The game seems to originate in hand games from
China, likely going back a few thousand years. The trail gets
more clear starting around the 17th century when some of these
games migrated to Japan and explicit references to them in
surviving text. One of those games, in turn, spread from Japan
throughout the world in recent times.
There were a myriad of these hand games using a series of hand
gestures, sometimes even using various chants. As for the many
three hand gesture variants, these are called sansukumi-ken.
As variant of this, the Japanese “mushi-ken” used hand gestures
representing a frog, a slug, and a snake. The specific gestures
were the thumb as the frog, which defeats the slug. The slug is
represented by the pinky finger and defeats the snake. The snake
is represented by the index finger and defeats the frog.
The direct ancestor to
Rock, Paper, Scissors is the game of jan-ken, which has been
played in Japan going back to around the 17th century and uses
the Rock, Paper (or cloth), Scissors trio of hand gestures we
are all familiar with.
Up until relatively recently, these games were primarily used as
drinking games, particularly popular at Chinese and Japanese
brothels. Yakyūken is a version of Rock, Paper, Scissors played
in Japan that is the game of choice for the hand gesture
equivalent of strip-poker.
It then spread to the
world between the 1920s and the 1950s. For example, some of the
earliest references of the game outside of Japan include one
account in France in 1927 where it was called “chi-fou-mi”, or
another in Britain in 1924 where it was called “zhot”.
As to why this particular hand gesture game caught on in the
wider world when so many others did not, it is speculated that
it is because it is one of the simplest to understand and play,
as well as that it makes a very effective and seemingly random
way to settle a dispute or decide something between two
individuals.
Fast-forwarding to today, the game has even become a competitive
sport with various organizations formed in different countries.
For example, in 2002, the brothers Walker formed the World RPS
Society and formalized the rules for international competition.
They held the “Rock, Paper, Scissors World Championships” in
Toronto every year from 2003 to 2009, which was televised on Fox
Sports Net at one point.
If someone wins, they are more likely to make the same choice
the next time. If they lose, however, they are likely to choose
the next item in the sequence from the one they just lost with.
So, if one loses with rock, they are likely to choose paper the
next time. If they lose with paper, they are more likely to
throw scissors the next time. Thus, they are picking the thing
that they just lost to.
Players who repeat the same sign twice are extremely unlikely to
throw the same sign a third time, allowing you to improve your
odds slightly by ruling that one out as something they will pick
in most cases. Thus, if they throw scissors twice, your next
throw should be paper, as they are likely to choose either paper
or rock, improving your odds of a tie or win.
Incidentally, In America, another name for Rock, Paper,
Scissors is “Rochambeau.” The commonly held story is that it
is from a French general by the name of Jean-Baptiste Donatien
de Vimeur de Rochambeau.