What is roshambo?

What does roshambo mean?

Roshambo has many meanings but mainly one -- Rock, Paper and Scissors. You may have heard that roshambo instead means "kicking someone in the testicles" but that's not true. The TV show South Park once introduced this as an alternative meaning, but unfortunately this tainted the otherwise sacred name of roshambo.

Why should I know about roshambo?

Roshambo is a wonderful tool and experience shared by many. Its uses and power are without bound, so use roshambo wisely (and often!)

So seriously, roshambo?

Yes. All of my friends know roshambo is kind of a religion to me so I like to roshambo for many reasons. For example let's say there are four humans and seven pieces of pizza... how do you decide who gets what? Well, you roshambo of course! Winner chooses first and the others re-roshambo. This cycle continues until all pizza is gone! So that's one example. Another is let's say five people are going camping... who drives? Roshambo! The winner chooses their seat and you keep playing until eventually two are left. Then, the winner of this epic battle will likely choose the remaining non-driver seat while the loser is forced to drive. It's common to roshambo for the front seat. The possibilities are endless!

Well then, what's Rock, Paper, Scissors?

It's a game where any number of opponents face off and on the count of three display hand gestures of either a rock (fist), a piece of paper (flat hand), or scissors (fist, two fingers out). I'll add pictures later. It is 100% certain that a Rock crushes scissors, Scissors cuts paper, and Paper suffocates rock. There will be ties and in these cases you roshambo again. With experience this ends up going pretty fast. By default there is only a clear winner but depending on the conditions or desires of the group, sometimes a clear loser is allowed too.