You’re forgetting lizard, and Spock.
Rock still predates Lizard. Spock won’t be born for another 206 years, though.
I’ve always thought the hand signs would be difficult, but the best combination should be fire, water, sponge. Sponge soaks up water, water puts out fire, fire burns sponge to a crisp.
What piece of paper can really stop a rock?
Sponge is flat hand, like paper is currently. Fire is palm up, all fingers pointing up, wiggling, water is palm down, all fingers pointing down, wiggling. And you’re right, that’s an awesome variant.
They just played rock-papyrus-scissors for a few thousand years.
Ridiculous. They played Quartz Parchment Shears, as Ra intended.
Papyrus invention predates parchment for about 2500 years, parchment was invented around the same time as paper in II century BCE.
If you add Lizard and Spock, the game is still current tied.
Strangely enough, Lizard predates Rock significantly but took a long time to be considered competitively fair - around the time Spock was invented.
Lizard predates rock
Sorry what? Rocks were formed by the cooling of planetary bodies during their creation (such as the earth). Pretty sure there were no lizards around at that point in the early solar system.
Contrary to popular belief, most early hydrogen-based supernovas produced not heavy atoms that would later form rocky bodies, but actually spewed forth trillions of geckos. Geologist don’t want you to know this because they consider it really weird, which is why you wont read of it in the science books.
Also lizard loses to both rock and scissors, so it was completely unviable until the invention of paper, and it’s only balanced when Spock is born.
This just in from WRPSA (World Rock Paper Scissors Association) a breakdown of different variations on the game: https://wrpsa.com/breaking-down-the-different-variations-of-rock-paper-scissors-played-across-the-world/
Of course WRPSA is a thing
I guess next up will the Torment Nexus. Using it means both players lose, but despite warnings not to use the Torment Nexus it becomes the most popular strategy and all games from that point on are losses
I need to start using negative numbers to refer to BC years
In ancient China they played The Cycle of Life, Death, and the Five Elements but it became so convoluted and toxic everybody left the community.
then where does the invention of the well place within all this?
I was at a Texas Rangers game in the late 90s or early 00s and two kids were playing in the seats in front of me. The older kid played boogers wiggling all ten of his fingers at his opponent as a trump card. I still think about that. That little innovator is an adult now.