Foreword
After 1,5 year of lurking about (that is, as a registered user. Add another year of my unregistered unactivity) I seem to have made up my mind that BGG is such a wonderful community that I should adopt a more active approach toward it. To start off I have decided to write a few words about probably the most influential game of the XX century - Rock-Paper-Scissors. I would appreciate any and all constructive (and not) criticism. Grammar nazis, trolls, haters and other evil people are welcome as well.
Oh, and hello everyone
ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS
Nowadays in the boardgaming world new titles are popping up like mushrooms and everyone just has to embrace “the new hotness”. While many of them are indeed great (and yet more of them are just hardly mediocre (rage and hate for this statement much appreciated)), the time spent trying out the new designs must come at the expense of older games, which slowly drift away into oblivion. One example, which is embarrassing for the whole boardgaming community is the all-forgotten classic: Rock-Paper-Scissors. In a desperate attempt to give it the attention it deserves I beseech you to take a while to read this review of an amazing game if only to bring back memories of its astonishing gameplay.
Rock-Paper-Scissors is a classic strategy game of skill. It is usually categorized as a wargame due to its realistic representation of warfare. Since there already are a lot of reviews going over the somewhat complex rules, I am not going to moan about it and I will explain them in detail. Tough luck.
RULES
The object of the game is to accumulate victory points by destroying enemy units (1 VP per unit). To achieve that, each round the players build units with varying stats, creating thus their own customized armies, which then are set against each other in an epic battle to determine the victor.
The game is played over a set of rounds. Their exact number is unknown at the beginning and ranges from 1 to about infinity depending on the number of tiebreakers and the diplomacy skill of the losing player (more on that topic later). 993
Each game round consists of 3 phases: build, combat, clean-up.
BUILD
Players simultaneously build units according to their build capacity, which is 1 at the beginning of the game, but later it generally stays the same (it is however possible to raise its value through a technique called cheating ). Each of the 3 different units has a cost of 1, but they have varying stats, namely: health, attack (atk), defense (def), dodge (do), block (bl), speed, moment of inertia (I). Every unit also has exactly 1 special ability, increasing its attack in certain match-ups (rock: +1000 atk vs. scissors; paper: +1000 atk vs. rock; scissors: +1000 atk vs. paper).
To signalize that a player is still taking his turn, he keeps shaking his hand in a continuous fashion.
Once the players have composed their armies the game moves on to the combat phase.
COMBAT
Players simultaneously reveal their chosen units and then proceed to resolving skirmishes between them. Damage is dealt according to the following simple formula:
If the damage dealt exceeds the unit’s health, it is destroyed and VPs are awarded.
CLEAN-UP
Any surviving units are removed (as opposed to destroyed – a common misconception and object of several errata). If no unit was destroyed in the previous turn, the game automatically moves on to the next round, otherwise the losing player may attempt a series of insults and threats diplomacy check to make the opponent play an additional round.
If no additional round needs to be played, the player with more VPs wins! In the event of a tie, players play the game again.
COMPONENTS
The components are sadly very scarce. The game comes with a set of units for each player. While the units are well crafted and bear a striking resemblance to their real-life counterparts, there is one major problem – the two sets look very much alike and as such it is sometimes very difficult to tell them apart, especially in the heat of battle. The producer should have provided us with different colors for the two armies. This solution, however, allows for the game to be friendly to the colorblind (or at least unfriendly to the same degree) – an asset commonly overlooked in modern gaming. Further, the lack of text makes the game language-independent – another explanation to RPS’ immense worldwide popularity. The components also allow for a quick setup time, unrivalled by any contemporary wargame, as well as high portability, so that you can easily bring your copy of Rock-Paper-Scissors to the game night! 937