Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Only British Accents

All fair points, except you have a multitude of different races. Which are dramatically more diverse than different ethnicities of Humans. That is why it makes no sense for Goblins, Drow, Hobgoblins, Tieflings, etc. to all sound the same. Drow exist miles beneath the surface, in what might as well be the other side of the planet. Moreover, Lae'zel did not grow up on the material plane, based on her available dialogue. Your arguments are fantastic for why they all would speak the same Language (Common) but not why they would all share the same accent.

We have a multitude of examples of varied accents even among similar locales in D&D, namely BG 1 and BG 2. It makes no sense why that also isn't the same for BG 3.

I say with 100% seriousness, I would love a dwarf with a jamacan accent. I'd like more player voices too, but I'm not especially bothered with the voices being used already, I like them all.

I would argue they will have different accents when speaking in their native non-Common languages and similar Common accent, for Common-speaking people use it as lingua franca and likely learn it from each other - so I'd expect Common to be a sort of a more or less unified mix of various influences in terms of the accent. Just as in real life people who learn a second language in early childhood commonly have an accent from where/whom they've learned that language, not from their first language.

And in BG3 they DO have different accents and most certainly don't sound the same. I can tell even despite not being British. Goblins in particular, whom you've described as sounding the same as everyone else, have distinct Cockney accent. Someone said there's a character with a Welsh accent. They are different, but realistically different, not exaggeratedly different. I think it's very appropriate for the circumstances, as swampslug described it. Also in real life, different places have different language variance. Some have a plethora of dialects and some are quite unified with differences between regions and social circles being minute.

The Forgotten Realms has regional languages, the 3rd edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting describes Common as a trade language used to communicate simple ideas between peoples of different nations. Most people living in the human dominated areas of the southern Sword Coast region would therefore speak Chondathan as a primary language, with Illuskan spoken north of Waterdeep. We are also talking about characters that originate in an area roughly 250 miles east to west. This is the equivalent of London to Middlesborough in the UK or New York to Washington DC in the US. If you listen to people from these areas talk you would hear differences in accents but it would be relatively easy to identify that there are two groups of speakers: one British, the other American.

I haven't progressed into the Underdark yet and I didn't speak to the drow cleric so I don't know what they sound like, but I would expect them to have a different accent. I believe Chris Perkins at Wizards of the Coast has all his drow speak in bad French accents. The goblins and tieflings, being native to the region I would expect have similar accents to the humans in the area, which they do, but they aren't the same accents.
As to Lae'zel, Githyanki grow up in creches on other planes because there is no time in the Astral Sea. They need to spend their youth on other planes where time exists in order to grow up and mature into adults. If she reveals more specifics about her youth then I haven't got that far so I can only assume she grew up on the material plane.

BG 1 and 2 had a variety of accents because many of the companions were not from the Sword Coast region: Dynaheir and Minsc are from Rashemen far to the northeast of Faerun, Jaheira is from Tethyr, which is at least 1000 miles south of Baldur's Gate and Branwen is from the Moonshaes to name a few.

I’m just praying they don’t bring in some trash American accents to appease people.

Voice acting becomes even more important in a game without a lot of descriptive text. Many of the characters in the game exhibit cultural aspects from a different region than America. I wonder if other others will notice that or get a feeling NPCs are generally different than other games.

They don't have "British" accents, they have "Faerun" accents, like everyone in this world should have.

Stop trying to bring RL nonsense into a game.

Well, "it's pretty clear" that you can't fckng read. Maybe read the whole post, CEO of "I want this goblin talking in a different accent"? Curb your diversity policies, twitter warrior.



That's what I am talking about, indeed.

I agree.
Some of the brutes should have an American accent. Mid west. Texas. Rocky mountain Hillbilly.

I would like the diversity in voices of bg2.

Ethel (npc in druids grove) is definitely an Irish accent but from my playthrough so far there are a lot of similar sounding voices where only the chosen words add character.

My wife pointed out that it sounded like a theatrical stage actor doing the voice.

I'd move from calling them british accents to british theater accents to show how specific the voices are.

NPCs look very different but they all sound very similar.

Ghithyanki lady soundd good though.

Agree with this post 100%. It felt amazing hearing the voices of NPCs in the first games, because it hinted that they came from some far away land, a different culture. Everyone in BG3 sound like some snobbish nobles in a tea party.