Earth to Earth...

OK, there IS more. Last night's entry was a bit brief, but it was three in the morning and I needed sleep. I just put something up because I know how ProfessorDnD gets when he does'nt have something to read.
So, no shit, there we were...The Fanatical Paladin, the Dynamic Ranger (and by dynamic, I really mean paranoid), the Cleric of questionable morals (and sometime kobold gourmond) and the Dwarven...erm..."Engineer". We were wending our way through the earth level of the Temple of Elemental Evil, there are many twists and turns there. We had been through the building on the surface and found most thing destroyed. We discovered a colour scheme of Green, Brown, White and Red. I surmised that these stood for Evil Elements (!) Water (brackish), Earth, Air and Fire...respectively. We ended up down on the first level under, and noticed that all of the imaginary people we were killing wore brown robes with a black trangle thereon. This merely reinforced my theory that the colours went with the elements as the triangle is the Alchemical symbol for earth...Medieval studies Degree kids. Soon, we found that there was planty to kill. We fought much the ususal suspects as before, Gnolls, Bugbears and human cultists. However, there were many more of them. Thorrin, the Dwarf finally got a magic item, a ring of shooting stars, and I was planning the manifold pain that I would bring down on cultists with this item. You see, last night, I was rolling for shit. Fumbles abounded. I got sick and tired of giving my foes an attack of opportunity whilst I picked up my errant weapon so my new strategy was to attack hand to hand. The first time was against a gnoll. I dropped my axe. The snarling gnoll thought he had me, but I lept on him and grappled him to the ground and began smashing his tender head against the flagstones. He pitifully tried to defend himself, but to no avail. His brains ended up painting the floor in a masterpiece of graymatter and granite. The second time was against a human cultist. I could think of nothing else to do but to feign picking up my weapon and then head butting him as hard as I could...in the nuts. Much to my surprise, I killed him. Imagine, going to hell and having the demonic elemental (or whatever these guys believe) ask you how you met your end. Imagine saying "I was headbutted in the junk by a short guy". It makes me giggle a little even now.
This, however, is not how I met my end. As I said before, it was a glyph of warding. I know, I know...I didnt check. Also, remember that not in thirty years of D and D goodness have I ever played a thief. Now I know why. I havent the mind of a thief. Besides, I would never have been able to detect a magical trap, I was not a wizard (which we had, and 8th level one). It came out later that the Paladin has the ability to, 50% of the time, dispell magic. Of course, he forgot about this. The Paladin, determined to give me a Christian Burial (!) proceeded to strap my carcass to his back and carry me around. I then began, by mercy of the DM, to play the NPC wizard. This I could do. Like the time we ran across a guard post with 28 people in it. The paladin was set to charge in and put that den of evil to death, and I said wait. I opened the door and threw a fire ball in, then I closed the door and stepped back. Yeah, Fireball, when you need to kill every single motherf#$er in the room, right now.
However, to be fair and to indulge the Professor, the other players played very well...much better than yours truely...a ghost.
The Cleric is a powerhouse. Healing and fighting. For a new guy, he can really play, he just needs to know what all his spells do. I admire him for taking on a spell casting character right out of the gate. I think I am going to make him some spell flashcards or something.
The Paladin, a bit of a fanatic. We have to reign him in sometimes, positing that it is better to sometimes fight evil when we have a good chance of living through it...so we can fight evil again. He is, however, a killing machine and much needed in this adventure.
The Ranger is a quisineart on two legs. He has a bow, but has found that wielding his magic swords is more effective. Seriously, the guy is a walking slaughterhouse. He also keeps rolling well.
I also have props for all my geeky homies in the role playing department. Our group is a mixed bag of seasoned role players and newbies. These guys first cut their teeth on Call of Cthulhu...and from that experience I figured that AD&D would be more their bag. I could not have been more correct. They have really taken to it.
We also get to smoke a lot of cigars and pipe tobacco and drink some rather excellent Single Malts and special Rums. Very nice.
After all these years of Playing RPGs, I can say the last few years or so, have not been as fun as I remember it being as a kid. However, I can say, without equivocation, that I now remember now as an adult, what I loved about this hobby as a kid.
Part of that probably has to do with going back to the old school roots. Playing games that had fewer rules and much more fun. Games from an age when gameing was about having a good time with your friends, and not creating byzantine characters, full of rules, stated out to their every ability...just to show everybody else at the table what a bad ass you think you are.
I am only sorry that it took this long to discover it.