Can anyone figure out this riddle?

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AuthorTopic: Can anyone figure out this riddle?
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If no one can figure it out, I'll post the answer sometime tomorrow:

You are traveling in a strange country where half the people lie with every single thing they say, and the other half never tell any lies. You are trying to reach a certain town (call it town A), and you reach a fork in the road. There were signs at each path but they were knocked down in a recent storm so you aren't sure which is from which path, one says it leads to town A, and one leads to town B. A person from this country, who you don't know if he is a person who lies or not, approaches you and tells you he will answer only one yes or no question from you to help you figure out the correct path. How do you find out the correct path from him?

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"If you were the other kind of person, would you tell me that this path goes to Town A?"

(sorry to ruin it so quickly. :P )

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Actually that wasn't the answer I had in mind. There exists an entirely different way to solve this.

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"If I asked you how to get to Town A, which path would you point me down?"

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E Equals MC What!!!!
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But you only get one question. :P

EDIT: Wait, that's only the case if he's telling the truth... so just ask him which way, and after he tells you, ask another question. If he answers, pick the other road.

I win.

[ Friday, June 24, 2005 19:59: Message edited by: Ash Lael ]

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Yeah, that's what I had in mind.

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Of course, if he is a liar, it's also possible he won't answer any questions at all. In which case you'll just have to wait for someone else to come along.

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I ran a D&D campaign eons ago in which I had two identical guys pop up and declare that one would lie while the other wouldn't, etc. Then the party had to ask them about some dire decision. Of course, in my version, both guys were just lying from the start, and the whole thing was a trap.

[ Saturday, June 25, 2005 04:50: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ]

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Law Bringer
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I'm with SoT on this one. If you're told that some people lie and some don't, why do you believe the teller? He could be one of the liars!

[Edit: Botched a question.]

—Alorael, who has seen an endless series of these truth-lie quesetions. Some of them are lots of fun, and some of them have been seen so often they've lost all meaning.

[ Saturday, June 25, 2005 11:48: Message edited by: Fear or Favor? ]
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Master
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It doesn't say that you were told that one group lies and the other doesn't, but it says that just as a fact of the riddle.

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quote:
Originally written by Student of Trinity:

I ran a D&D campaign eons ago in which I had two identical guys pop up and declare that one would lie while the other wouldn't, etc. Then the party had to ask them about some dire decision. Of course, in my version, both guys were just lying from the start, and the whole thing was a trap.
That reminds me of the two goblins in Erika's Tower. They had a similar logic puzzle, but it was impossible to determine which door to take. All you had to do was slaughter them and take the secret passage they were sitting on.

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E Equals MC What!!!!
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And THAT reminds me of Truffle Days. :)

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I really like this riddle, whichever variation it appears in, mainly because it featured in Doctor Who as the Riddle of the Osirans. Sarah Jane was stuck in some kind of transparent cylindrical death cubicle with two buttons on the side, and two robotic mummies appeared before him. The Doctor was told one would lie, the other tell the truth, blah blah blah, he asked one mummy what the other mummy would say if he asked it which is the death switch on the cubicle, he pushed the other one, and presto, Sarah Jane was let out.

Television is very educational!

(Also, Christopher Bulis used the "path" version of the riddle in his Doctor Who novel The Ultimate Treasure. Not that anyone cares...)

[ Saturday, June 25, 2005 21:01: Message edited by: Icshi ]

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Anyway, most people would have trouble figuring out the answer I had in mind to this since you tend to take for granted you aren't being lied to about the conditions of the puzzle.

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Agent
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Well, I thought I might as well post this riddle, and see how long it takes you!

I am the ruler of Shovels,
I am as thin as a knife,
I have a wife,
I have a double,
What am I?

For any of THE MAZE beta-testers, you will notice that this is the second riddle. I had a lot of testers saying that it was impossible, so I'm going to see how long it takes the general population to figure this out...

:D

- Archmagi Micael

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Taking a bit of a stab in the dark here, but is it a scissor blade? Not sure how the shovel thing fits in there, though.

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Shaper
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Is it a spork? I'm a bit confused.

Thuryl's sounds like a better answer, though.

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Polaris
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I won't answer because I saw the script.

No, neither answer is correct.

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Nena
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Playing card, king of spades.

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Shaper
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Yes.

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Nena
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what luck my father extually told me the answer to this riddle just yesterday:

"What would the other half of the people say, if i'd ask them what road I should take"

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Notice that was the second post in this thread.

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If flesh were grass, what bone would be;
If tears were rain, what moan would be;
If clot were ice, what gore would be;
Would tell the tale, if four were three.


This is a bit unfair in that it doesn't really tell you what the question is -- you have to kind of connect the dots for that. As a compromise between rhyme and riddle, though, I was proud of it.

A bit easier, in my opinion:

Walks on the water, sinks in the sea.
Doesn't have a fellow; doesn't have a shadow.
Shadows run away from him. Who is he?


[ Sunday, June 26, 2005 09:52: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ]

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