Rock-Paper-Scissors: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|''"[[Serious Business|It's a very serious human game]]."''

 

{{examples}}

* A 2007 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5w-rZ4s4_M Super Bowl commercial for Bud Light] involves two guys playing Rock-Paper-Scissors for the last bottle in an ice chest.

{{quote|"But I threw Paper..."

* A 2011 "Subway" commercial involves two firefighters playing Rock-Paper-Scissors to see who gets a coworker's sandwich; but by the time they complete their best-two-out-of-three, he's already polished it off and merely hands over the empty wrapper.

 

* In the original ''[[Dragon Ball]]'', "Jan Ken" is a fighting move—Rock is a punch, Paper is a chop, and Scissors is a Three-Stooges-style eye poke. Also you have to [[Calling Your Attacks|call out which one you're using]] whenever you attack with it, which leads to a scene where Goku "cheats" somewhat by saying Paper but doing the Rock move instead.

** During the King Piccolo arc, Goku and Yajirobe Rock-Paper-Scissors for the right to fight King Piccolo's minion Cymbal. Cymbal was not amused.

* Also in ''[[Black Lagoon]]''. During a [[Chase Scene]], Revy and Shenhua play one round of RPS to decide who gets to destroy one of the Japanese Red Army vehicles that wants them dead. {{spoiler|Shenhua wins and destroys most of the convoy instead, pissing off Revy in the process.}}

* Used in ''[[Saiyuki]]'' to decide who has to carry the pack when they can't ride in jeep. Although it's not a fair game, the others all know that goku always uses scissors.

* In ''[[Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water]]'', there is a collective rock-paper-scissors game to determine who's doing chores... which Sanson always loses because he's predictable (he tends to regularly pick scissors). Later in the same episode, when confronted by an enemy mecha armed with a crab-like pincer, Sanson briefly mumbles to himself the rules of the game, concluding with "Rock beats scissors!"... and he picks a big boulder to throw at the mecha, hoping to block its claw. It doesn't work.

* In one episode of ''[[Keroro Gunsou]]'', the main characters decide to have a snowball fight following the "official rules", which involves splitting into two teams. Tamama suggests that they add an element of Capture the Flag by having one teammate tied up and rescued by the others on their team, and that they pick who it is by using rock-paper-scissors. This is actually a ploy to get Natsumi out of the running, since she has the most physical prowess, but always loses at RPS.

* ''[[Nichijou]]'': [[Once Per Episode]], a short clip shows [[Ridiculously Human Robot|Nano]] and [[Child Prodigy|the Professor]] playing this. It always ends with some catch that prevents Nano from winning. Either her hand will fly off, carrying her with it, it will be replaced by a shark, flowers... {{spoiler|The only time Nano does actually win, Sakamoto is hanging from the Professor's head, preventing her from seeing the outcome}}.

 

* A ''[[Babylon 5]]'' comic book features a futuristic rock-paper-scissors called "Laser, Mirror, Starweb", where laser (a single finger extended) cuts starweb (a hand with all fingers spread out), starweb covers mirror (a hand with all fingers together), and mirror reflects laser.

* In ''[[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]]'', Robin and Speedy decide who gets to finish off a villain this way.

 

* In ''[[The Castle of Cagliostro|The Castleof Cagliostro]]'', [[Lupin III]] and Jigen play rock-paper-scissors to decide who'll fix a flat on their car.

* In ''[[Rio]]'', a couple of mooks play RPS and one of them wins by lying to the other that scissors cuts rock.

* ''[[Tremors]]''. [[Heterosexual Life Partners|Valentine and Earl]] regularly use Rock Paper Scissors to decide things, such as who's going to make breakfast. Later, they use it to decide who will make a dangerous heroic dash to save everyone.

** Picked up again in the sequel, where Earl's new sidekick has apparently never heard of the game. When it get used to see who takes the heroic risk, Earl loses, then just says lies about the rules ("Rock rips through paper!") and goes in anyway.

** Note that the Turtles could ''only'' use the standard version of this trope, as nearly all variations (e.g. Lizard/Spock) require more fingers than they've got.

 

* In one of the ''[[Doctor Who Expanded Universe]]'' novels, a character plays rock-paper-scissors with an [[Eldritch Abomination]] to avert [[The End of the World as We Know It]]. [[It Makes Sense in Context]] and it's far, far [[Better Than It Sounds]].

* In one of the ''[[Xanth]]'' novels, this results in a terrible and tragic misunderstanding. A dragon and a merman are friends and decide to resolve a dispute using "Earth, Water, Fire." Predictably the merman picks water, and the dragon picks fire. Each declares he has won, and incensed at his friend's cheating (and his drowning attempt), the dragon eats the merman. Later he learns that while dragons believe that "Water covers Earth, Earth smothers fire, and Fire evaporates water", in Merman society "Earth blocks Water, Fire melts Earth, and Water douses Fire." He's quite broken up about the fact that he ate his friend over a misunderstanding.

* ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]'' has two characters settle a dispute with rock-paper-scissors. Since one of them could tell the future and the other read minds, they didn't bother actually playing.

 

* One ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' [http://www.ibras.dk/montypython/episode25.htm#7 sketch in episode 25]. Several [[World War I]] soldiers use rock-paper-scissors to decide which one will kill himself (long story). However, they call it "Fisties" and Rock is called "Stone".

{{quote|'''Major:''' Now... scissors cut everything, don't they?

* On ''[[The Amazing Race]]'', racers will sometimes do this to determine which of them is going to do a Roadblock if they're fairly evenly matched physically and it's still early going, so they're not worried yet about hitting up against the individual-racer Roadblock limit.

 

* ''[[The Far Side]]'' has a cartoon where three cavemen play this and kept tying ([[Don't Explain the Joke|because paper and scissors hadn't been invented yet]]).

 

* [[Shawn Michaels]] and [[Triple H]] do this when they're fighting as [[D Generation X]] to determine who fights first or speaks first... or gets to do anything, really.

 

* The homebrew comedy Tabletop RPG ''[http://dsg.neko-machi.com/mascot-tan.html Mascot-tan]'' uses rock-paper-scissors instead of dice to determine the results of actions.

* In many live-action role-playing systems, conflicts are resolved via RPS. This is joked about in ''[[Dork Tower]]'' during a ''Vampire'' party.

 

* Spoofed in ''[[Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater]]'''s secret movie, "The Ultimate Weapon", where Snake manages to combine the three hand gestures into one.

** Of course, [[The Ace|the Boss]] then demonstrates that {{spoiler|[[Nuke'Em]] beats ''[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|every]]''''[[Crowning Moment of Funny|thing]]''}}.

* In ''[[Final Fantasy XIII-2]]'', one of the Datalog entries describes how Mog came to serve Lightning. "It was an exciting duel. She threw down scissors three times in a row, kupo! I wasn't expecting that. Maybe I shouldn't have picked swords after all, kupo..."

 

* ''[[Penny Arcade (Webcomic)|Penny Arcade]]'' features a Tribes-flavored strip where two people play RPS, except one player brings [[Hammerspace|from nowhere]] a huge gun. The other says, "Fuck you."

* Not a straight example of this trope, but this strip of ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'' deserves mention: [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0424.html "Paper Beats Rock"]

* ''[[The Non-Adventures of Wonderella|Wonderella]]'' meets the Lady of the Lake and demands a [[Cool Sword]]. Since the Lady doesn't do that anymore, the best she can offer is a pair of invincible shears that can cut through anything. Wonderella turns her back on it dismissively, but regrets it when her city is invaded by elemental monsters of Paper and Rock.

* There is a webcomic with the title of "[[Rock Paper Scissors (webcomic)|Rock Paper Scissors]]".

 

* The ''[[Web Video]]/Lonelygirl15'' universe video "Nut Kills Man" includes a variant called "Squirrel Nut Man": squirrel eats nut, man kills squirrel, nut kills man (he has allergies).

* The [[Waverly Films]] Clip of the week, ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P90sZu5CbcE&feature=channel Rock Paper Scissors EXTREME]'', is the antithesis of the anticlimax definition, since the RPS-ing ''is'' the climax.

* In''[[Memetic Mutation|my]]''rock-paper-scissors? It's more likely than you think. Behold: [http://www.umop.com/rps101/rps101chart.html RPS 101]! You read that right. Rock-paper-scissors with 101 hand signs instead of 3. Good luck with that. To boot, clicking on a hand sign in that Flash application brings you to an explanation of why that sign dominates each of its 50 victims. Some are really weird, naturally.

 

* In ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'', Bart and Lisa once resolved a discussion by a game of RPS. The result serves as the [[Trope Namers]] (and page quote) for [[Poor Predictable Rock]].

* Kaz loses the band in a high stakes game of rock-paper-scissors in ''[[Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi]]''.

* Appears in two ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' sketches. [http://robotchicken.wikia.com/wiki/I_Hate_This_Game One] features a variation of the game and [http://robotchicken.wikia.com/wiki/Who_Does_What_Now%3F the other] takes it literally.

 

* In Indonesia, there is this version: Elephant crushes Person, Person crushes Ant, Ant drives Elephant crazy by crawling in its ear. Elephant is the thumb, Ant is the pinkie, and Person is the index finger.

* A U.S. federal judge ordered a minor (but lengthily debated) side issue to be resolved by having the disputants play rock-paper-scissors:

* One guy who played Rock-Paper-Scissors threw a funny-looking "scissors" (thumb and index finger rather than first two fingers) and kept getting told he wasn't allowed to throw "gun." How fair is Rock-Paper-Scissors if you can [[Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?|just shoot the other guy]]? After a lot of protesting that he was actually throwing scissors, he eventually decided that he ''was'' throwing "gun"—and that "gun" trumped paper and scissors but not rock.

** That's called "Countryman's Choki", and is supposed to tie with scissors (but is not valid in the standard game; it is a slight variant).

 

{{reflist}}