REVIEW: Rock Paper Lies

RATING: 4 Out of 5 Stars

LINK: www.mylovelyassistant.com/reviews/view/4991

FULL REVIEW: This DVD is a study in contrasts. The concept and trick is excellent and that alone deserves 5 out of 5 stars. It is based upon a Banachek effect and is in fact endorsed by him. It is truly prop-less mentalism that can be performed with no notice. However, the production quality for such a great trick is lacking and the promotional video is somewhat misleading due to the editing.

In Rock Paper Lies, the performer asks two participants to play Rock Paper Scissors behind his back and not to reveal who won. Then the performer asks each spectator to either be a liar or truth teller. If the spectator is a liar, any question asked of them by the performer must be answered with a lie. And, of course, if the spectator chooses to be the truth teller, he must always respond truthfully. The spectators can choose the same or different roles. Then, the performer ask only three questions, which each spectator answers according to their role, and the performer is able to guess the winner, the roles of each and what was the winning hand i.e. paper over rock.

This effect is fun to perform, easy to learn and very compelling. It is endorsed by Luca Volpe, who does the introduction/trailer for the DVD. It is also endorsed by Richard Osterlind and Banachek himself. However, the promotional video does not show the performer asking the necessary questions so a purchaser that has not read this review may believe that the spectators merely play rock paper scissors behind the performer’s back and the performer is able to guess who won and how without any questions. This is not the case. The ad copy is accurate.

The questions asked of the spectators do not feel like fishing because the performer is asking them to be able to test his body language reading ability.

The performances on the DVD are also lacking. There are 3. The first one is fine and shot with high quality audio and video. However, and unbelievably, the next two performances are shot on an iPhone and the quality of the audio is horrible. It is as if the creator, Jay Di Biase, was walking around, stopped any people on the street (in one case a noisy street) and did the routine. It is surprising that Titanas took such little care in such a great project.

Also, the explanatory section of the DVD is poor. Di Biase explains the method using one spectator and not two. He has the one spectator play both roles. It could have been explained much better, but it just wasn’t. That is not to say that the effect is hard to learn because it is very easy to learn.

The DVD also contains some art work that can be used in a stage or parlor setting. It contains pictures of a rock, paper, and scissors. It also has diagrams for the liar and the truth teller. This is a nice touch and the artwork is great. And, if you don’t understand the oral explanation, there is a cheat sheet. I think that most people won’t need the cheat sheet. If you can get over these issues, you will love this project.
There is an alternate version of a truth teller/liar effect with 3 people (and not using rock paper scissors) but that is only briefly explained and not demonstrated.

The bottom line here is that this is a very impressive mentalism routine that does not require any set-up and can be performed anywhere at anytime. It would have received 5 out of 5 stars if the promotional video was not edited in a way that would be misleading and if the quality of the demonstrations and explanation were better.

RPL is a very good effect, and yes the DVD could have been better.

Let me report that purchasers can gain access to a RPL FaceBook site. The discussion is very useful, and at least three guys have written significant improvements for the effect.

The post above however , may exaggerate how easy it is to learn to perform. It takes some practice, with people, to learn to internalize the method.

George

This is certainly a fine effect for some audiences. For me, though, with a client base that is almost exclusively in the high tech field, it's less appealing. Many (if not most) of my audiences include lots of math and computer science folks, and they have pretty much all been exposed to liar/truthteller puzzles of the style popularized by Raymond Smullyan (who is currently 96, by the way).

So the moment you start talking about liars and truthtellers, and asking these sorts of questions, they know what is going on. They likely can't reproduce the steps, but they know what you are doing, and the whole thing becomes a clever puzzle, not a piece of mentalism.

Tough crowd!

So the moment you start talking about liars and truthtellers, and asking these sorts of questions, they know what is going on. They likely can't reproduce the steps, but they know what you are doing, and the whole thing becomes a clever puzzle, not a piece of mentalism. [/quote

Exactly. A lot of people know about this, even if they can´t reproduce the steps.

kiki

If you justify the procedure as an exercise in determining whether people are telling the truth or lying (e.g., from their body language), then it's less likely to be seen as just a puzzle. It's mostly a matter of presentation.

Mike

Mike opined:
Although I certainly agree that presentation can hide a multitude of sins (and even in this case may well mitigate the problem somewhat), I feel that the basic premise of liars (who must always lie) vs truthtellers (who must always tell the truth), along with the nature of the questions to be asked, is just too much of a red flag for onlookers with some math/logic exposure.

Even if only a tiny number of audience members are likely to figure it out, I don't want to use it.

I understand Doug's reservations, though I don't see an inherent problem with the premise of liars and truth-tellers since the main claim is that you can determine whether people are lying or telling the truth.

Also, various presentational ploys and alternative scripts have been suggested on the closed Facebook RPL Discussion Group that will help to disguise the methodology and make it even more difficult to backtrack.

At the end of the day, it's not a reputation maker. But it is very useful as a filler between other effects, or as a totally impromptu standby that can be performed under any circumstances (provided you have two spectators who understand the game). Even if people see it as just a logic puzzle, they will find it very hard to figure out.

Mike

It's from a David Bowie movie Labyrinth ... First time I saw it. My daughter performed it on the radio a decade ago, We did the RPS thing separately ... ROSHAMBO!!!!
THE LESSON IS .. MAGIC IS MAGIC .. NOT JUST A PUZZLE...

Doug - When did you move to Canada ? Regarding the effect, I've performed this premise quite a few times using Redford's method and it always went down very well ! I've never been questioned I can tell the spectators were buying into it by how hard they try to not give anything away. Just my two cents.

Magic maniac wondered:
I returned home to Canada (after 25 years in San Francisco) in the summer of 2012.



As I posted originally, this is a fine effect for some audiences, just not my typical ones.

Even though this it's belated, glad to have you back ! I understand where you're coming from in your thought process. You should look at Atlas's 4 person lie detector effect on his lecture. It looks so natural in Atlas's hands, the complete opposite of a logic puzzle. Plus there is load of PA's on there which I'm sure you would be interested in !

In my never humble opinion, there are several strategies that might help slide this by even the toughest audiences. First, no strange or dicey questions. If someone, tapped on the forehead with a magic wand, were suddenly given the ability to detect lies from truths, he or she would ask simple, direct questions like, "Do you have the ring?" "Are you lying?" and such, and as I have stated in another thread on this, THE question at the heart of this effect would not be one that such a person would think of asking. Doug is right, those of that mind set will smell the rat immediately when a dicey question is presented.
Second, and related to the nature of Doug's audience AND the first point, is that there are people on the other end of the spectrum, and we all know a few, who will never be able to figure out or make up a logic puzzle of any sort...their minds just do not work that way. If possible, I want my character to be one of those people. It is the mentalism equivalent to a magician doing the triple spin, upside down, turnover pass, flawlessly but the audience sees a person 'hardly able' to even shuffle a deck. Richard Osterlind does a great job of this in his Radar Deck routine, he apparently can't even remember who peeked at a card at one point. If the audience does not think you mentally capable of doing any such mental gymnastics, then even if THEY can figure out a solution with logic or even suspect such, the mystery remains because the entertainer obviously is not capable of such things. Of course, as the first point states, the questions asked must be simple and direct if the entertainer does not possess that mental agility.
Finally there are some strategies possible where the questions are not answered out loud, leaving body language as the default explanation.
Any way, moving this out of the realm of rings and coins to a game of chance is a great contribution to this type of effect and Jay has my thanks for that.

I bought it from penguin magic.
I use the variation from RPL FB group.
Perform it for friend,and my friend immediately know it was logic puzzle.
I must say I was a disappointed.
I agree it can be play as a filler effect,it can only play lightly,or use it with other RPS effect.

In my opinion, the re-packaging of the concept was worth the price, but I found the DVD explanation section terrible.

If you take the time to play with the system and increase your comfort in what is possible, quite often you can reduce the number of questions (from 6 total down to 5, 4, and even 3) creating miracles closer to the (inaccurate) ad copy.

Doug makes a great point about who you can present this effect to (know your audience!). Definitely an effect better suited for body language routines.

It's hard to disguise the RPL as a body language effect
since the method is pretty transparent for most analytical audiences.

If you know your audience, and decide to perform it, then yes liar/truth teller ploys are well suited for body language routines. In what other ways would you recommend shrouding the method?

It may be that you do not like the effect due to the method; I can respect that, but that is a different story.

I don't like it not because of the method,but because my audience could easily figure out the method,that's the point.
As long as the effect and audience reaction is good,I can care less about the method.
I bought the product,and tested in real audience,but the outcome is not as good as some other fellow mentalist statement.
If it work for you,great,just not my cup of tea.
But I will still use it as filler effect

I really enjoy RPL. I also use a variation from the fab page- one with less questions that is even harder to backtrack. I performed it a few times this weekend and it always went over well.

Something new is coming....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKdD4A_jc0M
Perfect to add to RPL
More info coming soon...