Ninja, Hunter, Bear

My boys introduced me to an alternative approach to decision-making. Everyone’s familiar with Rock, Paper, Scissors but have you heard of Ninja, Hunter, Bear? I have to admit, I was intrigued with how this worked and the boys were so kind as to indulge my curiosity. Turns out it isn’t as discrete as one would hope. You actually stand with your backs toward each other and in duel-like fashion you count to three and do a jump turn to reveal what you are: hands up like claws if you’re a bear, hands up like your aiming down the sight of a rifle if you’re a hunter and one hand out holding a sword and the other back if you’re a ninja.

It seems to work okay, though logically I think it’s a bit more troublesome. In my mind a hunter with a high-powered rifle should be able to take out a ninja (provided he can see him), but that is not the case. Likewise, a bear defeating a ninja seems unlikely – unless the bear is also a ninja, but I digress. As long as the participants know the trumping rules such analysis isn’t necessary but personally I’d rather stick with the Rock, Paper, Scissors hand-jive.