Voices and sound FX part 2 - Sci Fi etc.

 In the last post I bleeped and blooped about occasional amateur voice "acting" in D&D games. I wanted to follow-up with a short post on my somewhat minimal experience with Roll20 and its Jukebox function. But because a comment was left mentioning Sci Fi games I thought I'd touch on that a bit (who would have thought I'd get multiple posts out of this daffy subject).

"Going to the well one too many times"
as a wise man (probably) once said. 

I think there is something about D&D, no matter how you approach it as a DM, that lends itself to be a bit silly with the sounds of things happening in game (see the Don Martin examples that I have cherished for most of my life in my last post). As I've mentioned before I'm sure most of the anti-community theater in games folk have at least done a "thunk" as an arrow hits a body, and a "splurt" as it's pulled out.

 I mean, in most games but especially D&D there is a certain humorous irony that lurks around every corner. Behind every door. The whimsical nature of the game along with the various actions of players and the consequences of such as dictated by random number generation leads to a certain amount of suspense mixed with surprise, a great recipe for laughs. So the "spladaps" and "sizafitz's" just kind of grooves along with that. How often do we enter a session with a mind towards seriousness, and it devolves into slapstick? 

Don't even ask me to bring up that one Toon session so long ago. The voices. We all...did...voices. 😬

I ran Champions (or very early on Superhero 2044 and Supergame as a literal kid) on and off for decades, and you know the deal there. With superpowers it's kind of a no brainer; fire blast ("swoosh"), lasers ("zark!), explosions ("booosh!"). But Nothing all that silly. Uh, unless you aren't a comic book nerd, and do consider those examples silly.  Where it got real dorky was when characters with powers similar to famous characters described their stuff with those familiar sounds. Hence "snikt," "bamf" and "thwip." But hey, if it made them enjoy things more I would not complain (out loud). 

Call of Cthulhu? Ran great, long campaigns (and one or two short ones) on and off for decades. I probably voiced some scary moan, the rattling around of a skeleton in a basement before the party sees it, maybe a gurgling sound for any number of things. But really, I was pretty much about the verbal description of the dark goings-on. Trying to give voice to, say, Wilbur Watley's brother would probably just elicit laughs, which is great for D&D but not so much for CoC. 

 I laugh so I won't cry.

Let's see. What else? Well, I did a classic Traveller campaign a few short years ago, dipping into the original rules set. Not a lot of meat on that bone to go all Michael Winslow from Spaceballs. 

Ship to ship combat was silent, though somebody probably imitated various guns during firefights. But since they weren't "blasters" it would be your basic rifle or machine gun thing. "Pow pow" is so just banal. But I relied on appropriate music cue's more than anything (with CD's, so I was slapping them in and out of the player like a Free Trader computer operator would be slapping computer "tapes" in and out of the computer tower). Classical music, the 1984 Dune movie soundtrack, The Sci Fi Channel Children of Dune soundtrack, etc. 

I mean, have the right music on for a ship battle, or a Free Trader bravely skimming a gas giant, and you don't need to make cutesy sounds. 

This is Free Trader Beowulf...
mayday, mayday...iiiiiiieeeeee!!! Skidooooosh!!!

The moral of this tale is that in D&D you can't really go wrong going overboard in D&D with this stuff, but in many other games it's like wasabi. A little goes a long way. 

RPG's - NPC voices and sound FX part 1

 

Since its earliest days, the GM's job was to portray the world along with adjudicating the action. He was in control of the world's NPC's and intelligent creatures. It does not matter how old school neck-bearded wargamey, how Braunstieny, the GM was being in the earliest games. He was acting to a degree. OK, many then, and even now, more describe what an NPC might say over doing a full personal portrayal. But for those of us who kind of inhabit the role of almost all NPC's, you cannot help but it being a little like acting. 

Weeell, I sort of fall in between. In a hurry, or using a very minor NPC walk-on, walk-off role, I might just blow through the info he gives. "He comes in and says the high priest will meet you at 1AM at the Whirligar idol in the Park of Statures. He bids you well and leaves." But in extreme cases where an NPC mostly becomes part of the group, I like to have a way of speaking for him. Run him like a character. 

This is NOT community theater (though it could be). Its portraying somebody. I'm acting. You run a character with a personality, and you are acting. 

I'm no actor. I don't try to be. I dabbled in high school (an important part in West Side Story - here's a hint "got a rocket in your pocket, keep cooly cool boy!). Took some improv in college. Did partly improvised stage shows at Ren Faire for decades and sometimes still do. But no, for gaming I try not to make it about that, and it helps to let new players know there is no pressure for such. For the most part I put a little elbow grease into interesting characters. Old men voices, demon voices, etc. Softer speech pattern for female NPC's. I can do a great Scottish or Irish accent if I have a couple adult beverages (or more) in me. In all honesty I probably could have been a success in Voice acting if I had started early and took lesson. With the success of Critical Role, I can only wish I had. Rolling into a booth in a jogging suit. Knock out some lines then go be a guest at ComicCon. Oh well.😢

OK, so no actor here. But since I first started D&D I got heavy into sound effects. A spear piercing an abdomen. A sword getting stuck in a head. A character falling 100 feet and going splat. It is often greeted with great hilarity, even by the guy losing his character. What has been my secret? What got me started? Well, not Adam West Batman. It was reading Mad Magazine as a kid. Specifically, the works of the immortal Don Martin. I still have the issue with his sound effects spread. 

By my second year of DM'ing I probably used each and every one of these (besides the more modern things like the DeWalt "bzzownt" or the hand saw. But these particular sounds are violence gold. I mean, if a character gets hit with a bottle in a tavern brawl neglecting to use the "doont" is a crime against god. I think in one of my rare con games, where the characters were slipping and sliding on floor-poop in a goblin latrine, I used "glitch " and "ga-shpluct" maybe a dozen times. And man, that "sizafitz" is perfect for multiple magic missiles. And yes, I have uttered that sound the one time a dwarf character put a cigar into an elf characters eye. And of course, a GM should look for inspiration anywhere he can. One of my personal faves is the sound of a bad guy dying on the old Johnny Quest show "iiieeeee!!!!"

These are true crowd pleasers. If they don't get a laugh, I don't know what will. And as my second favorite cartoon rabbit once said...

We are living in trying times. We need laughs baked into our escapism. Cheer your players up by dipping generously into these "die laughing" gems. 

Cheers