How To Win Rock Paper Scissors (And Why it Matters More than you Think)

What’s up designers, and welcome back to Rempton Games. Today, we learn way more than you ever knew you wanted to know about Rock-Paper-Scissors. I want to get this out of the way right away — unlike my criminally underwatched video on Candyland, this is NOT a parody. Although Rock-Paper-Scissors is an incredibly simple game, it’s surprisingly deep. Not only that, but the strategies for winning Rock-Paper-Scissors have applications far outside of the game itself. I guarantee that once you know these tactics, you will start seeing ways that they can be used in all kinds of different situations. Without further ado, let’s get started.

Let’s begin with everyone’s favorite subject — math! Mathematically, rock-paper-scissors is actually quite simple. All three options are completely equal — they all win, lose, and draw against one of the other signs. Because of this, there is no reason to favor one sign over the others, and the mathematically optimal strategy is to simply pick randomly. The random strategy is an example of what is referred to as a “Nash Equilibrium”. This basically means it’s the optimal strategy if both players are playing perfectly, because there is no way for either player to gain an advantage over the other. However, even though this is the mathematically optimal strategy, there are a few problems with it.

First, it’s boring, and I want this video to be more than a minute long.

Second, this strategy can never give you more than a 50% chance of victory (ignoring ties). Since you are watching an “Ultimate Strategy Guide”, I image you’d like to win a bit more often than that.

The final problem is that, even if you tried to play randomly…you can’t. Humans are *terrible* at behaving randomly. For example, suppose you asked someone to pick a random number between 1 and 100. If the number was truly random, you would expect to have an equal chance of picking any number, if you asked a bunch of people they would all get picked a roughly equal number of times. However, this turns out not to be true at all. Instead, people pick certain numbers far more often than others, because for some reason 37 feels “more random” (whatever that means) than a number like 90. If you are interested in learning more about this, Veritasium recently released a whole video about it.

Of course, the number picking thing is just one example of a much larger trend — anytime people try to act “randomly” they end up falling into predictable patterns. However, this doesn’t need to be a bad thing! The thing about a Nash Equilibrium is that it only really applies when both players are playing optimally. But since we know that your opponent WON’T be using the random strategy (because it’s impossible), we can actually exploit their lack of randomness to give ourselves the edge.

Most of the predictive techniques I will cover in this video are psychological — using your opponent’s patterns and biases against them. However, before I jump into that I want to briefly discuss using physical indicators. Is it possible to predict what your opponent is about to play using physical signals, and play the winning hand against them? It turns out, the answer is yes!…if you are a robot. Japanese scientists at the University of Tokyo created a “Janken” robot (named after the Japanese term for rock-paper-scissors) that can react to a player’s hand movements and automatically play the correct counter-move. The robot was able to recognize and react to the opponent’s movements in a single millisecond, and was basically unbeatable.

For a human player, this strategy is not recommended, but physical signals can still be used as one factor in determining your prediction of your opponent’s next moves.Players clenching their fists more tightly or tucking their thumb behind their fingers could be preparing to play a rock. On the other hand, players that are about to play paper might hold their fist a bit more loosely. While these indicators are subtle, they can also be very powerful — as part of a larger strategy.

The majority of your strategy, however, should be built upon psychological indicators. For one thing, although all three signs in Rock-Paper-Scissors are mathematically equivalent, that doesn’t mean they don’t feel different. The names of the sign, the shapes your hands make, and even the order that they are listed in the name of the game all affect a player’s decision to choose a particular sign.

Let’s start with rock. Why? Because it turns out that a disproportionate number of players in Rock-Paper-Scissors actually DO start with rock. In fact, it’s the most commonly used sign overall (used over 35% of the time), followed closely by Paper, with Scissors trailing at a bit less than 30%. Why would this be? Well, there are probably a few factors. First, most games of rock paper scissors start with players pumping their fists three times, so your hand is already in a “Rock” sign before the game even begins. To put it another way, this makes throwing rock basically the “default” move. Second, it’s the first sign in the name of the game, which can prime players to throw rock (especially if they aren’t really thinking about it).

Throwing rock is especially popular among male players, probably because it’s seen as the most aggressive option (your hand is in a fist after all). There is also a common belief that players tend to throw rock more often if they get angry or frustrated, although the evidence that I’ve seen is just anecdotal. All of these factors combined have led to the popularity of the phrase “Loser Lead with Rock”. And, because paper beats rock, when playing against a naive player starting with paper is your best bet.

On the other hand, if you think your opponent knows a thing or two you should start with Scissors. This is because they probably WON’T fall into the beginner trap of playing rock first. They might play paper ( if they think you are a beginner), but even if they also go scissors the worst case is that you tie. But what if your opponent knows that you are experienced, and expects you to play scissors? So they play rock to counter your scissors, so you should actually play paper? But then they expect you to play paper…(Austin Powers “I’ve Gone Crosseyed”). The rabbit hole can go pretty deep, but for most situations these two opening moves (Paper against beginners, Scissors against more experienced players) should be sufficient.

So far we’ve been talking about opening moves, but few games of Rock-Paper-Scissors are over in a single throw. Most of the time you will be playing “Best 2 out of 3” or “Best 3 out of 5”, and there will be ties along the way. After you’ve made your opening move, what do you do next?

First, one important principle of psychology to remember here is that people are more likely to repeat something that “succeeded”, and less likely to repeat something that “failed” — even if success and failure are completely random. This means that if your opponent lost using a particular sign, they are far less likely to throw that sign on the next round. On the other hand, if your opponent won the previous round, they are much more likely to throw the same sign again.

If they do lose and switch, players will often switch to the sign they lost to in the previous round. For example, if your paper covers their rock, they are more likely to switch and throw paper in the next round. In this case, you should play the sign that would beat your previous sign — in this case, scissors.

On the other hand, if you LOST the previous round you should play the sign that beats your opponents hand, under the assumption that your opponent is more likely to throw the same thing again. So, if your scissors got smashed by their rock, you can switch to paper under the assumption that they are more likely to stick with rock.

Of course, while players like sticking with what works, they don’t like sticking with anything TOO long. In a truly random sequence long strings of the same number are not uncommon. Take the following sequences, which I generated using NumberGenerator.org.

1 1 1 1 3 2 2 1 1 1 3 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 3 2 3 1 3 2 3 3 2 3 1 3 3 3 1 2 2 3 2 3 2 1 3 2 2 2 3 2

3 2 2 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 3 3 3 2 2 1 3 3 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 3 2 1 2 2 2 3 1 2 1 3 2 2 1 3 1 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3

1 1 2 3 2 2 2 2 2 3 2 2 2 3 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 2 3 3 1 1 3 3 3 2 2 1 1 2 1 3 2 1 2 3 2 2 1 3 1 1 3

Each of these strings has at least 1 sequence where the same number shows up 5 times in a row. The third sequence actually has three of these strings, and in one instance there are two strings back to back — which is basically the equivalent of playing “Paper” 5 times in a row, then switching and playing “Scissors” 5 times in a row immediately afterwards.

However, while this sort of pattern comes up all the time in a truly random sequence, you will basically NEVER see something like this happen in a game of Rock Paper Scissors. Playing the same sign multiple times in a row just doesn’t *feel* random to people, and players rarely stick with the same sign more than two times in a row. I think this is probably because players don’t want to seem “predictable” by playing the same sign too many times, so they overcorrect and switch more often than they should.

Regardless of the reason, once someone has played the same sign twice in a row, they are FAR more likely to switch to a different sign. In this case, your best bet is to play the sign that *loses* to the repeated sign. For example, if your opponent has played Rock twice in a row, your best bet is to play Scissors next. If they do switch (which they are very likely to do), the worst you can do is tie.

For my final strategy tip — while we’ve been discussing psychological factors you can use to predict your opponent’s moves, it turns out you can also use Reverse-Psychology to influence your opponent’s behavior. One way to do this is to announce which sign you are going to throw… and actually throw it. Often your opponent won’t expect you to follow through, which means that they will be less likely to throw the sign that beats the one you announced. The second time you do this, they assume that THIS time you’ll switch — and they won’t be fooled again! Of course, eventually they will catch onto your trick and expect you to follow through — which means you now know EXACTLY what they are about to throw!

Why care about Rock-Paper-Scissors?

Now, some of you may be thinking that I’m spending too much time on what is, essentially, a kid’s game used to solve minor disagreements that could easily be decided with a coin flip. However, that’s where I would have to completely disagree with you. Rock-paper-scissors may be simple, but it’s that very simplicity that makes it fundamental. More than perhaps any other game I’ve talked about in this series, once you know what to look for you can find examples of Rock-paper-scissors strategy all over the place.

Take fighting games for example. Many fighting games contain several different categories of moves, and some of those moves have an inherent advantage against others.This commonly takes the form of a Triangle consisting of Attacks, Grabs, and Counter-Attacks or parries. Normal attacks counter grabs, grabs have an advantage against counter-attacks, and counter-attacks nullify normal attacks. It could also take the form of neutal, low, and high attacks, — you need to predict WHERE your opponent will attack in order to successfully counter them with a jump, duck, or block. Although these games are played in real-time, each moment-to-moment decision is basically a miniature game of rock-paper-scissors.

How can we apply our RPS strategies to this situation? First, we have to remember that nobody is truly random. Much like how Rock is thrown more often than the other two signs, players are always going to use some options more frequently than others. For example, If someone likes to go for grabs, you know to punish them with attacks. Players also tend to repeat things that work, and avoid things that don’t. This means that if your opponent successfully took out a chunk of your health-bar with a string of attacks, they are probably going to try to do the same thing again, which means you need to be ready to counterattack when they do.

Conditioning is also a huge part of competitive fighting games. When I talked about announcing which sign you are gonna throw before you do it, that’s an example of conditioning. You set up a pattern for your opponents, create an expectation, then use that expectation against them. Lets say that, at the beginning of the match you always attempt to grab after using a particular attack. After you’ve done this a couple of times, your opponent will begin to predict the grab — in which case you switch it up to punish that prediction.

These same ideas can be applied to tons of other games as well, from the elemental type advantages of Pokemon to the Weapon Triangle found in Fire Emblem. All of these games have an element of “Rock-Paper-Scissors” in their moment-to-moment gameplay, but some games apply roshambo strategies before the game even starts.

Take Magic: The Gathering, for instance. While there are many decisions that must be made every turn in a game of magic, a lot of the decisions are actually made outside the game when you are building your deck. While there is a nearly limitless variety of different types of decks that you can make in this game, they are often lumped into three main categories — Aggro, Mid-range, and Control (and sometimes Combo, but that’s a whole other beast). To grossly oversimplify, Aggro decks go on the offensive and try to win the game as quickly as possible, control decks play defensively and try to outlast their opponents, and mid-range decks are somewhere in the middle. Aggro decks tend to be more effective against control decks because they can win before the control deck finishes setting up. Mid-range decks take a few turns to get going, but are capable of holding off the aggro decks during the early game and beating them with superior resources later on. Because mid-range decks start more slowly than aggro decks, it gives the control deck time to set-up their game plan, putting them in an advantageous position for the long-game. While the specifics of your deck choice depend on which format you are playing, what cards are currently available, your personal playstyle and preferences, etc, a big part of the metagame is predicting which decks you think OTHER people are going to play, and trying to figure out what will give yourself an edge against the rest of the field.

I could go on listing more examples, but I’d like to pass the question off to you — Can you think of any other situations in your life where Rock-Paper-Scissors strategy could give you an edge? I’d love to hear your stories in the comments below.

That’s all I have for today, but if you are interested in gaming strategy make sure to check out the rest of the videos in this series. If you enjoyed this video please give it a like, and subscribe so that you don’t miss more game design and strategy content in the future. Until then, thank you so much for watching and I’ll see you all next time!

Originally published at https://remptongames.com on August 24, 2024.