RPGMemes

I mean, the Barbarian asked the one question and didn't gain anything from it. Knowing which one is the liar doesn't... help anymore.

My favorite take on this:

Ask either guard: "If I asked the other guard which door led to the castle, what would they say?" The answer is always the door that leads to instant death; enter the other door.

Alternate solution:

But they gained no information on which door to choose ='(

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.

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'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).

Just shoot em in the foot

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0327.html

And the surviving guard will most definitely answer a 2nd question despite the rules.

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.

This doesn't help the party decide which door to go through at all

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?

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.

Now let’s make it a little harder. You have three guards: one tells the truth, one lies, one answers randomly. The guards understand you, but only answer either “da” or “ja”. One means yes, one means no, but you don’t know which is which. You get to ask each guard one question.

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.