I don’t know how to play Rock/Paper/Scissors- please tell me I’m not the only one…

[Zoflorabore]

Hi all, I’ve been on MN for over 10 years and was going to name change but decided against it and am being honest despite being embarrassed!

i am a 46 year old woman. I consider myself to be relatively intelligent and I’m educated to university level but this game burns my head out.

So as not to drip feed, I was diagnosed with ADHD last year and am also on the ASD pathway. My 2 dc are also autistic ( dd 13 and ds 21 ) they however can easily play R/P/S and think it’s pretty pathetic that I can’t.

Over the years I’ve had many, many people promise they can show me how to do it but it just goes over my head and I constantly question the game and how one thing is superior to another and I can never get it.

I see little kids playing it, people in films and i wonder why on earth I find it so hard.

it has come up in conversation tonight with my neighbours as their dc were playing it and I admitted I can’t do it and they were all laughing 😂
anyone else?!

rock beats scissors (scissors get smashed by rock)
scissors beats paper (scissors slices the paper in two)
paper beats rock (rock gets wrapped up in paper and can’t move)

Google it?

Is the obvious answer.

I always thought rock blunts scissors?

Just don't add in randoms like a pencil like my kids do 😂

It's a game of psychology. Most naive players do scissors, so you should start with rock. Except that, a lot of people know this rule and will start with rock. So if someone invites you and looks confident, you could try starting with paper.

When it's best of three, there's a good chance that the person will repeat the same move to trick you, but maybe they won't.

My friend group were clearly violent as children, we’d smash the rock fist down on the scissor hand!

That game has moved on.

Wait till you find out about Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock!

What don't you get about it? Or is it just that you can't remember the rules of what beats what? If that's the case, keep playing and you'll soon figure it out. It's not like you can play tactically, anyway, because you don't know what the other player will produce.

Could you explain more which bit you don't get?

You said " I constantly question the game and how one thing is superior to another".

A beats B, B beats C, C beats A is a weird counter-intuitive concept, because there is no best. Its like an Escher painting where you think you're always going upwards but end up back where you started.

In technical terms, it's intransitive. Whereas normal maths is transitive - in maths, if a is greater than b and b is greater than c, then it follows that a must be greater than c.

So maybe your head is refusing to accept an intransitive ruleset?

It’s kind of an annoying game. Not really a game anyway; more like a complex version of a coin toss. Do that instead.

That’s quite an interesting question really, because the only answer to “why is one thing superior to the other” is “because that’s the rule of the game”.

If you don’t mind my asking, are you comfortable with the idea that a jack is higher than a three in a card game, or with the rules for how the pieces move in chess?

That’s how my mind processes it! Weird I know and I think that’s the problem:

card games- also freak me out but incidentally I’m pretty good at chess and do understand the value of one piece over another.

thanks to everyone for replying, even those recommending Google 😊

No idea how to play it either OP.

I'll carry on in ignorance, as I've got this far in life and never needed to know.

it makes no sense to me at all. I don't understand why a person wouldn't always come out with the best answer, whatever that is !

1. choose scissors = lose to rock, win to paper
2. choose rock = lose to paper, win to scissors
3. choose paper = lose to scissors, win to rock

once you remember that scissors cut paper, a rock blunts scissors, and paper can wrap a rock, you will be able to play.

It blows my mind that anyone wouldn’t understand this. Really interested in what people don’t understand?
It’s just 3 objects to choose from and you will win or lose depending on what the other person chose.

Rock blunts scissors
Scissors cut paper
Paper wraps rock.

Each item can win or lose depending on the opposing item.

Thats it!

The game isn't about which is 'superior', but which would win in a fight:

Scissors vs Paper: the scissors would cut the paper. Scissors wins.
Rock vs Scissors: the scissors can't cut the rock, they'd get broken. Rock wins.
Paper vs Rock: probably the ropiest one, because a rock could be used to break through a sheet of paper, but you just have to really imagine the paper wrapping up the rock. Paper wins.

Er ... you produce the R/P or S at the same time. It would be completely useless if one person produced say R and waited for the other person to choose paper.

OP try this one.

Imagine instead of RPS you have shoes.

You have a pair of manolo blahnik heels, running shoes and a pair of wellies.

Which shoes are the best?

Well it depends on the situation, a red carpet event you would wear the heels, but they wouldn't be much good for running a marathon or a rainy festival.

So the 'best' depends on the situation but in RSP the 'situation' is the other players hand shape.

I'm 10 years older than the OP and haven't a clue how to play it. I've never seen anyone in real life play it either. It seems to be a totally pointless game to me.

Husband and I sometimes use it if neither of us want to do a task, but the task needs to be done immediately.

Loser has to do the task.

I think my ability to play RPS depends on whether I actually think it is a game of skill or just pretty much a bit of random nonsense. I know the rules, and don’t forget them. But were I to want to win, like one of the posters above clearly does, I would soon be in analysis paralysis. It’s usually played at a fast pace, and I just don’t have the processing speed to be doing psychology while shaking my hand behind my back.

The people on the thread saying they don't know how to play it either - you get it now you've resd the thread, right?

Yes me too!l

It's always seemed a pointless thing to me.

Never played it. So never remember what beats what!

If people did this there would be a lot less threads on mumsnet. So what if someone choses to ask Mumsnet instead.