egscomics

September Poll #1

Shoulder Angel Nanase and Shoulder Devil Nanase!

Can vote for more than one

Who Is Ellen - 40 - HD

Classicalness continues.

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Commentary

As previously mentioned, I am cheating the heck of character positioning to show everyone's faces. The first panel of this comic is defying all known laws of our universe to show both of their faces with Ellen on the right AND keeping Nanase out of the way.

It's possible I shouldn't have bothered showing where everyone was seated gi...

Possible Future Q&A

There MIGHT be a Q&A two weeks after Balance is over, and it is ending quite soon! Friday, in fact!

I need to know what questions I'd be answering by a week from Friday, however, and whether I have enough that people want answered that I can work with, so...

If you have a Q&A appropriate question, please, ask away. It MIGHT get an answer.

Who Is Ellen - 39 - HD

Classy!

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Commentary

I'm not assuming everyone reading this is an expert of RolePlaying Game tropes, so there will be brief summaries of what these classes are, and why YOU should care.

This is especially the case because this is more about the players than what they're playing, and this isn't turning into a full-on RPG parody storyline.

I might also deviate from ...

End of month poll candidates

Can vote for more than one

Order got a little odd because I was originally plotting fewer options and there’s no easy order change option ^^;

Who Is Ellen - 38 - HD

Seriously close to beginning.

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Commentary

YOU'RE WELCOME, readers who would've gotten confused by four new names.

Also, you're welcome, ME, who didn't want to keep track of those, either.

Seats

I felt it made sense for George and Nanase to be closest to Ellen. Since George is assisting with rules, he wound up on Ellen's right side to be Ell...

Who Is Ellen - 37 - HD

Soon-to-be Game Time! 

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Commentary

Rich: "Ah yes, I see. Nanase, the true expert, is concerned about Ellen's improvisational skills. Mm-hm. Yes. I have correctly assessed her skill level."

Canceled bird approach

My original plan was for Ellen to just totally wing it, but I like this building block approach more. I find it more believable, an...

Who Is Ellen - 36 - HD

Experience.

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Commentary

That's quite the assumption, Rich. You're literally in a story written by someone who mostly knows about these types of players second-hand.

I didn't think of Nanase acting too familiar with RPG player types before I started work on the previous comic, but I did think of that while working on it. Nanase was showing an odd familiarity with Table ...

Who Is Ellen - 35 - HD

The Ultimate Consequence

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Commentary

This was quite the gamble on Nanase's part. Some guys are into that.

I wanted Nanase to stand up for Ellen, but I was concerned about it coming off as physically threatening Rich. Were Nanase to do that in this situation (and, well, most situations), I would consider her firmly in the wrong regardless of any opinions one might have ...

Who Is Ellen - 34 - HD

A friendly chat.

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Commentary

This is what I originally planned for the previous comic, but Nanase would have said Rich's name in a (now cut) first panel.

It turns out I barely fit what I wanted in three, so huzzah for this alternate timeline we all now live in.

And no, Nanase isn't going to ask someone to go easy on her girlfriend in a challenge. That's not how N...

Who is Ellen - 33 - HD

Who is Nanase?

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Commentary

I'd originally planned for Nanase to simply walk over to Rich, and start talking without any narration.

After the previous comic, however, I realized that I only had an idea in my head about what made Nanase exceptional in Rich's mind, and separate from Ellen, and I hadn't shared it with the rest of the class.

Basically, Nanase gives of...

Who Is Ellen - 32 - HD

Plotting and scheming... Probably.

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Edit - "Your" to "You're"

Commentary

Rich is awkward around women.

You probably deduced that already.

What you might not have known is that he's EXTRA awkward around Nanase.

Milestone Image Schedule

I've decided I don't intend to have a milestone image / sketchbook this week, and I'm not sure what I'm going to do next week.

I want to focus on getting Balance back to three pages per week, and then taking a proper break once it's over, which will be relatively soon.

I'm playing things a bit by ear at the moment, as I keep encountering complications, but I really hope to find stability after this arc is over, and hope all of you will be here to enjoy things being perfectly balan...

Who Is Ellen - 31 - HD

Angry Devil

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Commentary

I don't think anyone's guessed what Ellen has in mind, which, for once, I was actually concerned about someone doing.

This was mostly due to the lack of foreshadowing (GASP!), so someone might've assumed I was taking someone's guess and running with it, and I'd have nothing to point at to say "behold, t'was the plan all along! FORSOOTH!"

Accidental FV5

While it was rare, the accidental casting of spells by Ellen as the result of a sudden sneeze could still occur.

Weirdly, this was more common when Diane was around, and that's not meant sarcastically. Ellen had no intention of accidentally zapping Diane, and there was no outside reason why Ellen would be more prone to accidentally zapping Diane.

It was simply a statistical anomaly that Diane had gotten somewhat used to, along with requesting funds should any attire require replac...

Who Is Ellen - 031 - HD

Not Nervous Nanase!

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Commentary

I used to avoid putting nervous sweat drops in characters hair, as I felt people would interpret it as trying too hard to "be anime".

The thing is, the nervous sweat drop over hair happens for at least one reason: One some faces, if you don't put them over hair, it looks like crying.

With Nanase's current style, it's either slap th...

Who Is Ellen - 29 - HD

Friendly!

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Commentary

How dare she be friendly.

But yes, it's important to keep in mind that, while George CAN be helpful, he's ALSO, well... George.

August End of Month Poll #2

Sarah has wound up in a curvy way, and unbeknownst to the unaware person in the foreground, they’re to blame.

Can't vote for more than one because I made a mistake

UPDATE: At some point, Patreon changed "can vote for more than one" from the default to something you have to manually choose. I forgot to select it this time, and I can't change it mid-voting (only thing I can change is this description and the end date).

I don't think it's fair to do ...

August End of Month Poll #1

Uninhibited Susan practicing close physical contact with Elliot...

Can vote for more than one

Schedule Delay (After Friday's Story Page)

Next Story comic (after Friday's) - Wednesday, August 31st

Next EGSNP - Thursday, September 1st

Next Milestone / Sketchbook - Saturday, September 3rd

There are two reasons for this. 

The first is that a personal matter that will affect my work schedule next week, and the second is that I'm not as ahead on pre-production as I need to be to have a steady work flow.

The former can't be helped, and the latter is...

Who Is Ellen? - 28 - HD

Conditions.

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Commentary

What do you mean nerds don't have time to be experts on absolutely every nerdy interest available?

Surely they all know how to play every Table Top RPG, board game, card game, and video game, live action roleplay, read ever every comic, watch every popular TV show and movie, read every book, know every quote, and have all the limited edition toy...

Who Is Ellen - 27 - HD

Whose RPG is it anyway?

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Commentary

For the sake of pacing and simplicity, this story glosses over the option to simply not do anything resembling acting. A player could simply say things like "I ask about the goblin attacks".

That might not fly in every gaming group. People might not think that's fun, the Game Master might insist players act some things out, etc. It's...

Who Is Ellen - 26 - HD

Perfectly Fine!

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Commentary

I would argue that Nanase is TECHNICALLY lying by masking how she feels here.

I mean, as in I would argue that here, in this commentary.

I would not actually argue that with Nanase.

Making characters in TableTop RPGs can take a long time if you're doing it from scratch, so it makes sense that they at least use templates for the n...

Rumors of Nanase

Frequent rumors of Ellen and Grace being together made Nanase irrationally jealous.

Not of people thinking Ellen and Grace were together, but that there weren't a bunch of rumors about her dating someone.

The relatively rational response to dealing with this irrational desire would have been to be more obvious with her girlfriend, Ellen, or even to hug Grace more. Neither would have objected to either option.

Nanase, however, opted to use her magic to change her hair, then u...

Who Is Ellen - 25 - HD

Shocking revelation!

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Commentary

But she's fine at cooking, the ultimate "look, a flaw" option.

I don't feel like I have to defend Nanase being really good at a lot of stuff, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to have a bit of fun with it.

Writer of Two

I've recently decided Nanase is much better at speaking and understanding Japanese than...

Who Is Ellen - 24 - HD

George the expert.

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Commentary

Nanase is HYPED!

George is enough of a loner that I wasn't big on the idea of him having a lot of firsthand experience actually playing the game.

From my own firsthand experience, however, I know a lot of interest in these games can exist even if one doesn't play, and depending on who you listen to, a lot of the rules can be known s...

Who Is Ellen - 23 - HD

How will you even?!

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Commentary

- And this is why it was important that George wasn't working today

I wonder if anyone wondered if I was just overly concerned with an unimportant detail when I made clear that George wasn't working?

No. That's impossible. Nobody would ever jump to that...

Squirrel Camelia

Since becoming friends with Grace, Camelia has started having recurring dreams about being... SOMETHING at school.

She wasn't exactly sure what. The tail immediately made her think of a squirrel, but very little else did. She had pronounced canines instead of exaggerated incisors, and her ears were strangely large for this to belong to a weresquirrel.

In any case, Camelia simply knew that the dreams were strange, and she wasn't actually aware of the correlation between her becomi...

Who Is Ellen - 22 - HD

Challenger Remorse.

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Commentary

I considered writing "oh, they just didn't hear any part of that exchange. In which voices got raised. In a relatively empty comic shop."

Yeah, no, that was not a private conversation, BUT I felt it worked better if Nanase didn't hear it, so she there's the excuse for her missing it.

Missing

Fun fact: Given w...

Who Is Ellen - 21 - HD

Dude.

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Commentary

I knew it was important to show Larry's response to all this, and to get it exactly right.

I don't know about you, but I think I nailed it.