|
Hello and welcome to this Let's Play of "Rock, Papers, Scissors", a classic east Asian parlour game with roots back to the Han Dynasty in the third century AD. In this LP Team Left  will be facing off against Team Right  in a best-of-seven battle The rules are simple: Each team will choose one of the three available gestures: The eponymous Rock, Papers, and Scissors.  Rock defeats scissors since the scissors are liable to break when trying to cut rock, but is in turn defeated by paper since the paper can cover the rock in a most humiliating fashion.  Paper defeats and dishonours rock by covering it with its papery body, but is horribly bisected by scissors.  Scissors defeat paper by way of bladed murder, but will break like waves upon the shore on rock's stony flesh. The team that chooses the victorious sign wins the round and will gain one point. If both teams happen to choose the same gesture, no one wins and the round will be played again. This being a best of seven, the first team to collect four points will be the winner. I know this might be a foreign and complicated game for some of you, so do not hesitate to ask if any part of the rules are unclear! For now, we will need some of you to sign up for either Team Left or Team Right in this contest of manly virtue. Team specific threads will be posted when we have a handful of signups for both teams. Of course if watching is your thing, feel free to hang out here to spectate and dicuss the intricacies of Rock-Paper-Scissors.
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2017 18:44
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 22:54 |
|
|
An interesting note about this game is about its computational complexity. There are quite a lot of ways a game could possibly go, way too many for modern computers to calculate. Even though teams full of computer scientists have been at it for decades, they've still not been able to design a computer program that can beat top tier professional Rock-Paper-Scissors players. Anyway, sign me up for Team Communism.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2017 19:31
|
|
|
First rule of any fight: take your shirt off Team skins
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2017 00:48
|
|
|
Sign me up for Team Left
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2017 02:36
|
|
|
The gloves... are on. Team Right.
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2017 04:04
|
|
|
Carbon dioxide posted:An interesting note about this game is about its computational complexity. All of this is very true and rather fascinating. I'm planning to make one or two semi-effortposts on how deep the rabbit hole on rock-papers-scissors can go. I''ve also read up a bit on programming competitions where rock-paper-scissors-bots play against each other, so I'll try to provide a few such fun facts as well. It's really amazing how complicated a simple game becomes when we put our mind to it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2017 12:56
|
|
|
What happened to Peggle  I'll sign up for Team Right, because I'm not wrong.
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2017 13:06
|
|
|
Team Left, tovarish! Little known fact: in ancient times they played with actual rocks, papers and scissors as they didn't have hands back then.
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2017 13:55
|
|
|
Sign me up for Team Left
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2017 15:45
|
|
|
paper "beating" rock just by covering it is extremely ludonarrative dissonance imho
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2017 16:14
|
|
|
If loving RPS is wrong, I don't want to be Team Right.
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2017 16:15
|
|
|
I'll be here to observe and discuss the computational/game theoretic aspects of rock-paper-scissors.
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2017 16:47
|
|
|
Covski posted:All of this is very true and rather fascinating. I'm planning to make one or two semi-effortposts on how deep the rabbit hole on rock-papers-scissors can go. I''ve also read up a bit on programming competitions where rock-paper-scissors-bots play against each other, so I'll try to provide a few such fun facts as well. It's really amazing how complicated a simple game becomes when we put our mind to it. Oh wow, it really goes that deep? I never really thought too hard about that game before. I'll be looking forward to those writeups. I'll be on Team Right.
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2017 21:19
|
|
|
Just warning you guys, I've never had to do the dishes/mow the lawn because I'm just that good at this game.
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2017 21:50
|
|
|
The teams so far: Team Left Carbon dioxide Sjs00 oldskool Ahundredbux DivineCoffeeBinge Team Right Oblivion4568238 AlphaKretin CirclMastr Dr. Fetus Sign-ups will be open at least another 24 hours or so. AlphaKretin posted:What happened to Peggle Died along with my old laptop, sorry to say  Hopefully this even sillier LP concept makes up for it at least slightly!Really Pants posted:paper "beating" rock just by covering it is extremely ludonarrative dissonance imho Hey, take it up with the Han dynasty, bud 
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2017 22:31
|
|
|
Covski posted:All of this is very true and rather fascinating. I'm planning to make one or two semi-effortposts on how deep the rabbit hole on rock-papers-scissors can go. I''ve also read up a bit on programming competitions where rock-paper-scissors-bots play against each other, so I'll try to provide a few such fun facts as well. It's really amazing how complicated a simple game becomes when we put our mind to it. There was a once programming competition based around the Prisoner's Dilema. Do you sell out, or trust the other player? (I can't source it, I heard it on a Radiolab episode though) Turns out the winning move was to assume the other guy is trustworthy until they aren't, then never trust them again.
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2017 23:24
|
|
|
Team Left please.
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2017 23:38
|
|
|
Fun fact, before the latest patch it was possible to underflow your finger count and beat rock with scissors.
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2017 23:44
|
|
|
Team Right everybody knows RPS is 90% mental and I have a very powerful brain
|
|
#
?
Feb 12, 2017 06:28
|
|
|
I want to observe and get a feel for the RPS metagame around these parts
|
|
#
?
Feb 12, 2017 14:10
|
|
|
Team Left forever
|
|
#
?
Feb 12, 2017 15:04
|
|
|
ViggyNash posted:There was a once programming competition based around the Prisoner's Dilema. Do you sell out, or trust the other player? (I can't source it, I heard it on a Radiolab episode though) Did someone say sources? There were two tournaments by the first person to do this; the first one produced the brutally effective "tit for tat" strategy that basically owned everyone else present despite being the smallest program there by a few orders of magnitude, and the second was held specifically to challenge an entire generation of programmers, strategists and ethicists to produce a strategy that could beat tit-for-tat (they couldn't). They concluded that the four things you needed to be effective were to assume good faith, retaliate against betrayal, be willing to forgive, and to act for the general good of all over the good of yourself. The tournaments have been repeated endlessly since. There still isn't a quantifiably better strategy. I don't know how much of such reasoning can apply to RPS though; RPS is like 100% metagame. I'm gonna be delighted to find out, though.
|
|
#
?
Feb 12, 2017 15:12
|
|
|
GeneX posted:I want to observe and get a feel for the RPS metagame around these parts basic meta-strategy begins with the "Fleischer Rhombus" i.e. a semi-closed fist which, given sufficient training, can be transitioned into rock, paper, or scissors quicker than the naked eye some hidebound purists will rush to cry "unethical!" but to my mind such strategies bring an essential layer of depth to ropapsci and elevate the noble sport from a game of chance to a game of true skill
|
|
#
?
Feb 12, 2017 15:18
|
|
|
gently caress yes Team Left for me please OP; the right has had too many wins recently.
|
|
#
?
Feb 12, 2017 15:18
|
|
|
Team Right on!!!
|
|
#
?
Feb 12, 2017 15:59
|
|
|
A short history of Rock-Paper-Scissors (mostly paraphrased from Wikipedia) The earliest sources about RPS dates the game back to the Chinese Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD). Back then it was called shoushiling, literally "hand command" which happens to be a much cooler name than "rock paper scissors". In the 17th century, the game spread to Japan were it involved into a wide variety of popular "sansukumi-ken", that is, a "three-way deadlock fist game", which is also a better name than RPS because "three-way deadlock fist" sounds like a secret deadly kung fu technique. The earliest known Japanese variant was frog-slug-snake, which ...I'm not sure is a better name than rock papers scissors? The most popular Japanese variant however, was "Kitsune-ken", (Magical Fox-Hunter-Village Head), in which you hade to use both hands, which does sound inconvenient to me. The most famous three-way deadlock fist game, "Jen-ken", was invented in the late 19th century between the Edo and Meiji periods. This variant of the game introduced the rock-paper-scissors gestures that we are all familiar with. When Japan opened up to westerners, the game quickly spread to the western world as a novel Asian curiosity. In 1842, the Rock Paper Scissors Club was founded in London. The first issue of The Stone Scissors Paper included the club's charter: "The club is dedicated to the exploration and dissemination of knowledge regarding the game of Paper Scissors Stone and providing a safe legal environment for the playing of said game." This does beg the question of what an unsafe legal environment for RPS is. It would take a fair while longer before the game reached wide popularity. As late as the middle of the 1920's, the game was apparently still obscure enough that the rules of the game had to be explained when mentioned in British newspaper articles, but rapidly gained popularity after that point. The US seem to have arrived slightly later to the RPS party, with a 1932 New York times article helpfully providing their readers with the rules to the newfangled game. The 1933 edition of the Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia stated, "This is such a good way of deciding an argument that American boys and girls might like to practice it too". Speaking of RPS a method of argument solving there have been a few high profile cases of exactly this, such as the 2006 federal court case of Avista Management v. Wausau Underwriters where a flustered Florida judge order the parties to use the game to settle a prolonged dispute over a trivial issue. In 2005, the seller of an art collection including pieces by (van Gogh, Picasso, and Cézanne) asked competing two auction houses to decide who got to hold the auction using RPS. The winning auction house gained the day on the advice of one of the executive's young daughters, who suggested that they choose scissors on the basis that "Everybody expects you to choose 'rock'." There, I hope that's more RPS history than you could have ever dreamed of. Otherwise, I honestly don't know what to tell you. Next, I'll do a quick write-up on strategy and computer algorithms.
|
|
#
?
Feb 12, 2017 16:19
|
|
|
Left is the right choice!
|
|
#
?
Feb 12, 2017 16:20
|
|
|
Fedule posted:Did someone say sources? There were two tournaments by the first person to do this; the first one produced the brutally effective "tit for tat" strategy that basically owned everyone else present despite being the smallest program there by a few orders of magnitude, and the second was held specifically to challenge an entire generation of programmers, strategists and ethicists to produce a strategy that could beat tit-for-tat (they couldn't). They concluded that the four things you needed to be effective were to assume good faith, retaliate against betrayal, be willing to forgive, and to act for the general good of all over the good of yourself. Thanks for the article, that was an interesting read! RPS and prisoner's dilemma are two very different beasts however, primarily since PD (at least with the classic values) is mathematically solvable, as well as cooperative rather than competitive assuming several rounds are played. Really Pants posted:basic meta-strategy begins with the "Fleischer Rhombus" i.e. a semi-closed fist which, given sufficient training, can be transitioned into rock, paper, or scissors quicker than the naked eye You might be joking, but Japanese scientists have created a RPS robot with a 100% win rate by using a high speed camera to determine what move the opponent is making. So yeah, cheating rock paper scissor bots just might be the future. I'm very unsure what would happen if two of those faced off against each other though.
|
|
#
?
Feb 12, 2017 16:36
|
|
|
Covski posted:RPS and prisoner's dilemma are two very different beasts however, primarily since PD (at least with the classic values) is mathematically solvable, as well as cooperative rather than competitive assuming several rounds are played. This needs some clarification. Exactly how the iterated prisoner's dilemma goes down depends on whether the number of rounds is known ahead of time. If it is, then the rational thing to do (in the sense of maximizing expected utility) is to always defect. The game only gets more interesting if the number of rounds is unknown. I don't know in what sense the PD is solvable and RPS isn't. Can you explain a bit more?
|
|
#
?
Feb 12, 2017 16:48
|
|
|
ultrafilter posted:I don't know in what sense the PD is solvable and RPS isn't. Can you explain a bit more? Basically, in standard PD you can have an optimal strategy for raking in the most points. (Trust until you are betrayed, never trust again.) But you can't really define something like that in RPS, since between these three hands your decisions are inherently symmetrical. For example, one could use the strategy Always play rock. That sounds like a bad strategy, but statistically that person would still win 1/3 of his games. (1/2 if you don't count draws.) Especially since he might meet an opponent who has the similar tactic of "No choice but Scissors!" This is a bit of an oversimplification. But the point is that for every strategy which seems reasonably logical, there is one which is just as logical and would absolutely demolish it. The biggest difference is probably that the PD has the dual choice of being good vs evil, while in RPS you are mostly choosing from three different options where none of them is strictly better than the others. Also "winning" PD against only one opponent is trivial. Always betray. In the worst case it would be a draw. An "optimal" tit for tat player would actually lose against that. cant cook creole bream fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Feb 12, 2017 |
|
#
?
Feb 12, 2017 22:52
|
|
|
What beats choosing among all three options uniformly at random?
|
|
#
?
Feb 12, 2017 23:00
|
|
|
ultrafilter posted:What beats choosing among all three options uniformly at random? Choosing uniformly at random shifted by one, of course.
|
|
#
?
Feb 12, 2017 23:02
|
|
|
Lefties unite!
|
|
#
?
Feb 12, 2017 23:03
|
|
|
About RPS tactics and algorithms Disclaimer: I am not a professional RPS player, so anything I say might be completely wrong. If anyone here is willing to admit to being a high-level RPS player, please do correct me if I say stupid things! As has been alluded to, the main thing is about rock-paper–scissors is this: Against a truly random opponent, there is no way to gain an advantage. Luckily, us humans are completely and abjectly terrible at being truly random. This is also the reason the players in this LP will be honourbound to not use any kind of random number generators when choosing their moves - otherwise we might just as well be playing Let's Play Flip A Coin (which I'm considering for my next LP). In fact, one of the most common strategies in high-level RPS tournaments is simply using a random method to decide your moves ahead of time. Beyond this, there is some interesting meta knowledge one can exploit. For example, winning players tend to repeat their previous move, while losing players tend to switch move - most commonly to the move that the just lost to (rock to paper, paper to scissors, and so forth), but not always. Brain scientists and psychologists have gone so far as to argue that this so called "win-stay lose-shift" behaviour might even be hard-wired into the human brain, and can be recognised in other competitive environments. At the same time, experiments have shown that players tend to unconsciously and instinctively mimic the moves of their opponent. So, disregarding the more unsavoury tactics used by RPS tryhards (such as attempting to trick their opponents into making an illegal move and being disqualified), the strategy usually boils down to knowledge of RPS meta gaming, and a healthy helping of psychology. Of course, in repeated games the players' knowledge of each other's playing styles are also a factor. Okay, so humans are bad at being random. What this means is that computer programmes can consistently beat even the most skilled human players over the course of many games, using a variety of methods. Among the most common methods for this are combinations is using history matching (trying to predict the opponents moves by finding a pattern in the sequences used), and variants of frequency analyses, trying to identify moves the opponent uses more often than others. This site has a collection of some of the best RPS algorithms, based on their performance when playing against each other. For those of you programmatically inclined the source code is available for viewing, while the rest of us can just be satisfied by losing to computers at rock-paper-scissors. It's interesting to note that pure randomness gives you 50% odds of winning one round of RPS, while the highest ranking scripts on this site has win rates of above 80%. I've probably spent a life time supply of RPS spergin', so I'll leave the effort posting for now. I might say a few words about asymmetrical variants of the game later, but no promises!
|
|
#
?
Feb 12, 2017 23:57
|
|
|
if you do LP Flip-A-Coin please make it a narrative
|
|
#
?
Feb 12, 2017 23:59
|
|
|
Any interest in a series of informative posts on game theory? I think I can put together something that gets a lot of the basic ideas across in terms of Rock-Paper-Scissors and some other simple games.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2017 00:26
|
|
|
The teams so far: Team Left Carbon dioxide Sjs00 oldskool Ahundredbux DivineCoffeeBinge MercurialOne chitoryu12 Gridlocked cant cook creole bream AJ_Impy Team Right Oblivion4568238 AlphaKretin CirclMastr Dr. Fetus GNU Order Crosspeice At least 6 hours until the game begins so still time to sign! The teams are a bit unbalanced in favour of Team Left. Not that I foresee numerical superiority being the deciding factor, but if anyone wants to take some form of action to balance it out, it would satisfy my sense of symmetry. ultrafilter posted:Any interest in a series of informative posts on game theory? I think I can put together something that gets a lot of the basic ideas across in terms of Rock-Paper-Scissors and some other simple games. That'd be great, if you feel like doing it! I'm quite willing to admit that it's been a few years since I took any courses on the topic, so I'm probably a bit fuzzy on it myself nowadays 
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2017 01:28
|
|
|
OK, lemme on Team Right.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2017 03:54
|
|
|
Right is always right
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2017 04:16
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 22:54 |
|
|
Right is right!
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2017 05:30
|
|
