Have you ever played, say, Mass Effect with a black character? Or Dragon Age 2? I'm not even american and i wouldn't do either, simply because i've heard enough people talk to know the voices don't fit.
I'm not confident that's a race thing. Racial cultural segregation is very much still a thing in the US and I would argue this is responsible for 90% of what you're referring to. I've met many people from many races who I wouldn't be able to tell their race from their voice alone. For example:
(If you watch this, stick around for the non-black characters including the Earth King from Avatar and a character from Final Fantasy Tactics.)
I think it's fair to say that you might need to reflect on some of your biases if you think that there are some voices/accents that are inappropriate for members of a certain race, particularly when we're dealing with a fantasy setting where ethnicity is wholly constructed.
It might be worthwhile having voice options that are coded to a variety of ethnic groups simply for representation's sake. It'd be cool to have some (authentic) Australian voices, but that isn't really a roleplaying thing.
Originally Posted by Innateagle
Also, i'm told voice acting is like singing. Everyone's good at it in the shower, less so in a recording studio
Based on how much some people here seem to think that VOs get paid, I'm pretty sure I could justify a few years of training to bring myself to the right level of skill.
Sure, but does Miles Morales sound like a white person to you? 'Cause that's what i'm talking about. Of course Tyrone Shepard, who grew up in spaceships and some such, could lack the speech cadence of a black person, but does it make it any less eyebrow raising for me, a subscriber of Tyrone Magnus? Not really.
Anyway, that was just the initial part of my point, and i'm pretty sure it was in response to something you said about accents not mattering.
What i really stand for is the second part of my argument, the one about how a character being voiced inherently takes away some roleplay options more than it gives in a 'classic' rpg, either because the two or three different personalities don't mix well together (see DA2), or because there are simply no different personalities but just slight variations (see Fallout 4 and Inquisition, where the MCs always sound mild-mannered).
Of course, in a game where i can play 10 different races, i might also just find it jarring that Ghur-Druz, half-orc warrior, has the same voice as Pinky-winkle, halfling sorcerer.
