Violence is always the answer
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The first time I encountered a version of this riddle it actually wasn’t Labyrinth. It was an old black and white episode of Dr Who aired on PBS when I was a little kid. Same scenario but if I recall, robots instead of guardsmen. I think the good doctor solved the riddle in the typical way of asking one robot what the other would say. I’m looking for it now but I can’t find the scene.
Pyramids of Mars
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Do you think it would suck to be one of the bottom heads?
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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.
I mean, he could still lie. He’d just have to afford one more question
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The third guard stabs people who ask tricky questions.
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My favorite take on this:
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One question per group. Also now you die because murder.
Barbarian just ripped the head off of one of the guards, you think the other guard is going to be able to arrest them?
“Answer our questions or you’re next.”
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Just shoot em in the foot
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I believe that’s the joke. The barbarians intelligence isn’t usually very high.
I love playing low Intelligence high Wisdom characters. Because Wisdom governs stats like Perception, Insight, and Animal Handling. So your character will notice things that the rest of the party misses, but often doesn’t have the intelligence to put the individual pieces together.
Once played a high wisdom barbarian. He would notice things like traps or clues, but I would RP it with things like “Hey, why’s that wire stretched across the path? Someone is going to trip over that…” The other players very quickly learned to pay attention whenever I asked stupid questions, because it was usually my way of announcing “I noticed something that the rest of you missed.”
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“Is the guard that tells the truth standing in front of the safe door?” If they say yes, you go through their door, if they say no then you go to the other one
That’s wild that this works. What.
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Pyramids of Mars
Yes, thank you!! Found the scene itself since the whole serial is apparently on youtube: https://youtu.be/lLBHbt9QYFU?t=5458
Funny how my memory had it in black and white. And I remember the scene being much longer. I watched it when I was like, 9.
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“Is the guard that tells the truth standing in front of the safe door?” If they say yes, you go through their door, if they say no then you go to the other one
I did not think this was going to work. Som bitch it does. Crazy
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This still doesn’t accomplish the goal of knowing which door will kill you. All you’ve done is determine which guard is the liar.
That is why it is better for the barbarian to snap the wrist of the one guard, so that you can ask them a question still or you ask the first guard which way to the castle then rip his head off followed by asking the second guard if the first guard is dead. You will get the question from each guard and know which one tells the truth.
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I got an unexpected laugh from Rick and Mortys take on this. His answer was “you ever fuck this guys wife?” And watched them fight to the death.
I could swear this was a bit from the video game High On Life, unless they recycled the bit for Rick and Morty. I haven’t seen all the episodes.
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So the traditional answer here is to ask them to point at the door the other guard will say is safe.
However, I’m curious, does anyone know of any other valid solutions?
How is that a valid answer, they would both point at a different door
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How is that a valid answer, they would both point at a different door
The liar, knowing the truth-teller will point to the good door, points to the bad door.
The truth-teller, knowing the liar would point to the bad door, points to the bad door.
Either way, you take the one your guard doesn’t point to.
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How is that a valid answer, they would both point at a different door
They will both point to the bad door.
If asking the thruthful guard, he will point to the door the liar says is safe, which would be the bad door. If asking the liar, he would consider what the thruthful guard says is safe, then reverse that answer, still ending up on the bad door.
They cancel out, so whichever guard you ask doesn’t matter.
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That is why it is better for the barbarian to snap the wrist of the one guard, so that you can ask them a question still or you ask the first guard which way to the castle then rip his head off followed by asking the second guard if the first guard is dead. You will get the question from each guard and know which one tells the truth.
Only one question allowed, they said. I don’t think it’s solvable.
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“Is the guard that tells the truth standing in front of the safe door?” If they say yes, you go through their door, if they say no then you go to the other one
If they say yes they can still be a liar.
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So the traditional answer here is to ask them to point at the door the other guard will say is safe.
However, I’m curious, does anyone know of any other valid solutions?
Could probably do something clever with XOR.
Is exactly one of the following statements true? You are the liar. Your door is the safe door.
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That’s funny! but if you want to know how to solve this problem every time, even when asking one single question, just ask this question:
“If I ask the other guy which is the correct path, which path will he tell me?”
No matter who you ask, both of them will point to the WRONG path, meaning the correct one is the one they DIDN’T point to. Here is the logic.
For the sake of argument, let’s assume the correct path is the right path. When you ask that question, if the person is the truthful one, he will be honest and say the left path. Because if you ask the liar what the correct path is, he will say it is the left path (which is false). Now if you ask the liar what the other guy will say the correct path is, he will lie to you and say it is the left path (which is also false, the truthful one will tell you it is the right path and not the left).
