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As the title asks. In a many play-by post game I have played a female character, and I'm sure some of you other male gamers around here have played female characters before as well. In play-by post, it's easy for a male to RP a female because it's all text-based and the other players can put any voice they want to your PC. However, IRL, that's not the case. Now I know some males can do REALLY good female voices. I have a friend who can do awesome female voices and is a guy. However, other guys can't sound like a girl for the life of them. So my question is thus: for all you male gamers who like to role play and can't do good female voices, how do you handle the role play of female characters as far as dialogue delivery is concerned? Do you not bother talking in their voice and instead say "My character says X" so you don't have to try and fail utterly at faking a female voice? Or do you just not play female characters to avoid such complications? If any of you out there have input on this topic please post here!
As a male who generally plays female characters, I just kind of let people know my PC is a lady, and then RP with my normal voice. There's always a bit of "suspension of disbelief" that needs to go on, and I've come to accept that I'm not the "voices" guy, so that's how I handle it.
There's always a way, where there's a will.
Options include going "silly", as imitating some Monty Python hags. A thick British accent and raising your pitch makes for wonderfully silly "women".
Otherwise I've done other "tricks" to convey femininity through exaggeration. A recent DMPC was painfully shy. She'd stammer, always speak quietly, often fail to complete her sentences, and never, ever interrupted. She'd also cave in on arguments/disagreements that didn't matter, to create the illusion she was meek or at least passive versus aggressive. There it was clear I was deliberately parodying a stereotype. Nothing I did or said was insulting to women, it was just this particular one whose behaviour was the opposite of brash, argumentative, loud menfolk.
Basically, if your voice is deep you're going to have a really rough time conveying female. In this case, about all I can suggest is to go for the smokes-five-packs-a-day-middle-aged-trucker-woman voice. Overtly butch women with names like "Sarah" get a chuckle when introduced but won't destroy your throat.
Again, when I do this I try very hard to balance conveying not-male stereotype by deliberately playing to female stereotype. It's not done to be sexist, but to compensate for that my actual sex is what it is.
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My brother's name is will, and I play with him. So there is a way!
I tried to speak in character in one of my games... it didn't go so well. After the first session, I was asked to tone it down and just speak regularly. Some people have a gift, and others don't...
I find that using your regular voice is just fine for 80% of the time. The other 20% speak as best as you can in a female voice. There are the situations where emphasizing your character's feminine side is part of the goal of your communication, just like if you were playing as a PC whose race had a near to impossible tone to duplicate.
And remember to add in your race to your female voice, if your voice acting! That goblin/orc/naga woman may have a voice that sounds pretty close to your own natural voice!
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I don't often play female characters,
but when I do I like to rock the contrabasso profundo.
Nothing complements a girlish figure quite like a voice like Peter Steele or Sam Elliot
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Oddly enough one of the few female voices I can do very well is the wicked witch of the west/a cliche' evil witch. Sounds just like the Wizard of Oz movie. Is it cliche'as heck? Yes. Is it amusing? Yes. Thus, I suppose if I ever try to play a female character IRL it should be a witch for that reason alone. Broom hex is a must, and there has be a way to make/gain flying monky minions somewhere...
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Uh, the same way GMs everywhere talk in character as female NPCs?
You just talk.
I might put a little different inflection in my voice (but then I do that for every unique character), but that's about it.
You don't have to do a female voice because, actually, the more female the voice is, the closer you're going to get to an uncanny valley moment. When you just talk, suspension of disbelief fills in the gap in much the same way that PCs can believe you're a lizardfolk, an ogre, or a demon.
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I long ago realized the futility of my attempting to become the second coming of Rich Little. I am not a voice actor, nor a mimic. My characters demonstrate their personalities by how they act, not how I talk.
I long ago realized the futility of my attempting to become the second coming of Rich Little. I am not a voice actor, nor a mimic. My characters demonstrate their personalities by how they act, not how I talk.
Pretty much this. AD nailed it.
I tend to do voices for each character, regardless of whether I'm GMing or Playerside. I also almost exclusively play female PCs. I try for a voice that I think fits the character, but I don't particularly make an effort to sound feminine, or hit a nonmasculine pitch. Other than a few occasions where I tried for a voice and missed - sometimes happens when a new character is being introduced and I haven't gotten much practice at the voice, or haven't found one that "fits" - I've not had any complaints about the voices used.
I've gotten to the point where my players can identify some voices as being "that character", regardless of gender; I do much the same for my PCs.
I played a female character not too long ago and came up with this solution: I found a picture of what I figured she looked like, and attached it to the outside of my laptop (i.e. facing towards the other players). No acting required on my part; just a subtle reminder that my character didn't look much like me.
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Not a male gamer myself, but most of the guys I know who play their characters may soften their voices or something, but they do not try to speak in falsetto or otherwise try to fully imitate a female voice. (In a World of Darkness game, we did have one guy do a frighteningly good Valley Girl imitation, however. :) )
Likewise if I play a male character I don't bother to try to drop my voice as low as it can go, but I may speak in my "chest voice" (lower part of my vocal register) more.
The point is to hint at a character and his or her personality (more than sex or gender per se), not to be a parody.
Like Orthos, I tend to "do character voices" -- my dwarf fighter speaks on a lower part of my register and cusses more; my elven sorceress goes into my head voice and uses more posh vocabulary; occasionally I might do an accent. But I try not to get carried away with it or make it sound more like a joke than just giving the audible impression "I am saying this in character." It's all my voice, just different ends of my range.
I think the "be in character, but don't go to ridiculous extremes" would be advice I'd give to anyone, whether they're emulating another gender or there is something else different about their character to themselves.
Generally, when I GMed male NPCs for the group, I concentrated on inflection, intonation/resonance, expression, grammar, and tics/quirks (if any) over any attempt at an actual impersonation. So if I was a guy playing/GMing a female PC/NPC, I'd only worry about those instead of trying to pitch her voice higher or some weird falsetto.
The way I typically voice female characters is to soften my voice and form my speech from higher up (i.e. near the uvula) rather than in the throat or chest. Likewise, making smaller motions of the lips and constraining how far I open my jaw when speaking tends to improve the emulation as well.
It's not perfect, and the aim isn't to be breathy and overly dramatic, but rather to speak differently enough from your normal tone of voice that it's apparent the character who is speaking is of the opposite gender. IME, as long as you can do that, it's a sufficient clue-in to others that they won't mistake the gender of your character.
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When I run female NPCs, they sound like Dr. Girlfriend...
I played a vow of silence kasatha female monk (nun?). She just writes most stuff on a metal bowl with chalk.
I've realized that I'm actually quite bad at the acting side of role playing and not very good at role playing in general. As a result I generally try to avoid speaking in character to begin with.
It actually opened up role playing to me allowing me to effectively play a much wider range of characters including allowing me to play far more believable females.
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Anyone else thinking of Dr. Girlfriend here?
edit besides kryzbyn
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When I describe what my Halfling Sorceress does, I use my normal voice. When I roleplay her, I use a high-pitched rather stupid sounding voice which nicely conveys her 7 INT ;-)
When I roleplay my much less stereotyped female Cleric of Pharasma, I use my normal voice and conveys her personality (a bit overcaring and motherly) through the tone and words I use.
I'm not an actor, I'm an author. I can get into the heads of my characters fairly well. In fact, I spend much of my time doing menial tasks brainstorming scenarios and playing around with a character's reaction so I've got a better idea of how they'll react in a similar situation when it comes up in game.
As a poor actor, I have trouble playing in first person. I react to this by playing most of my characters in the third person. This allows me to play female characters, perhaps not as well as playing male characters, but well enough.
It also doesn't hurt that I've been called "my girliest friend" by a number of women, so when I'm playing a girly-girl, I can usually just rely on "what would I do?" for those characters.
I would say I soften my voice a bit, maybe pitch it a tiny bit higher (like 1/4 of an octave) than my normal voice, and add some form of shorthand mannerism (tucking back my hair with a certain movement of the hand, for instance).
Since I GM and often have to portray multiple characters, I'll try to give them each a different voice. This is particularly handy when the PCs see two NPCs talking to one another (this is what going mad feels like).
I don't actually try to do a vocal impression though, I just make it different enough to be discernible. For female character I usually speak slightly softer and higher pitched, though it of course varies depending on the female character in question. Like Kajehase, I'll often try to throw in some physical mannerisms as well just to help distinguish them.
Of course the main thing I need to do is to avoid stroking my beard. :D
I'd say not to worry overmuch about it. Female tenors are not that rare, and my daughter sings bass. I've got quite a deep speaking voice (though I sing soprano)
I play female characters in first-person all the time. I'm also six-foot-one, shave my head and have a beard. Like others above, I don't try to speak in falsetto-- I just use my normal voice range, though I tend to soften my voice, and use body language, speech pattern, diction, and vocal inflection to convey the personality of the character. I will also use accents-- I'm pretty good at faking them. (Or so I tell myself.) Of course, I do that for every character, regardless of sex, race, etc.
I play my flighty, over-enthusiastic gnome sorceress very differently than my coolly aristocratic paladin.
One thing that can help is that, at the start of games, we make little paper name cards, with a character portrait found on the Cyber-Inter-Webs.
Not a male gamer myself, but most of the guys I know who play their characters may soften their voices or something, but they do not try to speak in falsetto or otherwise try to fully imitate a female voice. (In a World of Darkness game, we did have one guy do a frighteningly good Valley Girl imitation, however. :) )
Likewise if I play a male character I don't bother to try to drop my voice as low as it can go, but I may speak in my "chest voice" (lower part of my vocal register) more.
The point is to hint at a character and his or her personality (more than sex or gender per se), not to be a parody.
Like Orthos, I tend to "do character voices" -- my dwarf fighter speaks on a lower part of my register and cusses more; my elven sorceress goes into my head voice and uses more posh vocabulary; occasionally I might do an accent. But I try not to get carried away with it or make it sound more like a joke than just giving the audible impression "I am saying this in character." It's all my voice, just different ends of my range.
I think the "be in character, but don't go to ridiculous extremes" would be advice I'd give to anyone, whether they're emulating another gender or there is something else different about their character to themselves.
This pretty much sums it up, yeah.
Talk normal. I hate the "this is my role-play voice" anyways, people sound ridiculous.
You wouldn't like my group. All but one or two of us use various specific voices for different characters =P
Yeah. The sound of my voice will change with different characters, but in the end, it's the personality that decides how the character is portrayed. Once you get into the role, no one's going to listen to you and say, "Your voice doesn't sound right. There's no way you're playing who you say you are."
I long ago realized the futility of my attempting to become the second coming of Rich Little.
Well, now I'm disappointed...
You don't have to do a voice if you don't want to. Not all of us have the voices of angels though, sometimes I speak a bit differently during important conversations to what happens and to taunt the BB. I occasionally try to make my voice feminine if I'm playing a female character but again, you don't have to. Also a bit a tangent but, I also have a friend who can make a spot on "Valley Girl" voice and the fact that it's so accurate makes it creepy.
Also, Hail Goddess of Evil!
i don't come up with fancy voices or anything for opposite gendered characters, i do it the way the DM does thousands of opposite gendered NPCs, speak normally. describe the expressions with a layer of OOC dialogue like "Umbriere appears to be choking on something, she currently isn't able to speak. and you see blood coming up from her windpipe." "Rin seems to quiet and timid to speak at the moment."
or when i do need to speak what my character says in character (a rare thing i get to do, lack practice with and suck at due to my processing delay.). i will say something fitting for the character and often bring a prop or few
for Example, as Lumi, i would bring a foam cosplay copy of Excalibur sized for a man a foot and a half taller than myself and pet it and talk to it like it were a dear friend to bring out Lumi's awkwardness. "Saint Eclair, you don't need to envy that adamantine claymore, you are plenty shiny already" or "good girl Saint Eclair" every time she got a critical hit with her hand and a half sabre (Katana Stats)
as another Example. i played a Male Drow Dervish Magus named Sir Cherie with a maxed Craft (Culinary). one of his favorite dishes to prepare, was spider with curry, curry rice, bell peppers, red onions, pita and hummus.
so, i brought every game, home made by myself, curry lobster with curry rice, bell peppers, red onions, sliced pita and hummus. i ate it and got sick to the detriment of my health to bring life to my character. lobster being used to represent spider. thing is, i'm allergic to lobster, curry, and various other middle eastern seasonings. i had to retire the character early because his diet was murdering my intestines and my esophogus.
for Rin's spellbook, i bought a deck of fake Tarot Cards and a pale blue silk scarf. the kind that aren't real, don't carry any baggage towards my superstitious grandma and so on, plus i had to shuffle the cards and deal them left handed.
for Shinkuro's Warblade Manuevers, i kept an index card for each of his usual readied manuevers and kept stats for clawed gauntlet attacks, a zanbatou, a composite bow, a broadsword and shield, and 13 other weapons that took a combined total of three sheets worth of stat entries, each modified by different stances
i recently stopped carrying props for my characters because it got too darn expensive to afford them all.
When I play female NPCs:
1. For young to middle aged women: I soften my voice, and go for the upper middle portion of my range. Since I tend to speak on the low end of my baritone range, it gets the point across. Mostly I convey through posture and hand movements the femininity of the character.
2. For older women I shoot for high end of my range, and add some vibrato, and try to do my best Julia Child/Aunt Bea impersonation.
It gets the idea across, but without being overly comical, or making me sound like a bad movie transvestite.
By playing exclusively Russian sounding women: "Moose and Sqvirrel."
I don't bother trying to shift my voice, since it's usually a futile effort.
I don't play any female characters, but in GMing I have to voice a number of important female NPCs. While I make no effort to add any femininity to my voice for any of them, all of them have a particular sound, cadence and accent/inflection to their speech.
For my Skull & Shackles game that I GM:
Rosie Cusswell has an Irish accent, talks fast & angry (no matter how happy she might be, otherwise) and uses every dirty word in the book.
Cut-Throat Grok has a husky, slow voice, full of innuendo.
Riaris Krine sounds like R. Lee Ermey from Full Metal Jacket and makes Rosie sound like a nun by comparison.
Syl Lonnigan has a half-whisper mixed with a sing-song tone.
Sandara Quinn has my normal voice, though softened a bit and I alwasy smile while speaking as her, to convey warmth.
And so on and so forth...
I always use third person "she says that..."
-I'm not creative.