As a guy who grew up doing some pretty spot-on (if I do say so myself!) voice impersonations of the Muppets and other pop-culture characters, I appreciate a good voice. I've always admired the work of voiceover actors like Frank Welker, Peter Cullen, and the guy with maybe the best voice in the history of humanity, Keith David. As a gamemaster, I like to incorporate custom voices for key NPCs in my campaign worlds, perhaps most notably in the Druid Cycle setting; Cyfrinach, Iskander, Cerdyn, Pyrrhus, and many others have had very distinctive voices.
Over the past year, I've been listening to the Song of Ice and Fire series on Audible. The books were narrated by the late, great Roy Dotrice and -- wow! -- did this guy have an amazing reading voice! Over the first three books, Dotrice built an immense variety of custom voices for the main characters. His work on this series wasn't just a reading, but a true performance.
I'm now getting into the fourth book, A Feast for Crows, and, well, it's a different experience. I understand that Dotrice wasn't available to record this book when it first came out and then returned to read it many years after he had narrated the others in the series. The result is pretty jarring. There are major changes in how he pronounces names like "Catelyn" and "Petyr", but also in the voices he uses for the characters. Some of the biggest changes are to major players like Arya and Petyr. The one that really hit me the hardest, though, was the voice of my absolute favorite supporting character, Dolorous Edd. A member of the Night's Watch and close friend of Jon Snow, Edd provides a lot of self-deprecating wit and comic relief. Dotrice's original voice for Edd always put a smile on my face, but the voice used in Feast is so bland and undistinguished that I almost wince when I hear it.
If I ever screw up the voices in our campaigns, please call me on it. An unexpected change to the voice of a character can really take you out of the moment!
