Don't Overcomplicate Your Accents | Dungeons and Dragons

Accents are another great tool to expand your Dungeons and Dragons character voices. And they are incredibly easy to do. Let's look at how to break down D&D accents and we'll take a deeper dive into some of the most popular UK accents like RP, Scottish, Irish, Cockney and more.

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[vinniehurford]

As a Brit, I was nervous for you when you said this was going to be UK accents, but you knocked it out of the park, clearly know what you're talking about.

Also, great shout on Taskmaster, Cats does Countdown & Would I Lie To You! Didn't realise anyone outside of our little country watched them!

[Gouka]

For those who don’t want to try accents, remember that a simple change in pitch/tone can massively set one character apart from another!

[alimargaming]

4 years of AP and Honors English and high school, and they never even broke down language as much as you have. This is great!

[MrHikitori]

My group challenged me to try a New Zealand accent with my rogue. It's been challenging and fun, but I find I slip into slightly British about halfway through sessions. It works though, and it's been a lot of fun with my group!

[mikegould]

I tend to pick up some accents simply by hearing them for long enough. Watching excellent Netflix programs like Derry Girls will develop the Northern Ireland accent, whereas Shetland refined how I do a Scottish (Edinburgh) accent. I also watch Scotland History Tours on YouTube, and Bruce is a great resource for not only picking up the accent, but TEACHING you the accent. Hell, my wife will say things like "You've only been watching this for 30 minutes and you're already naturalized. WTF?"
Also, I mix and match cultures. For instance, giving my Hobgoblins the West Africa (Kenyan) accent, while making their nomenclature Chinese presents a unique blend of what you say and how you say it. I also over-accentuated how consonants were pronounced. Ts, Ks, Rs and so on were never skipped. Everything was spoken with a very open-mouth way, like you were trying to intentionally be lip-read. This had the dramatic effect of giving the Khanate a very serious attitude and approach. You know that if they said anything, they meant it. There was zero subtlety.
When I played a Drow, I used a middle-eastern/Isreali accent blended with mixing my verb tense. I felt that Undercommon would switch sentence structure like how we compare French and English. (Adjective then Noun in English, Noun then Adjective in French) This translated, in my head, to mixing up tenses. Zmey would not say "Have you eaten lunch?". He would say "You are eating done, yes?" His verbs were always present tense. "I am being angry. You are provoking The Dragon, which is being foolish, cur."
Most accents in real life are a lot more subtle than how many try to portray them too. Consider "pulling back" a little when trying them out. Practice saying common things you see in a new accent. Describe what your eating or what's in the fridge.
Not everyone needs to go full ham and develop a new language (Which I did. I have my own Orc dialect. Let's face it, I have a problem), but if you do, consider the mouth structure of the speaker. Do they have tusks, fangs, pointed teeth, large noses (or none at all) or any other factor that may affect pronunciation. Do they go back and forth between languages? (Like perhaps a Half Elf saying some words in Elvish and the rest in Common. I do this with my Half-Orcs, speaking in a blend of Common and Orc.)
Lastly, does a culture accompany language with body language/gestures? We saw this The Mandolorian/Boba Fett when they were talking with Tuskens. This comes from indigenous cultures, and is an excellent example of how to make conversations more than a simple exchange of words. I can totally see Wood Elf cultures having a sign-language all their own to aid in quiet hunting, or Gnolls using hand signs to plan ambushes. Sea Elves, Sahaughin, and other aquatic cultures likely have a similar method for communicating where words cannot be heard.

EDIT: I forgot one more thing. Consider if a particular culture doesn't have a word in their language. Or a word that has no equivalent in Common. For instance, my Red Sun Khanate Hobgoblins have no word for "love". Therefore, when one of my PCs married into the Khanate, their vow to each other was "I belong to you" instead of "I love you". They wear no wedding rings. Their palms are tied together around a dagger and the blade is drawn, cutting both palms. Showing your scarred palm like you were saying "stop" is a way to display your marital status and proclaim that "you belong".

[drinnik]

I do try accents, but they always end up somewhere around Somerset or Devon.

When I ran a Call of Cthulhu, I skipped a step and just set it up around the West Country.

[FunkyHonkyCDXX]

I had a wild magic sorcerer in one game, and at the start of it I tried to give her a german accent. It varied SO MUCH that I decided that it was an aspect of her wild magic origins and gave her a different voice almost every time she talked. It seemed to work well enough and I really enjoyed playing as her during that campaign.

[FleetfootMike]

There's also the flatness of vowels - contrast northern English 'tasskmasster' with RP 'tarskmarster'.

[jaketionary]

These voice videos have been absolutely great, and as a Texican, you speak Spanish at least as good as I do (I forget ladder and neighbor all the time). Your insight is great, and your attitude has been getting me hyped for games since your Starfinder coverage; thanks for the great content and work!

[stepgamerdad]

German & American English native speaker here. A few tips if you want to do a German inspired accent in English:
- "w" at the beginning of a word is pronounced more like a soft "v" as in valley
- a soft "G" as in "German" sounds like "ch" as in chair
- glottal "G" are formed a bit further back in the throat than in English, but not so far that it becomes a "k" sound.
-"th" is similar to "z" as in zoo
-"r" is usually rolled, as seen in the video

If you want to get a good feel for it, listen to Christoph Waltz in many of his English speaking roles.

[BrokenVisorStudios]

Listening to the accent is a great tip. I listen to a Scottish futbol podcast to help with my kobold artificer.
I also always use a trigger phrase to help get me into character. A sentence I can speak near perfectly with an accent

[horizon]

I love this advice! I just wanted to clarify the rhotic /r/ omission though. In RP, the rhotic /r/ is dropped in syllable final environments, but not syllable initial environments. So the /r/ in car and mother is dropped, but not the /r/ in rose or regal.

[Armaggedon]

Spending that much time stressing to be respectful earned my like.

[travisterry]

I'm from Alabama. One of my favorite characters was a knowledge domain cleric with a Minnesota accent. I had to practice for 20 minutes before each session to get into character. Loved it.

[Urrelles]

Dude this breakdown is pure gold. Breaking down specific letter use is so helpful.

[CharlesKhan]

I just like going REAL big and as far over the top as possible. Lets really ham it up, thats the real fun of this game.

[frostburn]

Thank you for making this, Cody! I've gotten pretty good at an Irish accent already (mostly reserved for Samuel Saegrell (high pitch, fast, gruff), owner of Sorcerous Steelcraft, the magic shop that has a storefront in every major city) and I can't wait to use these tips and tricks to make the NPCs in my campaign feel more unique!

[mattkuhn]

While I definitely understand the performance anxiety that comes with using accents like this for the first time, I've got to say yours are great for an admitted non-expert! As a linguist, I think the one thing I would add would be a suggestion to anyone who wants to get deeper into accents. That suggestion would be to start by learning the basics of phonetics, in particular how speech sounds are classified. It's very difficult to figure out how to pronounce a sound that doesn't occur in your native language. Native English speakers struggle with the French r for this reason - it's a type of sound we just don't produce. You can listen to examples for hours and hours and still come up empty. But once you know it's a uvular fricative, and once you know what that means, it can be like cracking a code.

Very briefly, consonants are primarily defined by two things: manner of articulation and place of articulation. Manner of articulation describes what happens to the airflow as you produce the sound - does it get blocked entirely like with p, t, k? Or does it just get restricted, like with sh or f? Place of articulation is all about where the constriction of the airflow occurs, like behind the teeth (t) or at the lips (p). For instance, both d and sh have the same place of articulation (for most speakers), but different manners of articulation. Vowels have their own descriptions too! I can't cover it all here, but knowing a bit of the basics of articulatory phonetics helps a lot in figuring out how to use your mouth to produce a specific sound.

[Bbbieshaky]

"You knoow nuthin', Jon Snoow" - Hull/Yorkshire Accent (Northern)

Good video, and a thumbs up from a Brit! Happy to see the focus on the gameplay and what an accent can bring, and useful techniques on getting those differences and key letters/phrases to get into it.

[dakotastrout]

Literally the best RPG accent guide I've seen, great job!