THE GREATEST GAME EVER...!

or how I learned to stop worrying, and love rocks, papers, and scissors.

The game Fluxx is a wonderfully clever game my friend Chris picked up when we were at a Gamer's Paradise in Woodfield Mall in Chicago. It's a fun game in it's own right, but what particularly entertained us was the game's descriptor for how to pick who goes first: play a game of rock, paper, scissors. Well, not being one to deviate from what could be a very integral rule of the game, Chris insisted that we do rock, paper, scissors every time we start the game. Soon, this caught on amongst all of us who were part of our gaming group, which included my friends, Anne, Jacob, and Theresa. We began to incorporate it as a regular feature in deciding who to begin for many of our games, which became extremely amusing, as we would have to do run-offs in groups as large as half-a-dozen, eliminating people through a sometimes long and tedious process, before beginning our real game.

Well, when I moved to Washington, D.C., along with doing job hunting, I began to play tourist and do some sightseeing at the many places which I had missed on a family vacation to the nation's capital in 1988. One of these adventures took me to the Washington Monument. At the monument, you have to wait in line for timed entry tickets which say when you're allowed to go up to the top for the look-see at the city. Well I got there maybe 8:30am one day, and was standing in line for about an hour for my tickets. (Not too bad for late-July and the heat of tourist season.) Anyway, as I'm standing there, my brain is running a mile a minute, trying to entertain me, and I start making a series of free-associations. I recalled that each person was able to obtain 6 tickets. Now I was just by myself, so I would only need the one. Being the good capitalist I was raised to be by American culture of the '80s, I immediately then started thinking about scalping the remainder. But if you wait in line, tickets are free, and if you want to go through Ticketmaster, there's only a $1.50 surcharge to guarentee yourself a slot, so scalping would have had a very low market viability give the alternative costs to obtain tickets. Besides, that would probably get me in trouble with the Park Service Rangers who were stationed in the area, and that might jeopardize my own adventure.

However, what could they do if I got extra tickets, and just gave them away? There's certainly nothing shady about that. Wierd, perhaps, but not shady. I didn't want to just drop a gift into someone's lap, however, since I'd had to wait in line so long myself. I wanted people to have to somehow earn the tickets, to have made some sort of sacrifice to get them, since I was saving them so much time in line. Then it hit me -- a true stroke of brilliance! I'd make someone play me in Rock, Paper, Scissors!

By this time, I'd gotten to the front of the ticket line. I made a quick decision, and asked for 3 tickets. Keeping one for myself, I dashed back about two-thirds of the way down the line, and started going up to random people waving the extra tickets and calling out "I got a pair of tickets for anyone who can beat me in Rock, Paper, Scissors!". A few people looked dubiously at me; one lady sadly shook her head that she needed more than just two. A guy ridiculed me for wanting "to play games", when I don't know, I suppose he was doing something really serious for the next hour by just standing in line. Finally, a woman, looking slightly wary, hesitantly said she'd play. We had to do three run-offs, since we kept throwing out the same thing, but finally she won. (Luckily for her, she did win -- I wouldn't have given them up if I'd beaten her; part of the mystique you know. ;) ) So I gave her the tickets, and she went off to sight-see elsewhere til her time to go up the monument, and I went off on my way to do the same, both of us with a smile and a really cool story to tell about vacationing in D.C. :)

At the end of the day, I come home, and I fire off an email to my friends from Fluxx-playing, describing this event. Starting to really wonder about the possibilities of Rock, Paper, Scissors, however, I did an internet search on the topic, and whoo-boy, did I get some interesting results! Apparently, I am not the only one upon who's life, Rock, Paper, Scissors, has had a tremendous impact:

This site is an official strategy guide to the game.

In the tradition of WWF Smackdown, there is a Grudge Match game set up amongst the three principle combatants: the mighty Rock, the nimble Paper, and the industrious Scissors.

If you go here you can challenge someone to a game by email, or here to get some practice online against a computer first.

If the game as it is traditionally played is getting a little old for you, you can make a cocktail party version of it with instructions from this site, or take it to the 23rd century by playing this man's variation which adds Spock and a Lizard to the mix. An excerpt on how to play with those rules:

"This game was invented because it seems like when you know someone well enough, 75-80% of any Rock-Paper-Scissors games you play with that person end up in a tie. Well, here is a slight variation that reduces that probability. (Note that for those of you who like to swing your fist back and forth and say, "Rock, Paper, Scissors, GO!", might want to continue to do that, replacing "Rock" with "One," "Paper" with "Two," and "Scissors" with "Three.") This version is also nice because it satisfies the Law of Fives."

Spock-Lizard!

And once you've played Rock, Paper, Scissors, Spock, Lizard, you might want to go check out this place which talks about actual lizards involved in their own game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

If after all that, you feel like you're ready for the big leagues of Professional Rock, Paper, Scissors playing, you can go to the World Rock Paper Scissors League. If instead you're done with rock, paper, scissors for the day, you can go back to the foyer or also to my silly links page.

This page is located at
http://www.geocities.com/athens/agora/6880/rps.html
http://www.geocities.com/mattuofc/rps.html