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)

  • Sunstream
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    1 year ago

    '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!

    • 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).

  • @not_woody_shaw@lemmy.world
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    281 year ago

    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?

  • CaptainBlagbird
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    1 year ago

    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!<

  • @tfw_no_toiletpaper@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    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

  • @gezepi@lemmyunchained.net
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    101 year ago

    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?

    • @CeruleanRuin
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      41 year ago

      This is a fun one that can be adapted to all sorts of questions where you want a yes answer.

    • @Jordan_U@lemmy.ml
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      31 year ago

      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)

  • Elise
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • @stepanzak@iusearchlinux.fyi
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    1 year ago

    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?

  • @stepanzak@iusearchlinux.fyi
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    1 year ago

    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? Image of four people standing as described.

    • bugsmith
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      1 year ago

      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.

  • 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?”

  • Kyoyeou (Ki jəʊ juː)OP
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    71 year ago

    Seeing the Proposition from RagnarokOnline@reddthat.com I’ve got a similar one I know in French that can be translated:

    I am a king, taking presents from strangers to get into my kingdom. Propose me Gifts and I will tell you if you can enter my Kingdom

  • @_TK@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyz
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    61 year ago

    Okay, so if I build a bridge from X to Y, it’s a great bridge.

    If I build a bridge from A to B it’s a terrible bridge.

    Do you want to build a bridge?

    (If the person says Okay as a part of their bridge proposal, it is good. If not, then the bridge is bad)

    This is a great way to make everyone at a gathering hate you.

      • @_TK@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyz
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        41 year ago

        It’s a prank riddle. Basically you make two statements about building bridges. They can be from anywhere and to anywhere else. My nose to your forehead, Baltimore to Seattle, it makes no difference. In one sentence, you use the word “okay” and in the other you don’t. The sentence with “okay” in it produces a good bridge. The sentence that doesn’t, doesn’t.

        When you ask a person to build their own bridge, if they say “okay” in the sentence, it’s a good bridge. If they don’t, it’s a bad bridge and it falls down. This setup is built to make people frustrated because “okay” is one of those filler words that people don’t really pay attention to in sentences.

        I’ve also heard of a similar setup where a person hands an object to another person (again, the object doesn’t matter) and says “This is a bean, okay?” And if the recipient says “okay” then they have done the task correctly and can pass it along to another person, declaring the object is something else. If the receiver doesn’t say “okay,” then something went wrong and one of the people who is in on the joke interrupts and starts the process again. with a new object.

    • Kyoyeou (Ki jəʊ juː)OP
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      51 year ago

      Okay, so the correctness of the bridge is there because there is okay at the beginning of the sentence am I right?

      • CaptainBlagbird
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        21 year ago

        I know a similar one where you say some kind of finger counting verse, in the end you put your arms akimbo and request the other person(s) repeat it. It doesn’t matter if they get the finger counting right, because it only counts if they also get the akimbo correct.

        It’s fun to do in a group of slightly drunk people, until all got it but one. Then it feels like bullying… :/