Tomorrow is a big event at my university. I’d like to make a fun thing where the people of the Board Game society I am in can try to find me for a riddle, kind of a Where is Waldo in a place where there is a crap tone of people to find the NPC that’ll give them a Riddle (Maybe something to win? No idea how I could do that detail)
'Tis a silly one, but it’s hilarious when it stumps people. Best used verbally:
There are thirty cows in a field, and twenty-eight chickens. How many didn’t?
Answer
Ten. Ten didn’t eat chickens!
Read it 5 times not understanding. Said it out loud, and instantly it came to my mind!
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Oh I get it.
My 8 year old daughter got me with this one just yesterday. She was so proud of herself.
We have similar one in Czechia. John Doe bought twenty mice. The next day, he bought twenty-one mice. How many mice does he have? The solution is zero, because in czech, you can say twenty-one mice the same way as poison for twenty mice (jednadvacet myší - jed na dvacet myší). Just thought it’s interesting that this works in other languages too.
In French we have “Vingt cent mille ânes dans un pré et cent vingt dans l’autre. Combien de pattes au total ?” = “Twenty hundred thousand donkeys in a meadow and a hundred twenty in the other. How many legs total ?” Answer is six, because it can also be read as “Vincent mit l’âne dans un pré et s’en vint dans l’autre” = “Vincent put the donkey in the meadow and went to the other.” So two legs for Vincent and four for the donkey.
We also have “The wheat, or the sheep ?” Answer is “at the mill”, because “or the sheep” is pronounced the same as “where does one mill it” (ou le mouton - où le moud-on).
You’re in a square room with a window in each wall. All the windows face south. Thru one of the windows you can see a bear. What colour is the bear?
White!
Wow makes so much sense!
How tf all windows face south if it’s a square room ?
TF North Pole bro
North pole is in the middle of the room. That also indicates the color of the the bear, because polar bears actually live only on north pole if I’m not mistaken.
Polar bears could live elsewhere too - what’s important is that no other kind of bear lives at the North pole
You’re right
Red?
Here’s a slightly more subtle version:
An explorer leaves his camp and walks 1km south until his path is blocked by a huge bear. He makes a 90° turn to his left and sprints 1km east. After checking the bear is nowhere in sight, he turns another 90° to his left and walks 1km north, arriving back at his camp. What colour was the bear?
What is the beginning of eternity, the end of time, the beginning of every end, and the end of every place?
E, it’s a really mean one when delivered verbally
Reminds me of a line from the sphinx riddle in harry potter.
Tell me what is the last thing to mend, the middle of middle and the end of end.
Now that’s a spicy one!
Time Flies like an Arrow
Fruit Flies like Banana
But there is not like an Answer to find in that
That’s called a “garden path sentence”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence Has more examples.
What usually has 4 letters, sometimes 9 letters, but never 5 letters.
!It’s not a question, it’s a statement: “what”=4, “sometimes”=9, “never”=5!<
There is a riddles sublemmy, just fyi!
Oh? Could you send a link, I could not seem to find it
An ancient device for looking through walls?
Window.
What can run but never walks,
Has a mouth but never talks,
Has a bed but never sleeps,
Has a head but never weeps?
spoiler
A river
It doesn’t lead to a destination, and maybe isn’t even a riddle, but a sentence I like is:
Is your answer to this question the same as if I had asked you to give me a dollar?
For me, unless I’m missing something, that’s an easy “Yes”.
If someone randomly asks me for a single dollar they probably need it more urgently than I do. And if it’s some kind of weird scam? I’m still only out $1.
(No, I will not be sending $1 to people that reply to this, but I pre-acknowlege that you’re very clever for thinking of that)
You can use this question with $100 for example.
Or 100 times per person!
This is a fun one that can be adapted to all sorts of questions where you want a yes answer.
Undecidable
yes,no, maybe, I don’t know, can you repeat the question?Exactly. The correct way to answer is to not “yes” or “no”.
When is a door not a door?
!when it’s ajar!<
When it’s ablaze.
I fly without wings, I cry without eyes, whenever I go, darkness flies.
Edit: Another one: The more you take the more you leave behind.
Clouds?
Right! Here’s your banana
🍌
I like this one
Laxatives?
Edit: for the latter
Or possibly footsteps
Laxatives works for both. A very shitty solution of you. Here have a 🤎.
Footsteps is correct. 🍌
LOL
That’s a nice one Wooden Apple!
Hole?
Nope
Notes?
Nope
I think my answer was good enough even if not the intended one. I’m not guessing further.
Edit: I think mine is better than the conventional one I found online so I’m satisfied. The reason I prefer mine is
spoiler
What you leace behind footsteps is better called footprints
You are in a room with two doors. Each door has one guard. One door leads to heaven and the other leads to hell. You have to choose one door and once you choose it, you have to go there. Before you choose, you can ask one of the guards one question. One of them always lie and the other always tell the truth. You don’t know which guard is the liar/truth teller and you don’t know which door leads to hell/heaven. What’s the question you ask the guard?
Dammit, I was actually rethinking about this one a few days ago. The Video that made me rethink about it
If I’m not wrong the answer is something a bit twisted lie “If I where to ask you if you are guarding the right door, would you say you are?” Which because it’s a double lie, there is a way where they cross each other
You answer is right. I heard the solution as follows: Would the other guard say that you are guarding the right door? And then you revert it. Yours solution is better. The XKCD and the video made me laugh, thanks.
What’s 2+2?
The guard replies either four or something else. You now know which of the guards is the liar and who is the truth teller. You used your one question and still have no clue which door leads to hell and which leads to heaven. You have to guess 😕.
That will deduce the liar and truth-teller, but won’t give you any information about which door leads where.
What runs faster uphill than down?
(Fire)
How easy should it be to solve?
My favorite longer puzzle is “there’s a naked man lying dead in a field with a stick in his hand. Asking me only yes/no questions, tell me why he is in the field and how did he die?”
I love Black Stories, this was the first one I have solved/played years ago.
I won’t give away the answer, that would not be f air
I love them as well! I only know a couple, but I first heard them at a summer camp and they’re a great way to pass time with new friends while traveling.
I’m ok with having some hards! It’s a Board Game Society some of them can like a bit of challenge!
Hmmmm Did you have to fight sir?
No :)
Are you waiting for something?
No, I am dead. I can no longer wait :)
Say, dead sir, can you answer yes to a question?
Yes!
Can you be somewhere else?
Did he die right where he’s lying now0?
Yes, he did!
Was his death from natural causes?
No. It was sudden :)
Was his death an accident?
In a way, yes.
Did he die from a fall?
Yes!
Was he in water at some point recently?
Did someone kill you
No, I was not murdered :)
Was it an accident
No, it wasn’t an accident that killed him.
**Edit: I want to clarify here that he didn’t intend to die, but death was certainly a possibility of the actions he was involved in before his death.
Is the stick relevant to your death
Yes!
So did you smack yourself with it
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Lighting strike?
Good guess! but no :)
Shall I give a hint? ;)
*Edit 1: I did not enter the field by land.
*Edit 2: I fell into the field and this caused my death. Why did I fall, and from where?
This one is kinda hard to describe, so I’m including an image. Four people are standing in a row and all are looking to the right (EDIT: On the image, the fourthperson is looking left. That doesn’t matter, because nobody can see through the wall). First and third person have blue hat, second and fourth have red hat. There’s a wall between third and fourth person. Nobody knows what color is their hat. Everybody can only see hats of people on their right side (left/right sides are from the perspective of us, seeing them from the side). Nobody can see through the wall. For example first person can see the second and the third person. The second can only see the third person. They know that two of them have red hat and two of them have blue hat. They are told that if anybody says aloud the color of their hat, they are free to go. (They are captives or something). If anybody says the wrong color, they are all gonna be killed. They can’t obviously turn around, talk to each other or something like that. They can’t guess. Are any of them going to tell his hat’s color?
Let’s number the dudes in your image form left to right: 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Dudes 3 and 4 have no useful information. They stay silent.
Dude 1 can see one of each hat colour on the dudes in front, but cannot determine their own colour without knowing the hat colour of dude 4. They stay silent.
Dude 2 can see the hat colour of dude 3. They can determine that either they themself or the dude behind must have a different hat colour. The dude behind - dude 1 - can see both of the hat colours in front, but stays silent. This lets dude 2 know that they and dude 3 must be different colours (otherwise dude 1 would have known their own hat colour).
Therefore, dude 2 knows their own hat colour must be different to the dude in front and announces the colour of their own hat.
That’s correct!
