D&D is fantastic practice for voice acting!

So since it's Orctober, and friends of mine like Steven Pope are posting phenomenal articles like "Orcs and Queerness" I thought that this week I'd discuss what D&D means to me as a voice actor.  Before that, however, a small update on what I'm working on right now!

Starting off, coming this Saturday, I have my first voiceover specific coaching lesson with Inside Voice right here in Portland which I am excited beyond belief about.  I believe it's primarily focused on commercial voiceover, but that's something that I'm probably the weakest in at the moment so all the better.  Any time I can get in a professional booth with an experienced coach will benefit me enormously.  Secondly, I've been auditioning on places like BehindtheVoiceActors.com, CastingCall.club, and the Voice Acting Club on mostly amateur level fandubbing projects and machinima videos, etc. for several months now and I actually got cast in one of the first things I ever auditioned for!  The casting process isn't over yet, but I'll have more to report once things get going.  I'll be playing at least two supporting roles on that.  Third, I was also contacted out of the blue on Facebook by someone needing a voice actor for a YouTube project that I'm excited to contribute to, and two friends of mine from the Savannah College of Art and Design also made me aware of a couple more auditions I would never have known about otherwise.  (I might even get paid for one of these!) Will definitely post more when I know more!  But before I move on, I'd just like to take a moment and emphasize how awesome it is to have amazing and supportive friends on this weird and wonderful journey I'm on.  Even if I don't get cast after those auditions, I can't thank them enough for sending me the opportunities.  You guys are incredible.

Now, on to the nerdy shit!

(Picture sourced from Easy Roller Dice Company - Learn to Play D&D in 5 Easy Steps)

Now, linking D&D and voice acting is nothing new.  If you haven't seen Critical Role on Twitch, a bunch of nerdy-ass voice actors have already made themselves even more famous by streaming what used to be their own personal home game online.  It's amassed a giant following, starting on Geek & Sundry and eventually moving to their own new Twitch channel, with new shows and new content just now starting to all really hit their stride.  I'd be lying if I said that Matthew Mercer and company weren't an influence on me climbing down the voice acting rabbit hole.

I've been the Dungeon Master/Game Master/running a Dungeons & Dragons game for a group of local friends for a while now.  It's probably the longest running single game with the same people I've ever had, and I've learned a lot about how to be a good DM in the process.  More than that, I've learned how fun it can be to have a captive audience on which I can practice a ton of different character voices!  Male, female, high, low, angry, pleasant, scared, evil, good, innocent, English accents, Irish accents, Scottish accents, American accents, Spanish accents, one voice pretty much directly copying Oded Fehr's character in "The Mummy".  I am not only allowed, but encouraged to do them all so that my players can feel immersed and so that they have a great time.

It's also an exercise in improvisation!  Anyone who has run a D&D game before knows that you can spend weeks planning an adventure, working out the storyline and minutae to the smallest detail, only to have all of your best laid plans torn asunder in the first five minutes of player decisions.  If you want the game to run smoothly, you have to be quick on your feet and adapt to the changing circumstances.  You can have the adventure path or the story you created laid out as a guideline but if you force them along the path you'll be accused of and actually be guilty of railroading them, which isn't really all that fun.  You know the whole story, but you have to parcel out the hints and details in a way that makes them interested in following the breadcrumbs.  And sometimes your players will just do pants-on-head crazy murder-hobo shit, too.  Like killing an important PC or missing all the [what you thought were] obvious clues to get to the bad guy in the basement... (I'm not bitter.)

I have to sometimes voice up to ten different NPCs, or "Non-Player Characters", sometimes in rapid succession changing accents and personalities with very little time to reset.  I've even had to have the NPCs all have a conversation with one another with my players just sitting there watching me going back and forth from one personality to the other.  It's exhausting, and I'm still pretty bad at it sometimes, but I'm getting better.  It's great practice for when I might have to pull a random voice out of my hat for a side character or background noise in a future recording session.  It also gives me a LOT of different potential details to put in my wheelhouse for auditions!  If I like a certain character voice, I take the time to play with it before and after the actual game, honing it into something I can use in my career.

Finally, Dungeons & Dragons is amazing for developing an active imagination and really letting yourself fall into that secondary reality.  It encourages you to think in a character's headspace, think about the where/how/why/when of a scene, and when everyone is buying in to that creativity it becomes a magical experience for everyone involved.  If you've never played, D&D's 5th Edition has a starter set that you buy and I would absolutely recommend it for anyone -- not just newbie voice actors.