Ruling Official Rock, Paper, Scissors?
- Thread starter DarkJawa
- Start date
- Status
It can't be randomly determined (toss dice for example) and you can't use things like dice to determine the winner.
DarkJawa said:
Yes. It's called playing Rock/Paper/Scissors.
The only acceptable substitute for the hand motions is to have a set of cards with Rock, Paper, and Scissors on them, and choosing one. If you do use cards, you must choose one. You can't put them all face down and select one randomly. There has to be a conscious choice made.
What about a three-sided die with Rock on one vertex, Paper on another, and Scissors on the third? I have one of those, and it's sometimes used in paper-and-pen RPGs. The die is completely fair, as it's an equilateral triangular prism with perfectly rounded triangular sides to prevent itself from landing on its non-rectangular sides. It's also possible to use an ordinary three-sided die upon an agreement to each element having two sides each.
There's a way to cheat traditional rock-paper-scissors, by the way. It involves watching the other person's finger movements extremely carefully the moment they bring their hands down: People will usually start their hand movements as soon as they bring them down, or even shortly before they start bringing it down, and if you can catch what it is, you can respond with the element that will beat it when you bring your hand down. If the hand is opening as it goes down, that means they're playing paper. If the hand is uncurling its index and middle fingers, then they're playing scissors. A hand that remains clenched is rock. As it takes about 0.4 seconds for the arm to go from the upright vertical position to the horizontal rest position, that gives you time to figure it out on your down swing and reveal your choice just before it reaches the bottom.
There's also the fact that statistically, people play rock by far the most among the three choices (there's a psychological reason for this). This is because a person unsure of his or her choice will invariably play rock, as it requires no hand movement. Scissors takes the most energy, as paper puts the hand from one natural state to another, so it's the least played between them. Thus, if you can't react to the other person's movements in time, you should just always play paper on your first throw as the safest bet.
There are many other ways to cheat rock-paper-scissors. The first method could potentially be caught by a slow-motion camera, though the second is impossible to determine if the person is consciously aware of this or not.
There's a way to cheat traditional rock-paper-scissors, by the way. It involves watching the other person's finger movements extremely carefully the moment they bring their hands down: People will usually start their hand movements as soon as they bring them down, or even shortly before they start bringing it down, and if you can catch what it is, you can respond with the element that will beat it when you bring your hand down. If the hand is opening as it goes down, that means they're playing paper. If the hand is uncurling its index and middle fingers, then they're playing scissors. A hand that remains clenched is rock. As it takes about 0.4 seconds for the arm to go from the upright vertical position to the horizontal rest position, that gives you time to figure it out on your down swing and reveal your choice just before it reaches the bottom.
There's also the fact that statistically, people play rock by far the most among the three choices (there's a psychological reason for this). This is because a person unsure of his or her choice will invariably play rock, as it requires no hand movement. Scissors takes the most energy, as paper puts the hand from one natural state to another, so it's the least played between them. Thus, if you can't react to the other person's movements in time, you should just always play paper on your first throw as the safest bet.
There are many other ways to cheat rock-paper-scissors. The first method could potentially be caught by a slow-motion camera, though the second is impossible to determine if the person is consciously aware of this or not.
Ophie said:
No. Hands or cards. Those are the only two options permitted by PUI.
No, it's because they want people actually playing RPS, making a conscious choice.
Using any sort of die makes it too easy to just roll a random selection.
Using any sort of die makes it too easy to just roll a random selection.
There are actual cards that have rock, paper, and scizzors on them. They come in a package of about 60ish (I think) and have cute little pictures of a fat rock, a scissor running (kids, don't do that at home) and paper walking and smiling. lol. I think we got ours incluced in some chess game.
I don't like the RPS because it is easy to tell what your opponent is doing (do I smell the next Japanese game show?). Why doesn't the card just say "Flip a coin"? Where they trying to add something to Poke TCG?
Ophie said:
Each player gets their own set of three cards (Rock, Paper, and Scissors) -- so you can have ties as usual. Each player chooses one of them and sets it face down. Once both players have chosen, they reveal their choice. Since there is no timing involved, it eliminates pretty much all of the problems you cited.
Your TO may have the cards available, or you can provide your own. Just take some index cards and a Sharpie, or even some basic Energy cards. PUI says to provide cards, but IMO anything that works the same is fine -- I have one league player with a set of three nice-looking etched wooden coins -- but use cards if you want to avoid issues. Just note that whatever you use needs to actually have "Rock", "Paper", and "Scissors" written somewhere on it to be legal.
Also note that you do not need permission from your opponent or even your TO to use cards for RPS, as this is an officially recognized alternative. If only one player is using the cards, that player makes his choice and places the appropriate card face down, then the opponent declares his choice (verbally or with the traditional hand signal), then the card player reveals.
TCC Co-Founder said:
Yes, they were -- something other than random chance.
-I know it's been 2+ weeks, but I really need an answer on this one thing.-
At our league, we play with a die. 1 = Rock, 2 = Paper, 3 = Scissors . That way, it isn't random(Since you place the die, NOT roll it) and it isn't riggable(Or, at least, not easily. Where there's a will, there's a way, sadly. >.> )
Is this legal?
At our league, we play with a die. 1 = Rock, 2 = Paper, 3 = Scissors . That way, it isn't random(Since you place the die, NOT roll it) and it isn't riggable(Or, at least, not easily. Where there's a will, there's a way, sadly. >.> )
Is this legal?
What we do is we either play "Rock Paper Scissors".
But you can also write down 1/3 on a piece of paper and then show eachother the paper.
But you can also write down 1/3 on a piece of paper and then show eachother the paper.
Pokémaniac said:
No, it's not. Hands or cards. That's it.
ze_draeck said:
I see how it is a conscious move but it is still luck because you don't know what the other person will pick.
Scissors Paper Rock is ALWAYS luck to some extent.
- Status