Dungeons and Dragons seemed pretty fun. I never played it as a teen, even though a lot of my friends did. I liked the idea of exploring a fantasy world, it reminded me of the text adventures I was obsessed with, except without a computer telling me, “I don’t understand what you want me to do. I don’t understand what you want me to do. I don’t understand why you are using such vulgar language.”
What I didn’t like was all the dice rolling. Seemed to be too random. There was way too much of it, I just want to face down a monster, roll once, then have an outcome and get back to exploring. It made no sense to me why dice rolling was so popular, especially among the friends of mine who weren’t that good at logic nor math.
Finally, a friend explained it to me, “the dice rolling is just so the bad players have something to blame besides themselves.”
Now I get it. Now I get everything.
Already one NFL game with huge fantasy implications is in the books. That means it’s time to do the mental gymnastics necessary to blame anyone else for random failures. Like this Yahoo poster:
Now, although Paul crazily decided to end his rant in a non-sequitur, it can be determined from the article that the advice that “told” him to bench Gilli for Burkhead is this bit:
Mike Gillislee was the goal line back. He lucked into 3 TDs. Yes Rex Burkhead’s stock was rising, which wasn’t reflected in the carries of last night’s game. But you gotta be screwed on wrong to blame anyone for failing to predict the screaming nightmare circus that is “Bill Belichick’s running back choices.”
On the flip side is an even sadder situation: Someone who is so used to blaming others for their fantasy football woes that they can’t stop blaming them even when they are right. Matthew Berry is the go-to target for this, thanks to his copious off-the-cuff opinions (but he still has an amazing writing style that I 100% bite for my human interest pieces.) Here’s a comment from his recent love/hate article:
Okay, he wants to blame Berry for somehow sucking so bad he can reverse-influence the future. But Hunt scored four billion points, so our friend Drew has to be happy, right?
Well, at least Drew picked an innocuous thing to always be cranky about. A lot of lesser Americans would just pick a race and blame them for everything. Speaking of which:
In only four words, Jesse manages to piss me off by referring to himself in the plural form. Then he speaks down to us by explaining what 9/11 is while simultaneously looking like an idiot for not even getting that right (it happened 6 years ago?)
Then, it’s time for more condescension and utterly misunderstanding the issue (players are putting the attention on them? I’ll admit, this whole kneeling-during-the-anthem stuff has been making some noise but, even so, a kneel is quieter than a dog whistle. Finally, he ends with a moving GIF of 3,000 people losing their lives, a perfectly appropriate image for the comments section of an article titled “Ten Things Fantasy Players Should Watch for in Week 1.” Seriously, people, just let them kneel: It doesn’t directly affect your lives, and it’s even quieter than a dog whistle.
But, we’ve got more serious issues to talk about. For instance, did you know that the Doug Martin suspension has changed the fundamental mechanics of math?
Okay, Mr. Braniac, well I checked my TI-001 electric abacus and a three game suspension means a player still plays 13 games regardless of their bye. Doesn’t change things at all, just like this poster figured out that the Bucs-Dolphins game getting postponed “doesn’t change things for any of my teams.” But they didn’t just consider the case closed and move on, they used their expert sleuthing skills to reach the shocking revelation that someone else might be slightly affected!!! This is a great life skill: Never be satisfied with happiness, always pick at things until you can find something to whine about. Just like the following comment is a thinly-veiled whine about the incompetency of the English department at Willfield High School:
The commenter is nice enough to provide their own punchline at the end of the comment, where it is noted that this rambling screed was actually an “Edited” later draft. Look, when your gibberish ability crosses over into “modern art” you have an obligation to share your un-modified craziness with the world. Or at least with me, because it’s my job.
