I just use different American accents, mostly because I'm American.
Also, because hillbilly gnomes are funny
49As a native speaker I will use the very specific Baltimore MD accent on certain NPCs
14One of my PCs is a ghoul, and I am incapable of speaking that rough without sounding like Fran Fine (if she smoked for 50 years)
7
Undercommon is just really thick Australian accent.
33I would also accept Scots, since it's barely recognizable as English
5I think you mean "Pikey" as depicted by Brad Pitt in Snatch.
Or, is that simply the way Duergar speak it?
2
I played a furry porn game where otters spoke Tagalog and honestly, yeah that's fine
28I am curious.
11
Pfft, all dwarves are either Scottish or German. Just a fact.
24We use German as common and Dwarves are Bavarian.
10Dwarves are Scottish, goblins are German.
5I like that one podcast where they established that a dwarf was caught in a dimensional rift and went to Scotland for a number of years before finding a way back home. But he brought back the accent and all the dwarves loved how it sounded so now all dwarves speak with bad copies of a Scottish accent.
Probably because the DM can't keep his accent straight. But fun nevertheless.
6Yes Scottish Dwarf is really good.
But Goblins are not strong enough to yield German imo, maybe it could suit orc but also orc is metal voice.
2I like that one podcast where they established that a dwarf was caught in a dimensional rift and went to Scotland for a number of years before finding a way back home. But he brought back the accent and all the dwarves loved how it sounded so now all dwarves speak with bad copies of a Scottish accent.
Probably because the DM can't keep his accent straight. But fun nevertheless.
1
Drow are Australian, on account of the land they come from
4Nice :)
2
IMO - Racial/Ethnic/National Coding isn't inherently wrong. But using that coding to push Stereotypes and oppressive mindsets is.
Rule of thumb, if you're worried you will in some way cross that line, don't do coding.
18Not oppressive mindset, but i'm ok with stereotypes too.
Because it can be funny, in comedy racial jokes are always set in some stereotypes for a reason. I think RP is mostly that, fun and joking around.
4
I have my own language mappings in my homebrew. Most of them only appear as names since most people speak Common, but I did include some people in my game who don't. (I make sure that they are some who speak a language that I speak too.) So the mappings are:
- Common - English. We're playing in English, duh. (Before contact with Elves, humans spoke "proto-Common" which would be mapped to German if I had to use it. Many humans still have German names.)
- (High) Elvish - French. Yes, in-universe the Common language has plenty of Elvish influence. (Classical Elvish is Latin.)
- (Wood) Elvish - Greek. Most Wood Elves speak High Elvish, but their names are Greek and many of them still speak their own language as well. The continents and seas are often named in Ancient Wood-Elvish (i.e., classical Greek) because they used to be the primary explorers before the rise of the High Elves.
- Dwarvish - modern Dwarvish is Norwegian, old Dwarvish is Icelandic.
- Halfling - Frisian. (Fortunately I haven't had to say anything in Halfling so far.)
- Gnomish - Welsh. (Again, fortunately I haven't had to say anything in Gnomish yet.)
- Orc - Russian.
- Goblin - Mongolian.
- Tellurian (not a species, but an influential country) - Spanish. Many people alongside the Bay of Luria speak Tellurian as their native language instead of Common or their racial language.
- Sylvan - Finnish. (My go-to for weirder names as well. Many Fey-related creatures have Finnish names, as well as those who live near Fey portals.)
- Giant - Hungarian. (They feature a lot in Hungarian folk tales.)
- Draconic - Hindi.
- Hashiman (not a species, but a group of eight islands - though they are also the Kenku homeland so most Kenku speak this as their native language) - Japanese-ish. The language comes in two dialects, Hanego which is used primarily by Kenku but also Aaracokra, Owlin, Tortles, and other creatures with hard beaks that have difficulty pronouncing M and N, and Hadago which is used by the rest. They are identical in writing, differ mostly in pronouncing those sounds.
13Orc - Russian.
Haha holy shit.
Draconic - Hindi
"The dragon rears back and bellows 'DO NOT REDEEM! WHAT ARE YOU DOING??'"
13"No, Mr. Sorcadin. A Snickers is not a sprinkle."
3
Tolkien was primarily a linguist, so the languages he made were actually based on real languages. Tolkien elvish is based on Finnish.
10Why not just you Elvish for Elvish?
3
Esperanto is gnomish
11Just want to point out that draconic has quite a lot of words already defined, as well as a few grammar rules. 1. Draconic, 2. Draconic Primer, and 3. Lonely Planet Vayemniri (vayemniri being the endonym for dragonborn in the Realms—a race that absolutely despises dragons wouldn’t exactly be happy about a name that says "dragon").
I’m not sure what real-world language would be the best analogue. Maybe something Germanic?
10You can't be racist against the French. Same way you can't be racist against dogs.
8What?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism
Racism is discrimination and prejudice against people based on their race or ethnicity.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnicity
An ethnicity or ethnic group is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of perceived shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include a common nation of origin, or common sets of ancestry, traditions, language, history, society, religion, or social treatment.
It's possible to be racist towards anyone. If you're white go spend a couple of months in China and you'll understand that after being told by multiple people that intelligence varies by skin colour and white people are in the bottom half.
-3There is a conversation to be had about who decided the definition of racism though.
The wikipedia article you listed uses the definition of racism put forth by the UN. The UN is an organization dominated by white European countries and their colonies.
This definition comes into conflict with the definition used by many marginalized communities of colour though, which defines Racism as Prejudice + Power. The implication of this is that you can be prejudice to white people, but not racist. Prejudice is still not good, but white people have historically placed themselves in a position of socioeconomic domination over BIPOC communities, and thus making them unable to experience "Racism" in every context.
To be clear, I mentioned Context because you did, when you mentioned white people in China. This example betrays that the concept of racism is based on societal context
1
You can. And by the way, check how French are doing accent in their series. Spoiler: they don't. It's seen as racist. Yes, the way other people are cherry picking other accents is seen as racist. Roger Murtaugh has no accent for example.
Of course, it's for fun you do it. Of course we still do funny things with accents. But in little groups where the context is clear (for fun or a group of racist shitbags). To quote a dead man (Desproges): "you can laugh about everything but not with everyone". Thus not on a broadcasted channel.
Just remember that there are other cultures.
Hey, you see. I haven't been offensive. It's because I think that some times, it's good to explain things in a detached way. Now, I can say that discussions about racism is just a joke in (current, let's see if something better comes next) DnD. Not sure that accent is the problem: even when Darth Vador has a German accent to put a biiig clue of how the empire looks like the Nazis people are able to miss it.
-3I think you're getting downvotes for a couple reasons, the least of which is not the fact that you seem to be hinting at the Empire being subtle with IRL fascist adjacency... The faction was literally designed from the start with Nazis at the top of the inspiration list, and this is pretty common knowledge.
Secondly, James Earl Jones does not have a German accent, and its "Vader". I'd go on, but there's just so much to unpack. 😶
6
Latin is Primordial
6I use portuguese for common, english for elvish, japanese for abyssal and i'm learning dovahzul to use as draconic, i'm thinking on learning german too but i don't know what it will be yet
3Works at larps too. One I go to (in NL) has Dutch as common, and we use English as Elvish and, depending on with whom I talk, I express Dwarvish with either Scottish English, Northern English or German. If I really want to commit to the bit, I should learn High German or an Austrian dialect for Dwarvish.
3Jello Apocalypse and crew did a Let's Play of Skies Of Arcadia that was fantastic for a variety of reasons. Everybody in the Chinese-coded nation got Southern accents. It was... an alarmingly apt choice.
2Permanently Deleted
1I ditched racial accents in place of regional accents.
1
