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 given that I will bend reality however I see fit to show any given two characters talking in the order I want with their faces visible.

Bard!

I'm not sure who said "there should be a class that does cool stuff by singing", but it seems like a recurring thing, so I'm just going to assume it's somehow Tolkien's fault (writer of The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings).

It's a pretty safe bet with fantasy-related fiction, though I wouldn't be surprised if I was told otherwise in detail after this.

ANYWAY, I have heard stories of gaming groups insisting that bards actually sing, or recite poetry, while doing Bard-stuff. To me, that's a bit much.

One can argue "if you're going to play a class that sings, you should sing", but imagine applying that logic to a wizard or a barbarian. Seems a bit silly.

That said, if a player has a lute handy and that's what they want to do (and it's not disruptive), that sounds fine to me.