Friendship is Dragons
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Page 362 - Narration Dissonance
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One DM of mine could put a nice hiss in his voice, for sort of reptilian characters.
That was about all he could do, but he did it well.
That was about all he could do, but he did it well.
I try to do voices when I DM just because it's good practice for voice acting. I don't have the range I'd like yet, but it's fun and lets me do accents. (I've nearly perfected Irish and I'm working on Russian)
I do voices for all of my characters. But I don't write them down. So sometimes I forget. Like when I'm supposed to be doing Russian but I accidentally slip into Scottish and I'm like "how did that even happen?"
Well actually, a guy types the comics-
Or are you just referring to the pretty horses?
Or are you just referring to the pretty horses?
(I think he just got here, and I don't think he knows about bronies, either.) This is a gender neutral-type comic! And a very good comic, I agree with you there! You won't understand it as much if you have not seen the show My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, but seeing your avatar you must be a fan of animation. If you can get over the initial "girl type" feeling and suspend your masculinity to see the show for what it is, you could really enjoy it. Animation, characters, and action (yes, ponies do battle with fantasy-style monsters) are all very good, and the humor is nothing to laugh about! The main benefit is the fanbase, though, where you will find good comics like this, friends, art, stories, and good times! (He is never going to read this, is he?)
"The humor is nothing to laugh about" I smiled way to much when I read that.
Its good to see my writing is sometimes legible, and perhaps enjoyable on occasion.
Okay, so my "shippers unite" didn't work out so well
Back to what I do best
Poll time:
If Pinkie Pie could be with another of the mane 6, who would it be?
Me: This is tough, but I'm gonna go for,
Fluttershy. No real reason.
By the way back when I did favorite mane 6, I forgot to tell the results.
The winner was Fluttershy, followed by Rainbow Dash. The other 4 was to close to tell.
Back to what I do best
Poll time:
If Pinkie Pie could be with another of the mane 6, who would it be?
Me: This is tough, but I'm gonna go for,
Fluttershy. No real reason.
By the way back when I did favorite mane 6, I forgot to tell the results.
The winner was Fluttershy, followed by Rainbow Dash. The other 4 was to close to tell.
Can you expand upon the "be with another" part?
Tangent~ I would love to see an episode where Pinkie and Applejack get lost in the everfree forest together, where Pinkie needs to learn to be serious when the situation calls for it, and AJ needs to learn to chill out and remain positive. Maybe through some Abbot & Castello references in there too. I dunno.
Tangent~ I would love to see an episode where Pinkie and Applejack get lost in the everfree forest together, where Pinkie needs to learn to be serious when the situation calls for it, and AJ needs to learn to chill out and remain positive. Maybe through some Abbot & Castello references in there too. I dunno.
Ah. I dunno, can't see Pinkie as swinging that way, or much in any way really. She seems to be pretty much set on having all the friends in the world rather than focus on just one pony.
All of them, in serial rotation.
If it had to be just one, then it would be Applejack, in cereal.
If it had to be just one, then it would be Applejack, in cereal.
I have to give the kind of uncommon thought to sail Pinkie-Dash. But, I also blame Forest Rain's 'The Party Hasn't Ended' for it, too.
Clarification (cause I can't edit myself): Pony1Kenobie did it first, I happened to find Forest Rain's upload with Decibelle doing a vocal cover.
Does... Does this seriously need to be discussed? Here? Of all places?
I don't really like shipping Pinkie, since I find it hard to picture her in a relationship and all the other Mane 6 go better with other ponies.
Since you're forcing me though, I'll say Rainbow. Although she works better with Twilight, Applejack and Flutterhy better, in that order
Since you're forcing me though, I'll say Rainbow. Although she works better with Twilight, Applejack and Flutterhy better, in that order
I hate to be rude, but why are you doing these polls here, this is for dungeons and dragons, not shipping, etc. If you want that, go to eqd.
I've had already used up my backup polls.
You think a month of no polls would help.
It didn't.
You think a month of no polls would help.
It didn't.
Twilight or Dash mke the most sense to ship with Pinkie to me, if one feels the need to ship.
I'm pretty good at deep voices, so a lot of my dark brooding BBEGs tend to be entertaining with their sinister speeches. One of my more infamous villains was an evil cleric who sounded like Dr. Robotnik from the Sonic "SatAM" cartoon series. It fit even more when the Phantom of the Oprah style metal mask he always wore turned out to not be a simple mask! :o
As a DM I always tried to voice characters in a way that would keep my friends interested in the game I was playing, even if I was not terribly good at it. At one point I made up a kobold NPC on the fly with a hilarious voice. One of my players laughed out loud when he heard the scaly critter speak, and demanded that I give him a name. In that instant SqueeeEAAAZLLE! was born. He was then destined for cameos in the rest of the game, naturally, and always with my signature voice.
Topic of the Day: talk about a time when some random improvisation on the DM's part became a valuable or memorable asset to the campaign.
Oh, and remember that Ann lies.
Signed,
The Other One.
Topic of the Day: talk about a time when some random improvisation on the DM's part became a valuable or memorable asset to the campaign.
Oh, and remember that Ann lies.
Signed,
The Other One.
The most fun I've ever had playing a character is with my current Pathfinder game- I'm playing an Old (as in, -3 to all physical stats "Old") Dwarf Sorcerer. Doing a wheezy old guy voice is a blast.
Voice performance is a really handy tool. A slight shift in register, speed, and most importantly *vocabulary* can do wonders. My Grumpy Cleric and David-Tennant-as-Pinkie-Pie Bard are my native voice, at different speeds (and more exasperated sighs from the Cleric). The accents and impersonations are a slippery slope. When the talking spiders and the creepy ex-torturer NPC healer both sound like Peter Lorre, someone *will* call you on it.
As a player, a vocal tweak can help get you in the character mindset. I find having a voice makes it easier to assign a personality. As a bonus, In-character and out-of-character speech are easier to tell apart.
As a player, a vocal tweak can help get you in the character mindset. I find having a voice makes it easier to assign a personality. As a bonus, In-character and out-of-character speech are easier to tell apart.
I always try to add voice to the characters I play. My issue is that they end up being Scottish even when I don't want them to be. My Edinburgh accent just keeps coming up.
And the worst thing is that you're actually from Vermont!
The ONE time I played a dwarf in D&D, I purposely avoided the stereotypical dwarf voice by using a Spanish accent. Harder than I thought as sterotypes can be difficult to buck. XD
Oddly, I seem to recall someone complaining about Gary Gygax's one stab at writing fantasy novels because he gave his dwarf an Austrian accent.
Not that this tells me if the novel was any good, but there's just no pleasing some people.
Not that this tells me if the novel was any good, but there's just no pleasing some people.
I got a chance to voice act for my character the last time I played Pathfinder. It was a lot of fun. =)
Funny that you'd mention Christopher Walken impressions while Mark Evanier's observation that every voice actor in L.A. has one is still fresh in my mind.
I've never tried to do Christopher Walken's voice. I've attempted to follow June Foray's lead on a pirate captain (as Witch Hazel) and her first mate (as Natasha), though... which meant I felt compelled to run the sahuagin baron that showed up later with the voice of Bullwinkle J. Moose.
Then there's a time I played a hamadryad as Kirsten Stewart, just for the opportunity to deliver "wooden" acting...
It goes without saying that none of these were good impressions.
I've never tried to do Christopher Walken's voice. I've attempted to follow June Foray's lead on a pirate captain (as Witch Hazel) and her first mate (as Natasha), though... which meant I felt compelled to run the sahuagin baron that showed up later with the voice of Bullwinkle J. Moose.
Then there's a time I played a hamadryad as Kirsten Stewart, just for the opportunity to deliver "wooden" acting...
It goes without saying that none of these were good impressions.
I'm really bad at doing any sort of accent, unless I include lyrics from Irish or Scottish folksongs. Those are the only two I can do easily, since I listen to a lot of Celtic music and much of it (even in English) is incomprehensible if you don't already know the lyrics. The Corries in particular had very strong accents.
Much easier for me is online play-by-post RPing; I'm able to pull in bits and pieces from much of the fiction I read. George MacDonald Fraser's McAuslan series is particularly good if you want to learn to speak Glaswegian.
Much easier for me is online play-by-post RPing; I'm able to pull in bits and pieces from much of the fiction I read. George MacDonald Fraser's McAuslan series is particularly good if you want to learn to speak Glaswegian.
The DM in my current campaign has this crazy arcaeologist dwarf NPC with a sort of Indian-Pakistani-type accent. It's great, we all love the guy.
I love to do voices whenever I can for my games, but I always seem to end up defaulting to a few major voices I do well, which have pretty much grown to become associated with the major characters I used them for, which can make for some personal confusion when I try to make the voice sound different without being strained. My other problem is that no matter HOW I try to vary the accents, they always somehow end up with at least a pinch of East Tennessee drawl thrown in there. I've gotten much better at it and no one seems to notice, but all the same it's kind of hilarious when I catch myself slipping.
I once tried to do a voice clip of me talking to myself as my different characters who used the same or similar voice to get a good feel for their differences. I don't just do this when I GM, though, I do this when I am a player as well. I find it is a great way to let people know what's in character and what's out of character so there are fewer misunderstandings.
Apparently I'm very good at doing slimy and untrustworthy voices and characters. I blame my love of playing the Lawful Evil alignment.
I once tried to do a voice clip of me talking to myself as my different characters who used the same or similar voice to get a good feel for their differences. I don't just do this when I GM, though, I do this when I am a player as well. I find it is a great way to let people know what's in character and what's out of character so there are fewer misunderstandings.
Apparently I'm very good at doing slimy and untrustworthy voices and characters. I blame my love of playing the Lawful Evil alignment.
I was gming a sci-fi game based on Faster Than Light. I gave the players an npc pilot so they could focus on other things (ie combat). I voiced the pilot with a Scottish accent... Except it kept veering off into some kind of Indian accent. They loved it, though.
Voices are one of my big strengths in terms of the performance part of DMing. I've actually made my characters feel bad for a bugbear that was trying to kill them less than a minute ago.
There was this guy who used to run Marvel Advanced. He could impersonate a huge range of voices. It was loads of fun gaming with him, because his characterizations were spot-on.
My favorite voice he did was in a game I was running, where he was playing Wolverine, like a cross between Freddy Krueger and The Punisher. Of course, he was partnered with a handful of Teen Titans and X-Men (the X-Men Evolution teenage versions,) so he probably had a reason to be so grumpy all the time.
Anyway, the group were part of a bubble-universe DC/Marvel crossover I was running, which would in theory reset once the time traveler was dealt with. It turned out Vandal Savage, the immortal, had come up with a plan to use the Marvel-verse immortal time traveler Trevor Fitzroy to jump back in time and conquer the world with advance knowledge of what was coming. In order to prevent Fitzroy from jumping further back and changing anything, he vivisected Fitzroy, stapling his body parts to a huge whiteboard, and even labeling things, just to add insult to injury. Since Fitzroy didn't have regeneration, all he could do was stay pinned to that board and suffer.
The PC's finally make it into Cheyenne Mountain, where Savage has made his home. Wolverine rides a jet plane into the side of the mountain, he Adamantium-enhanced body surviving the punch into the complex, but he is taken to the morgue in a blood-soaked heap. Eventually, you see three blades punch out of a body bag, and slowly cut it open. Cue transition to new scene...
Later, when the PC's reunited with him in the final fight, they see Fitzroy pinned to the wall. Wolverine just spares him a moment's glance, smirks, and in a perfect Hugh Jackman impersonation growls, "Pull yourself together, man!"
We laughed for a good five minutes after that.
My favorite voice he did was in a game I was running, where he was playing Wolverine, like a cross between Freddy Krueger and The Punisher. Of course, he was partnered with a handful of Teen Titans and X-Men (the X-Men Evolution teenage versions,) so he probably had a reason to be so grumpy all the time.
Anyway, the group were part of a bubble-universe DC/Marvel crossover I was running, which would in theory reset once the time traveler was dealt with. It turned out Vandal Savage, the immortal, had come up with a plan to use the Marvel-verse immortal time traveler Trevor Fitzroy to jump back in time and conquer the world with advance knowledge of what was coming. In order to prevent Fitzroy from jumping further back and changing anything, he vivisected Fitzroy, stapling his body parts to a huge whiteboard, and even labeling things, just to add insult to injury. Since Fitzroy didn't have regeneration, all he could do was stay pinned to that board and suffer.
The PC's finally make it into Cheyenne Mountain, where Savage has made his home. Wolverine rides a jet plane into the side of the mountain, he Adamantium-enhanced body surviving the punch into the complex, but he is taken to the morgue in a blood-soaked heap. Eventually, you see three blades punch out of a body bag, and slowly cut it open. Cue transition to new scene...
Later, when the PC's reunited with him in the final fight, they see Fitzroy pinned to the wall. Wolverine just spares him a moment's glance, smirks, and in a perfect Hugh Jackman impersonation growls, "Pull yourself together, man!"
We laughed for a good five minutes after that.
"BOFF!"
"Boff?"
"Boff."
I don't know about the sounds, but I'm very much enjoying what you're doing with the "voices" here.
"Boff?"
"Boff."
I don't know about the sounds, but I'm very much enjoying what you're doing with the "voices" here.
I once witnessed a GM use "BA-THROOM!!" for an explosion sound. I forget where he found that weird idea, but he used it when the party detonated a house, so I guess it was kind of relevant.
Player: "Down the hall, to your left..."
Let's see. An check on one of Twilight's weaker skills to avoid distraction, followed by a GM roll when the she passes anyway, followed by 'hey isn't it REALLY INTERESTING what my PC is doing?' What was it Twilight said last time? Ah yes. "Yes, yes... here are the rails, I shall follow them." :V
Given that I have a tendancy to run female NPCs, it's not easy for me to do voices(being a dude and all). I do try to get character mannerisms down when I can.
Female voices are difficult for me as well (also a dude). I can sometimes do a decent "old crone witch" voice, but that's about it.
I used to be able to do a very good female voice. My friends HATED it when I used it over the phone. xP Ever since I turned 16, though, that voice has left me. So has my Scottish accent. I can still do an Indian accent well, and almost a Spanish one, but mah Suthern Drawwl is my best accent, even though I've never been down south. Wheezy Old Man will be forever easy, though.
Ah, DM voices. They always make for the best in-jokes!
I remember one game I was DMing where the party was trying to interrogate a goblin, and only one party member actually SPOKE goblin. So after said party member offered them a few gold and his freedom in exchange for some information I told him "the goblin says 'agreed.'" Then I turned to the other players and said, "the goblin says 'wagh.'" (think the sound Penguin makes in Batman Returns).
For some reason, everyone thought this was HILARIOUS, and literally years later, one guy from that group will still ask me every now and then "Hey Chris, what sound does a goblin make again?"
I remember one game I was DMing where the party was trying to interrogate a goblin, and only one party member actually SPOKE goblin. So after said party member offered them a few gold and his freedom in exchange for some information I told him "the goblin says 'agreed.'" Then I turned to the other players and said, "the goblin says 'wagh.'" (think the sound Penguin makes in Batman Returns).
For some reason, everyone thought this was HILARIOUS, and literally years later, one guy from that group will still ask me every now and then "Hey Chris, what sound does a goblin make again?"
DMs cry.
You know, I've been reading the comics for awhile. And while Spud keeps me entertained with the comics above, atleast 90% of my time spent on the page is reading the comments. I'm not gonna lie when I say that I was almost severly disappointed when I didn't see the name Raxon appear until the current bottom of the page.
As I usually DM or GM over skype IMs, I haven't had to do this in a while. I do love to do the various voices though.
One of my friends is much better than me at it. I've had games where I give voice control of NPCs to him... I also had one game where EVERYONE controlled one NPC antagonist. As his persona was established early on and 'too funny to misuse' it worked well. And that was Orc, high priest of Baghtru, Orc god of stupidity (and strength and loyalty, but we had it as mainly stupidity).
One of my friends is much better than me at it. I've had games where I give voice control of NPCs to him... I also had one game where EVERYONE controlled one NPC antagonist. As his persona was established early on and 'too funny to misuse' it worked well. And that was Orc, high priest of Baghtru, Orc god of stupidity (and strength and loyalty, but we had it as mainly stupidity).
One of the greatest moments of Amber ever was a dragon which was described as huge and fearsome, then Mike broke out in a super-squeaky voice for it and we all laughed hugely.
Awful accents are my forte. I can hold exactly one accent: My native one. However, I can DO over thirty accents... Just not consistently, and they tend to travel between similar sounding ones. It does make for interesting "fantasy" accents though, when the Dwarf speaks with a Irish/English/Scottish/French accent, and the orcs speak with blended Russian/German/Jamaican accents, making them quite unplaceable. My co-gamers mock me for it, but complain when I don't do them too.
I mostly just use subtle voice acting as I worry if I do a voice poorly it will be more distracting than not doing one at all.
Although in a recent Eclipse Phase session the group did compliment me on my voice work. Their characters were literally losing their minds and they commented that my deep monotone had a very creepy HAL 9000 vibe
Although in a recent Eclipse Phase session the group did compliment me on my voice work. Their characters were literally losing their minds and they commented that my deep monotone had a very creepy HAL 9000 vibe
As always, the acceptable standard depends on the group and the DM, and it's never expected to be a perfect performance in any case. This is a gaming session, after all.