Opening the certain death door reveals a guy in a dark robe with a scythe: “Hey, what’s up?”

[sings]: I’d like to rip the world in half / for perfect disharmonyyyy!

For years, I had my own headcanon for the Labyrinth movie. In the scene, the young Sarah correctly solves the riddle, passes through the correct door, says “This is a piece of cake!” and then she immediately falls down a pit of doom. This confused me, because she got the answer right. So I reasoned that the guards were both liars, and because they both participated in explaining the rules, they were lying about the rules.

It was only a few years ago that I read in an interview that the Labyrinth (or Jareth) dropped her down the hole because she said it was a piece of cake. It was her arrogance that set her back, not that she got the riddle wrong.

But now it still bothers me that the liar, whichever one he is, helps explain the rules of the scenario. If he always lies, then she can’t trust that either of them ever tells the truth. The rules have to be described separately, like on a sign or by a disinterested third party. Or you could phrase it differently, like “One of us will answer your question truthfully, and one of us will answer your question dishonestly.” That way you avoid saying that they always lie, and specify that the lie will only be in response to the one question.

Fuck, I’ve had too much coffee. How the fuck did I get up on this soapbox? Why are you still reading? Go do something productive.

The guard replies “I don’t know for sure”.

Alternate solution:

Go do something productive.

No.

“So, you’re telling me I could have just greater restoration’d the guards rather than killing them? My god isn’t going to like this.”

Ah. Normally I see this with no limit on questions. You’re right. It’d only work with at least two questions.

I’m a fan of the revised Little Mermaid song: https://youtube.com/watch?v=fcbazH6aE2g

I’ve only heard it with one question, that’s the whole point. Otherwise you just ask a guard some trivial question (e.g. What color is the sky?) to determine which is the liar, then just ask which is the safe door.

The whole point is to get the information you need from a single question.

Maybe I’ve only seen a fucked up version.

PLEASE BE QUICK ABOUT IT, I HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO GET TO.

“Uhh… Wrong door, sorry.”

This puzzle is always presented as difficult, but why not just ask a known? If your eyes are brown just ask “Are my eyes brown?” You’d immediately know which one lies or tells the truth.

E: I missed the limit of one question.

The difficulty comes from only being able to ask one question. It’s very easy to figure out the liar, but it’s much more difficult to figure out the liar and the correct door in the same question

That assumes the other guy holds to his principles in the face of death. If I were the dm, the act of tearing the other guy’s head off and then threatening to do the same to the other one unless granted another question would at least grant advantage on an intimidation check

Because there are two doors and only one question. If you ask a known question unrelated to the door you find out who the liar is but lose your opportunity to ask them which is the correct door.

Then you still don’t know which door is the correct one, you’ve just learned which guard tells the truth and you’ve used up your one question. The trick is to ask which door the other guard would tell you is the correct one and then go through the other door. If you’ve asked the lying guard, they’ll lie about what the honest one would say and point you towards the wrong door. If you asked the honest one, they’ll truthfully tell you what the lying guard would say and also point you towards the wrong door

That’s why this is a brilliantly played barbarian. They think they are clever but will still have to do things the hard way.

Is there an actual plot to Mimi, or is she just a complete chaos goblin?

I’ve always seen it as outside of their control. It’s not that the lying guard chooses to lie, it’s that they’re incapable of not lying.