no matter what order you list off rock, paper, and scissors, they will always be "in order" or "in reverse order" in the sense that either (1) each thing beats the next; or (2) each thing will be beaten by the next
this property is due to the fact that rock paper scissors has three possible hands. this property fails with larger numbers of hands. for instance, we can consider the game of rock, paper, scissors, lizard, spock as per the following diagram
now listing off spock, scissors, lizard, rock, paper is in neither order of "beats" or "beaten by"
but hey, you think, is it necessary to have five hands for this property to fail? what happens in the case of four hands? don't ask