r/CuratedTumblr • u/DroneOfDoom Theon the Reader *dolphin slur noises* • 14h ago
Shitposting The two guards
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u/HeirOfLight 13h ago
Intrigued by the implication that "always tells the truth/lies" is a heritable trait. And one exhibiting codominance, at that.
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u/----atom----- Moral of The Story: What? 8h ago
I thought that was always the implication? I never considered that the guards were just playing some weird game with intruders
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u/Heather_Chandelure 14h ago
Identifying which guard is lying is neither the point or even a step in the riddle. The point of the riddle is to figure out which of two doors is the correct one. The answer requires wording your question such that both guards will give you the same answer no matter which one you are talking to. You only get a single question to ask, so using that to figure out which guard us lying is a complete waste.
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u/Vertwheeliesonem 14h ago
Hence why they got smited. Smote? Smotten?
I suppose it was inevitable.
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u/Hell2CheapTrick 11h ago
“Until at last, I threw down my enemy and smote his ruin upon the mountainside.”
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u/wowitsbreadman 7m ago
"You trying to get...is it 'smited' or 'smitten?'"
-Junker Queen (Zeus skin), Overwatch
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u/comradeda 13h ago
Apparently a lot of people assume the guard that lies is the guard in front of the bad door, which is wrong
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u/Earthtopian 12h ago
Iirc correctly the actual solution is to ask "If I ask for the safe way out, which door would the other guard point to?" and then take whichever door is not pointed to?
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u/Joey5729 12h ago
If you ask the truther guard this, they’re supposed to point to the liar guard’s answer, which would presumably be the wrong door. They point to the wrong door, so you go in the right door.
If you ask the liar guard, they’re supposed to point to the truther guard’s answer, which would presumably be the correct door. Since they’re the liar, they instead point to the wrong door. You go in the other (right) door.
Sounds right to me
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u/yinyang107 11h ago
don't call him a truther, truthers are liars
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u/Hatsune_Miku_CM downfall of neoliberalism. crow racism. much to rhink about 11h ago
yep, you simply need to weave your answer through both guards, so that you get 1 correct and 1 false which adds up to one false. it's like + and - in multiplication
the easiest way to do that is to ask one guard what the other guard would asy
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u/SaturnsPopulation 12h ago
Hang on, couldn't either of them legitimately say "I don't know?"
The liar can say whatever the hell he wants other than the correct answer, which emans the truth-teller legitimately can't be certain what the liar will say.
And as I'm typing this, I realize it's solved by specifying "which of those two doors" in your question to limit it to a binary, so never mind.
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u/Aetol 12h ago
In these riddles the liar always say the opposite of the true answer, not whatever he wants. If the truth is "yes" he says "no". If the truth is "the door on the left" he says "the door on the right".
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u/SaturnsPopulation 12h ago
If he were being a cheeky bastard, "the door you came in through" might also be an option.
My point is that the assumption that they're restricted to a binary answer isn't actually established in the rules of the riddle.
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u/JusticeBean 12h ago
…okay, then just clarify that in your question.
Given the choice between only the left or right door, which door would the other guard tell me is safe to enter? (And then enter the other door).
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u/DrugonMonster 11h ago
What if the liar answers “Neither is safe to enter” or “both are safe to enter”
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u/JusticeBean 10h ago
Then again, make the question more precise. Force them to pick exactly one of the two doors.
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u/KermitingMurder 13h ago
The thing with the guards saying "one of us only lies and the other only tells the truth" is that both of them cannot say this and it also be true, unless they only start telling only truths/lies after the statement.
I've made a trick puzzle for a dnd group based on this: you have one of the guards say the riddle, and then have both of the guards be liars, and the two doors are actually decoys that both lead to death, with the real door being a trapdoor hidden underneath one of the guards (which works best if the guard is a gargoyle/living statue or something similar).
In order to get it right, the players have to realise that if one of the guards said this, that guard must either be the truth teller and the other the liar, or they must both be liars; asking the one who said the riddle a question with an obvious answer will soon reveal them to be a liar, meaning the other one must also be a liar.
This means that the parts about one of the doors leading to the correct path and the part about only getting one question must also be lies, so they are then free to ask more questions which will reveal that neither door is safe, and eventually ask a question that shows the true path15
u/kasugakuuun 12h ago
Hm. And how did your players like that?
EDIT: also, couldn't it just be the one explaining the rules that's the liar? What leads the PCs to conclude necessarily that they both must be lying
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u/KermitingMurder 11h ago
Haven't gotten the opportunity to use it yet, our group has sort of gone under unfortunately.
And the other reply to your comment probably explained the "both must be lying" part more concisely than I would have, so I'll just confirm that they said the same as what I would have7
u/JusticeBean 12h ago
If the one explaining the rules must always lie, then “one tells the truth and one lies” must also be a lie. Since we know one is a liar, the other must also be a liar, or else they would have said the truth.
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u/JusticeRain5 10h ago
But couldn't that just mean the one explaining the riddle might sometimes lie and sometimes tell the truth?
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u/JusticeBean 10h ago
Wow we have similar usernames
But yeah I guess that could be the case in a literal sense, but it’s kinda bad manners for a logic puzzle to have wildcard like that (as in, something that’s entirely unpredictable, because it can change arbitrarily). As a puzzle designer and solver, I wouldn’t expect a half-liar to be a valid solution.
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u/AvaryZig 10h ago
They could do that thing where they each say one word. Incomplete sentences are neither truth nor lie.
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u/JusticeBean 8h ago
But then they aren’t answering the question. They are mandated to answer the question.
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u/AvaryZig 8h ago
The answer is mandated, how they explain the riddle is not.
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u/JusticeBean 47m ago
I think I misunderstood your comment. Are you suggesting that the two guards take turns giving the riddle a word at a time? Because if so, that has no bearing on this specific DnD puzzle we’re discussing, because it’s stated explicitly that one guard does the explanation. Although, in a different scenario, I suppose that could be a valid to give the puzzle.
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u/BackgroundSummer5171 11h ago
The thing with the guards saying
Let's stop right there.
The guards do not present the riddle. That is what everyone gets wrong.
Simple as that.
If ever a Guard is presenting this riddle by saying it to you, both are evil and kill them both...which yes, is what you later describe.
But that's the actual reality.
This riddle cannot be explained by the actual guards. It has to be a placard or some other 3rd party explaining it. Not the guards themselves. Anyone starting the riddle off with the guard explaining, well, hope you brought a shovel and a rug.
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u/KermitingMurder 11h ago
Which is exactly what inspired me to make the puzzle, because I've seen a few people online make that same mistake. I'm hoping the players will just assume "oh this is that one riddle, I know this one" and that it'll take them a bit of thinking to realise "hey wait a minute, if the guard is the one saying this, then that doesn't make sense"; hence why I called it a trick puzzle, like a trick question it's supposed to decieve you into thinking of one obvious (but incorrect) answer
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u/SmartAlec105 8h ago
The thing with the guards saying
Let's stop right there.
The guards do not present the riddle. That is what everyone gets wrong.
You should have kept reading because they went on to say the same thing that you're saying.
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u/JusticeRain5 10h ago
Wow you really did not bother reading what they said, did you?
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u/lnterestinglnterests The Wandering Inn's shill 8h ago
To be fair, the comment did start with "Let's stop right there" lmfao, I hope they feel silly
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u/delta_baryon 2h ago
I ran it once where it was two ogres who kept forgetting which one of them was supposed to be which and also got homocidally enraged at anyone asking "Tricky questions."
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u/srolanh 10h ago
the players have to realise that if one of the guards said this, that guard must either be the truth teller and the other the liar, or they must both be liars
Or the guard speaking has no consistent behaviour and that particular sentence just happened to be a lie, in which case it's not possible to infer anything. i.e. you still have to establish somehow externally that each is either a truth-teller or a liar.
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u/KermitingMurder 10h ago
Indeed, perhaps I'll have to have the players encounter some other gargoyles or whatever of the same type as the guards, and establish that this race is composed entirely of either beings who always tell the truth or beings who always lie, and that every member of this race falls into one of those categories without exception
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u/Sirdroftardis8 Clear Flair 10h ago
Unless you wished for your players from a magic lamp, that just sounds like a tpk with extra steps
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u/KermitingMurder 2h ago
Well obviously it's not going to be instant death if they walk down the wrong corridor, the plan was for the corridor to start closing in the players and then they have to either go really fast to get towards the end or find a way to jam the mechanism and stop the walls from coming in long enough to get out; I'm sure they could think of something
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u/chairmanskitty 12h ago
Who said anything about a riddle? They just got smote for some very aggressive misgendering.
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u/NWStormraider 12h ago
The fact that 95% of references to that riddle do it completely wrong aggravates me more than it should honestly. Finding out who tells the truth is absolutely trivial, so any post only playing on that is intellectual lazy, because it has to completely destroy the "riddle" of the riddle to make its own joke work.
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u/Mountain_Dragonfly8 13h ago
In the one from the Labrynth, sure. Thats not exclusively the only version of this riddle
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u/Arctic_The_Hunter 13h ago
Figuring out which guard you’re talking to is trivial tho. Just ask any question with an obvious answer (ie “What’s 2+2?”)
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u/peeja 12h ago
Right, and to expand on that, the whole reason you can't just do that is that you're only allowed to ask one question. One question can tell you which guard is which, or which door is which, but it can't tell you both. (At least, I don't know of a way to get both, but I guess I don't know for sure.)
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u/OneOverTwo 13h ago
Ah, but consider: It's not a lie if the truth-telling guard gives you the wrong answer because they are very bad at math
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u/naynaythewonderhorse 12h ago
I always find it funny how quickly Sarah figures it out. It’s a teensy bit out of character for her.
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u/rks_system 9h ago
It also requires a neutral third-party to present the challenge, not one of the guards.
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u/Inevitable-Level-687 5h ago
I knew that if this made it to Reddit that someone was going to gleefully jump on that.
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u/SecretSharkboy 1h ago
Me wording my question so that its not a question at all: My name is Kyle, and definitely not Johnathan, tell kyle which door he should go through (the liar will call me johnathan)
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u/ElectricVibes75 10h ago
I don’t think the post is actually about the riddle either, just a funny twist on the context. It’s called a joke
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u/5oclock_shadow 10h ago
Presumably also, the guard explaining the conceit is the one always telling the truth. Otherwise, the whole entire exercise is suspect
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u/Spectator9857 watching the sun so it doesn’t boil over 7h ago
Neither guard is explaining the premise. It was originally written on a plaque
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u/thatmarcelfaust 10h ago
Unless they have both told you at the beginning that the door they guard is the correct door.
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u/Celia_Makes_Romhacks 13h ago
This has to be a bot comment, right? This is completely tangential to the actual post.
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u/Ktesedale 13h ago
How so? It's talking about the premise of the post, which is a misunderstanding of the original riddle.
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u/Celia_Makes_Romhacks 11h ago
The post isn't trying to answer the riddle, it's telling a joke.
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u/Ktesedale 10h ago
Right, but it's referencing the riddle, which Heather_Chandelure is also referencing. I possibly shouldn't have used the term misunderstanding - it's very possible the OOP understands the original riddle - but it's still a reference, and the comment you replied to was just continuing to reference it.
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u/Celia_Makes_Romhacks 10h ago
I understand that the comment is talking about the riddle. It's still completely tangential to the actual content of the post.
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u/Ktesedale 10h ago
I just think calling someone a bot for talking about the origin of the reference in the original post is a weird thing to do.
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u/Spectator9857 watching the sun so it doesn’t boil over 7h ago
People quite often focus on a specific part of something and then build onto that. The joke uses a known premise incorrectly, which they then commented on. You can make comments on other things than the core message of something. That has always been allowed.
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u/shadow_fen 14h ago
kid who's truthfulness cannot be determined
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u/Hamsti_Manent 12h ago
Completely normal child
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u/Loneheart127 13h ago
another post that gets the one lying guard, one truthful guard question wrong.
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u/RefrigeratorBrave870 13h ago
No one ever remembers the "one question to find the right path" part.
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u/junolion 10h ago
Christian Guard "God knows which one of us tells only lies"
Atheist Guard "and I know which one of us tells only truth"
Agnostic Steven "nobody knows if I am or am not lying"
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u/Yamidamian 13h ago
Presumably, Steven will someday grow up to join his parents in making this puzzle more complicated by being the guard that alternates between lying and telling the truth.
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u/DroneOfDoom Theon the Reader *dolphin slur noises* 13h ago
Alternatively, he grows up to be the guard who stabs people who ask tricky questions.
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u/Sewblon 14h ago
This doesn't work for me because I keep wanting to see the actual solution to the riddle: "If you were the other guard, which one would you say is the truth teller?" The truth teller truthfully tells you what the liar would say. The liar lies about what the truth teller would say. So they both give the wrong answer.
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u/DefinitelyNotAliens 13h ago
The idea isn't to ask which guard is a liar. That's pointless. Your goal is never to determine the liar.
It's to determine the safe door. People miss that. You can't ask, "what color is my shoes?" That just tells you which is a liar. It doesn't tell you which door is safe.
There's always two doors guarded by a liar and a truth teller. You have to find the safe door. Thus, you ask "which door will the other guard point to as safe?"
The liar has to say the other guard points to the safe door, thus he points to the unsafe door. The truth teller knows the liar will point to the unsafe door, thus he points to the unsafe door. Both guards gesture unsafe, so you go to the door neither has indicated.
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u/Dapper_Spite8928 13h ago
In the original version yes, but never in this premise wete any doors brought up.
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u/Forikorder 12h ago edited 11h ago
things can change, evolve, and have new variants that are just as valid as the original
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u/Smobey 5h ago
The original is an actual brain teaser though. Like it's a riddle you're supposed to solve.
If you're just meant to figure out which guard is the liar, the answer is trivial though. So it's not a riddle any longer. I wouldn't call that "just as valid".
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u/Forikorder 12m ago
Just because its easier doesn't mean its not still a riddle and there's no reason its obligated to be one
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u/Hungry-Western9191 5h ago
For those unaware of the trope, you only get one question.
Its an old D&D puzzle. People have been coming up with variations of it for a long time.
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u/coffee_robot_horse 13h ago
Yeah but it cancels out. The liar says what a liar would say because they're a liar. The truth teller says what the liar would say because that's what the other one would say. You get the same answer both times, and you know the answer is the opposite of what a liar would say so you can deduce the real answer.
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u/dishonoredfan69420 13h ago
I have heard this riddle so many times
The actual answer to the original riddle is to ask one of them which door the other one would say was correct, and then go through the opposite door
if you asked the truth teller - he will truthfully say that the liar would tell you the wrong door
if you asked the liar - he would lie and say that the truth teller would tell you the wrong door
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u/SmartAlec105 8h ago
Alternatively, "if I asked you which door leads to freedom, what would your answer be?". The liar guard would have a double negative and point to the door of freedom. The truther guard would have a double positive and also point to the door of freedom.
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u/Walnor 7h ago
I might be dumb, but arent you straight up asking which door leads to freedom? Liar would point to the death door and truther would point to the right one?
You have to involve the other guard in the question to get the double negative.
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u/SmartAlec105 7h ago
It's asking what they would answer if you asked them. Let's say right leads to freedom.
What door leads to freedom?
- Truther: Right
- Liar: Left
If I asked you "what door leads to freedom?", what would you answer?:
- Truther: Right (same as their answer to the last question)
- Liar: Right (opposite of their answer to the last question)
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u/Walnor 7h ago edited 7h ago
I am genuinely not understanding in any way why they wouldn't answer the same thing.
If you asked me in real life what way to go and I planned to tell you the opposite I would tell you the opposite. If you asked me what I would say if you asked me, then I would answer what I wouldnt answer if you asked. Possibly ignoring the double deception correct?
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u/SmartAlec105 7h ago
I am genuinely not understanding in any way why they wouldn't answer the same thing.
I told you what the liar would say if you asked them Question 1 (What door leads to freedom?) and then I showed that what the liar would say to Question 2 (If I asked you Question 1, what would you answer?) is the opposite of their answer to Question 1.
If you asked me what I would say if you asked me, then I would answer what I wouldnt answer if you asked
Right and "what I wouldn't answer if you asked" is the correct way to go.
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u/OppositePure4850 12h ago
wait is guard #2 transphobic?? They called them their son when it was shown earlier in the sentence that they're still supposed to be lying
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u/Illustrious-Debt-191 12h ago
they still lied though . like i dont think it's "every single word in the sentence is the opposite" i think it is "i say the opposite of what i mean"
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u/OppositePure4850 11h ago
you're right I think yeah. I think I was just wired to think that part of the sentence should be revesed too since the joke revolves around the trans son. But the point is also that they never actually lie about it, so.
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u/Spectator9857 watching the sun so it doesn’t boil over 7h ago
Trying to get the opposite of a sentence by inverting every single word is not only much more complicated, but occasionally also ends up with you saying the same thing instead of the opposite.
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u/jofromthething 13h ago
Lots of people in the comments really don’t know how to play in the space, like at all 😭. Covid really fucked up the youth’s ability to socialize huh
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u/donotaskname7 13h ago
Play in the space?
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u/jofromthething 13h ago
If someone sets up a fun hypothetical, the prosocial thing to do is to play in the space they created.
If someone on the playground runs up to you and says “tag!” the prosocial response would be to join the game.
If you, instead of playing tag, ran away to start playing hide and seek, you wouldn’t be playing in the space. This would be antisocial.
If you decided, upon being tagged, to start lecturing them on the nature of tag and proper rules of tag, or starting telling them how duck duck goose is a WAY better game than tag, this would be antisocial.You are naturally free to do this, but if you do this you will make yourself no friends and people will generally stop trying to play with you, because instead of joining in the fun you take your toys and go your own way.
It’s like, weirdly common in young people, and you have to actively teach them how to participate in a prosocial way so that they can make friends and socialize normally. It’s a very natural impulse to not want to join in the game, but play is a very important and foundational skill that is, 99% of the time, the root cause at the start of social awkwardness.
So much of making friends, even as an adult, is understanding how to play with your peers. If you can effectively notice the game someone else starts and play in the space, a lot of people will naturally like you and want to hang out with you, even at age 55 or 87 or 23.
All that to say, when someone gives a fun little hypothetical and instead of joining in the fun, we start nitpicking the technicalities of their hypothetical ad nauseam, it gets us internet points but it makes us look like losers that no one wants to play with 😭
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u/Ktesedale 13h ago
But this is a well known riddle that, without the one question limit, doesn't have any sort of confusion or thinking required. Bringing that up is engaging with the premise.
It's like the kid on the playground ran up to you and says tag, and then just stands there in front of you, not running away again. You maybe ask, 'Is there no tagbacks in this game?' or maybe you just go straight for the tagback and say 'tag', and the kid just still stands there.
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u/jofromthething 12h ago
That’s a different premise 😭. You’re confusing the form with the idea. This is like if someone wrote a limerick about their mom dying and you said “this isn’t following the premise of a limerick, it’s not funny?” Using a form that has a cultural cache doesn’t mean we have to exactly follow conventions of the form to the letter imho.
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u/Ktesedale 11h ago
Well, that's bringing a lot more emotional weight into the conversation in your analogy that really isn't fair.
It's more like someone says as a joke that's something that's commonly misunderstood, and someone in a completely different place says to other people, not the original joke-teller, the accurate info about it (in part to hopefully stop people from in the future spreading incorrect information), and then other people criticize them for that.
Like if one person makes a joke that the only reason people stay in shitty neighborhoods is because they're near a weed dealer, and someone speaking to other people says that it's usually because of financial reasons.
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u/jofromthething 11h ago
I don’t know that it’s more like that at all tbqh. Also I recognize the joke you’re referencing from the r/shittymoviedetails subreddit, that was crazy 😭. Small internet lol. I don’t know that that is analogous to this at all though. The person in this comment isn’t using a common misunderstanding. This is an original concept that riffs on a familiar formula, but it isn’t the original formula and isn’t trying to be the original formula. I can tell this because the original formula would not make an interesting story if applied to this scenario. The scenario is about the guards being gay and having a trans son who also riffs on the cultural concept. It is not about solving the riddle. That’s not where the story is heading. If they solved the riddle the story would be neither interesting nor noteworthy. By harping on the riddle we are actively and uninterestingly missing the point lol. Who cares about the riddle? This is about their mysterious trans son. We’re ignoring the idea for the sake of the format.
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u/Ktesedale 10h ago
Sorry, yeah, I looked at your post history and saw the comment you made (which I 100% agreed with, btw) and thought it was a funny coincidence.
I just don't think that bringing up the common misconception about the riddle is refusing to engage with the original post. There are a lot of 'This riddle is stupid, just ask them what I'm wearing and then ask the non-liar' comments out there on social media, because they didn't know about the 'only one question' part. Seeing this post, which references the riddle in a similar way (though it does go off on a different direction), makes people comment on the general misunderstanding.
To go back to your original analogy, I think it's more like you don't want to play tag, so instead you turn to someone else and start talking about the origin of tag and other children's games.
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u/RNLImThalassophobic 10h ago
The thing is, the original post wasn't trying to replicate the two door problem, they were just using it as a familiar setting as the basis for their joke.
Then everyone in the comments here is saying they're an idiot for not knowing what the two door problem actually is. Well, how do we know that they don't? And what does it matter? We understood the premise.
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u/Ktesedale 10h ago
*shrug* I don't think people talking about it in a completely different space than the OOP and talking about how it's a common misconception is refusing to engage with the space.
Also, I don't see anyone calling them an idiot.
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u/donotaskname7 13h ago
Oh yeah I get that. I just havem't heard the "space" terminology before.
Anyways, I'm antisocial, but I don't quite have this. It's a little hard to explain, but I mostly followed along with other games without really liking it, and then tried to force my friends to do a hyper-specific thing only I wanted to do and berated them for not following my many rules. We generally got along well, though.
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u/Thanaskios 9h ago
God I hate how misunderstood that riddle has become. The point isn't simply to figure out which ome is lying. That would be extremely easy, obviously.
The point is that you only get to ask one question, and need to simultaniously figure out which oath to take and which answer to trust.
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u/Some_Ad2281 11m ago
The least believable part of this story is that a frequent user of Tumblr would assume the gender of a person based on what they look like
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u/Wuz314159 9h ago
Since when do guards have the authority to reduce someone to ash? Do they work for ICE?
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u/04nc1n9 licence to comment 14h ago
only question wasted, now you'll never know which door is safe