apr 6, 2018 22:49
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Finster Dexter posted:What is the source material for this? Ben-Hadar seems like a cool dude I would want in my D&D campaign and I'd like to learn more. They were introduced in the Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix 3. It only gives some basic details on them along with a pretty cool image of all the Archomentals as they are called.  Dragon Magazine #352 and #353 have an indepth article on all 9 Iconic Archomentals, and gives the most details of all them. Lastly 4e book Heroes of the Elemental Chaos describes the 9 Elemental Princes. (With a cool picture of Cryonax Prince of Evil Ice on the cover.) Here is the entire section on Ben-Hader form Heroes. Heroes of the Elemental Chaos posted:Of all the good archomentals, Ben-hadar, the Valorous Tempest, called Prince of the Emerald Tide and Coral Lord, has withdrawn the most and remains cloistered in his fabulous coral palace beneath the Elemental Chaos's briny sea. I just read a bit of the Monstrous Compendium and it outright says that Chan even refuses to aid any allies of Ben-Hadar or people working on his behalf. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Apr 7, 2018 |
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Apr 6, 2018 23:35
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It's actually really easy to do voices once you realize the difference tongue placement in the mouth makes. I learned a lot of this when training for improv and theater. For example, keep the tip of your tongue at the roof of your mouth. Then just speak normally. Your voice will automatically change to a little bit nasal sounding the same thing goes for keeping your tongue at the bottom of your mouth on your bottom teeth or sideteeth. It's easy to do and it's not like you have to practice a accent. Although just practice diaphragm breathing or belly breathing and your voice will change to louder more bombastic. If you find you cannot do any voices at all just try the tongue placement and speaking at a higher or lower pitch. Its rather simple and there is no way it won't change your voice. Also changing where your jaw rests while you speak like imitating a underbite along with tongue placement will cause some pretty drastic changes to your voice. Like if you put your tongue to the roof of your mouth and imitate a underbite most men at least sound like Jimmy Stewart. Hollismason fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Apr 7, 2018 |
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Apr 7, 2018 03:54
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That said,  that if you're unsure of your accents it's more than okay to just describe the accent and move on, you don't need a silly voice to make a character unique or interesting and it can get in the way.
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Apr 7, 2018 04:47
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If you want a voice just start with making your primary quest giver Diamond Joe Quimby and go from there. I ahhhh understand there are gnolls in that cave. If you could ahhhh remove them... you will be handsomely rewarded.
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Apr 7, 2018 05:27
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The trick to doing voices is just doing bad impressions. Don't hold yourself to a standard of whether or not the voice sounds off. There is no spot on. A trick movie stars use to find their characters, is by doing a bad impression of someone else. Never fix the impressions, or accents. No need to give everyone a different voice, just important reoccuring NPCs, or if you choose so, your PC.
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Apr 7, 2018 07:32
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God Of Paradise posted:The trick to doing voices is just doing bad impressions. Don't hold yourself to a standard of whether or not the voice sounds off. There is no spot on. A trick movie stars use to find their characters, is by doing a bad impression of someone else. Never fix the impressions, or accents. No need to give everyone a different voice, just important reoccuring NPCs, or if you choose so, your PC. Yeah, just giving them a weird cadence is good too. It's less embarrassing if you're worried about accents and funny voices.
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Apr 7, 2018 07:44
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I do speech mannerisms, inflection, and cadence, not "voices". You can even do them in text. I need a party of adventurers to go into the swamp and get rid of the orcs. The payment is five hundred gold pieces, non-negotiable. You guys look like you wouldn't have any trouble with this thing I gotta get done. Just get rid of the orcs in the swamp. Five hundred gold. Piece of cake. Uh... you're adventurers? Like, the fighting kind, right? Uh, there's this thing we need done, you see, and, if you've got nothing else to do, we're paying, um, five hundred gold, to, you know, just like, clear the swamp of, uh, orcs. The job's orcs. Swamp to the east. Get 'em out. Five hun'd gold. Youse in? Um guys? You guys? You know the swamp to the east? You know orcs? There's orcs in it? We need to get rid of them? Could you do it? For five hundred gold? The... swamp, to the east. Rotten with... orcs. Need someone to... remove them. Orcs... Payment is... five hundred. Gold. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 08:29 on Apr 7, 2018 |
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Apr 7, 2018 08:22
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AlphaDog posted:I do speech mannerisms, inflection, and cadence, not "voices". You can even do them in text. That was ridiculous effective. All of them instantly had their own personality and tone in my head when I read them.
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Apr 7, 2018 08:47
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Yeah, I don't do voices (outside of over the top ones for comedy characters), but mannerisms and such goes reeeeeeally far. Honestly, remember, you aren't writing a book here, and players are all far more dense and thinking about their own bullshit then you might consider. Subtle doesn't work. Gimmicks and big blunt gestures do. A character who's always vaguely out of breath whenever they talk to the PCs is way more memorable then you might think.
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Apr 7, 2018 09:19
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AlphaDog posted:I do speech mannerisms, inflection, and cadence, not "voices". You can even do them in text. When I say 'voices' that's what I mean. Those have a unique 'voice.' I suppose they aren't literally accents though some of them might qualify.
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Apr 7, 2018 09:21
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ProfessorCirno posted:Honestly, remember, you aren't writing a book here, and players are all far more dense and thinking about their own bullshit then you might consider. Subtle doesn't work. Gimmicks and big blunt gestures do. A character who's always vaguely out of breath whenever they talk to the PCs is way more memorable then you might think. Yep. Apart from the first two, those examples were moderately to comically over-exaggerated for a piece of writing. Fortunately, this is D&D where "moderately over-exaggerated" is about the minimum you want to aim for. Mendrian posted:When I say 'voices' that's what I mean. Those have a unique 'voice.' I suppose they aren't literally accents though some of them might qualify. Yes, and everyone should read advice about "giving each NPC a unique voice" as something out of creative writing 101, not literally "do a bad impersonation or a terrible accent, and try to do a different one for each NPC". Because unless you've got an amazing talent for impersonations, you're always going to do a better job ripping off a character's speech mannerisms than you are trying to imitate the actor's voice. I dunno where I stand on accents. The most I do is raise/lower the pitch of my voice a bit, or try to be a bit growly or singsong-y or something, because if I straight up try to do an accent it sounds like poo poo unless it's "australian trying to speak german with his grandma" which comes fairly naturally. I guess if you can pull them off they'd be cool and fun, but in my experience every NPC tends to end up sounding like a drunk scottish russian trying to do impersonations. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 10:05 on Apr 7, 2018 |
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Apr 7, 2018 09:34
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Spoke to my players and they've gone with a Paladin, a Cleric and a Monk, the latter of whom serves the Raven Queen. As a monk of the natural order of death, I think she'd fight the undead with martial arts, which I guess makes her a JoJo reference? Definitely going to have her face off against a vampire monk at some point. Their choices give me good hooks for enemies though. I see liches and devils in their future, and a lot of affairs of gods and mortals if they're interested in that.
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Apr 7, 2018 12:22
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Vahtooch posted:That was ridiculous effective. All of them instantly had their own personality and tone in my head when I read them. They were very good examples, because all of those could be delivered in a DM’s normal voice and still be distinctive characters, but also because (at least to me) each one immediately conjured more subtle “voices” to do that would come much more naturally than attempting a specific accent or impersonation. Just reading them, I couldn’t help but include different pitches, cadence, etc., distinctive enough that I would call them different “voices” — but they came naturally, and would require much less conscious effort than affecting almost any specific accent would.
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Apr 7, 2018 15:16
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I was thinking it was pedantic to have to specify "voices" don't have to mean "bad Scottish accents"; but no, that should probably be said.
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Apr 7, 2018 18:20
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If you're not doing bad scottish accents for dwarves i don't even know why you play the game
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Apr 7, 2018 18:55
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Novum posted:If you're not doing bad scottish accents for
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Apr 7, 2018 19:50
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Another thing for modern tables is to remind them that Critical Role is the cast of literally every video game so you shouldn't expect that from someone who's drinking beer with you in a garage.Novum posted:If you're not doing bad scottish accents for dwarves i don't even know why you play the game Because it's funnier when they're Les Mis extras.
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Apr 7, 2018 20:26
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I just flat out asked my players if they wanted me to do voices. They said because we were playing elf games that involve killing goblins, I sure as hell do stupid voices. I have actually done a combination of voices and just saying “think of this movie character, this guy sounds like him” and it has worked well.
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Apr 7, 2018 20:34
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Novum posted:If you're not doing bad I mean, it makes sense for dwarves to be russian. Easier to grow potatoes for vodka, workers always grumbling about the upper class and surface-dwellers... I could definitely see a band of adolescent dwarves in tracksuits hustling for serious money.
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Apr 7, 2018 22:29
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Out of curiosity, how do people's parties handle a) scouting of specific areas and b) overland movement in a group? For the last 15ish years I've played on and off with the one DM / group of friends that I play with, we've nearly always had a designated 'scout' in the group. For overland movement, just someone in light/no armor 100 yards ahead that had the best passive perception. For specific scouting, either a rogue or some sort of higher leveled spellcaster that could perform the same thing (animal form into a bird, flying and invis mage, many options open up) However, we're starting a campaign next week with 4 players, none of whom are setup to perform this role. Other than just being cautious, any suggestions or examples? The DM is absolutely not ok with an averaged roll for stealth, it's always per character. We've always played with house rules letting people run away fast, but at low level getting surprised can be a death sentence.
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Apr 7, 2018 23:09
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mastershakeman posted:Out of curiosity, how do people's parties handle a) scouting of specific areas and b) overland movement in a group? I don't particularly like getting too established with that stuff, since it can get bogged down in one guy doing skill rolls or getting caught in combat. That's more about GMing though. This might not be the best idea, but I'd say not to bother, and just kick the drat door down and go straight to cracking skulls. If you aren't specced for stealth, you're probably set up to be pretty good at that.
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Apr 8, 2018 01:27
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All of my dwarves are New Yorkers.
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Apr 8, 2018 02:47
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AlphaDog posted:I do speech mannerisms, inflection, and cadence, not "voices". You can even do them in text. gently caress, that’s good.
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Apr 8, 2018 03:09
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mastershakeman posted:Out of curiosity, how do people's parties handle a) scouting of specific areas and b) overland movement in a group? Overland travel. I ask the party if they're going fast or quiet. Fast gets them attacked by something en route to the dungeon. Quiet gets them to the dungeon after an enemy or rival party gets there or the residents had time to entrench themselves. In-dungeon I telegraph small tunnels and crawlspaces that get to trap back panels and hidden access doors over encouraging the players to scout. Scouting ahead hits the Shadowrun Hacker problem where the party doesn't actually watch the Rogue playing the Rogue minigame for several minutes at a time so they might get Advantage for one turn.
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Apr 8, 2018 03:48
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If you had two lore bards could they both cutting words the same roll
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Apr 9, 2018 04:24
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CaPensiPraxis posted:That said, Agreed. Our DM is hearing impaired with the knock on effect that he can't really do accents; describing the character and their voices works just as well. Also make sure the PCs know they can ask out of character questions about the appearance and apparent personality of the NPCs.
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Apr 9, 2018 04:46
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Are there any sources for monster as pc races that are both good and cheap (preferably free) out there?
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Apr 9, 2018 11:53
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So my D&D group took 4 hours to do a little roleplaying and clear the Necromancer's Cave in Princes of Apocalypse. I worked in some background info, but I think it may be too lore heavy and my group of relative newbies prefer hack and slashing and more tropey straightforward stuff, at least for this game. I'm considering sending them to the Elemental Nodes and calling it a game, then reforming into a smaller group of just the players who are actively engaged. All of them are my friends.
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Apr 9, 2018 12:42
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hangedman1984 posted:Are there any sources for monster as pc races that are both good and cheap (preferably free) out there? The dmsguild and enworld and maybe sometimes reddit would be a good bet. You'd be fine to just Google it and the top results will be the likely sites if they have anything. Faster than checking them all manually. Edit: spelling Dameius fucked around with this message at 12:52 on Apr 9, 2018 |
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Apr 9, 2018 12:44
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hangedman1984 posted:Are there any sources for monster as pc races that are both good and cheap (preferably free) out there? http://www.dmsguild.com/product/230312/Monstrous-Races $3 for every MM entry as a player race. e: fixed broken link Kaysette fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Apr 9, 2018 |
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Apr 9, 2018 13:15
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Didn't a book come out with rules for monsters as pcs recently. Like an official 5e book.
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Apr 9, 2018 13:57
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Lurdiak posted:Didn't a book come out with rules for monsters as pcs recently. Like an official 5e book. Volo’s Guide has a bunch, yeah.
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Apr 9, 2018 14:00
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Purely for theoretical purposes, what is the most broken spell combo a 6th level wizard can hope to achieve?
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Apr 9, 2018 14:34
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Kaysette posted:http://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/230312 Lurdiak posted:Didn't a book come out with rules for monsters as pcs recently. Like an official 5e book. Volo's only had a small set, though. I wonder if this DMs guild pdf has the level of details that the old 3.5 monster races stuff had, where there was level progression and details for ogre mages, orcs, etc.
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Apr 9, 2018 14:45
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Finster Dexter posted:Volo's only had a small set, though. I wonder if this DMs guild pdf has the level of details that the old 3.5 monster races stuff had, where there was level progression and details for ogre mages, orcs, etc. It doesn't have that kind of stuff since that isn't really a thing in 5e but it has 228 new race options, a bunch of improved templates for vampires, werewolves, etc., and a section for making your own races based on their formula for balancing the power of racial abilities. This thing made DMs Guild authors so salty because it's a stupid amount of content being sold for only $3 (I own it but don't have any relation to the author).
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Apr 9, 2018 14:51
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