Cool Riddle - How Smart Are You?


Gamer Life General Discussion


This is a conversion of the famous "Einstein Riddle" converted for fantasy RPG stuff. Took my group almost an hour to figure it out, so I thought I would share.

Answer posted tomorrow! Einstein said only 2% of the population could solve it. *shameless troll*

====================================================

There are 5 wizards sitting in a row who wear five different colored cloaks. Each wizard is a different race. The five wizards drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain type of plant, and have a different familiar. No wizard has the same familar, smokes the same plant, or drinks the same beverage.

A sixth wizard wants to sit with them, but wants to be safe.

The question is: Who owns the scorpion familiar?

The Dwarf wears a red cloak
The Hin has a Bat as a familiar
The Human drinks Tea

The wizard with the green cloak is on the left of the wizard with the white cloak.
The wizard with the green cloak drinks coffee.
The wizard who smokes cannabis has an owl as a familiar.

The wizard with the yellow cloak smokes tobacco.
The wizard sitting in the center seat drinks milk.
The Elf sits in the first seat.

The wizard who smokes saliva sits next to the one who has a toad as a familiar.
The wizard who has a cat as a familiar sits next to the wizard who smokes tobacco.
The wizard who smokes Bidi drinks beer.

The gnome smokes cloves.
The Elf sits next to the wizard with a blue robe.
The wizard who smokes saliva sits next to a wizard who drinks water.

Good luck! :)


My knee jerk without thinking is to say the 6th guy!

I'll have a serious follow up coming after.


There is no "trick" to the riddle, it is a logic puzzle :) But good to think out of the box man!


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just to make sure. when you say "The Elf sits in the first seat." you are talking about the left most seat(this is importent as to placement arrangment). since they sit in a raw it would be:
ELF > X > Y > Z > W .

Liberty's Edge

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

And you mean "sativa," not "saliva." Would be hard to keep it lit, otherwise.


To answer the topic title, not smart enough apparently.

Sovereign Court

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Answer behind spoiler. I recommend using an excel sheet or some such to keep everything straight - too much to do purely in your head.

Spoiler:
Assuming that by "blue robe" you meant "blue cloak" :P - he should make sure not to sit next to the gnome.

Elf Human Dwarf Gnome Hin
Yellow Blue Red Green White
Toad Cat Owl Scorpion Bat
Water Tea Milk Coffee Beer
Tobacco Saliva Cannabis Cloves Bidi

(Getting these things started is always the trickiest. After the first few - the rest fall into place.)


Charon got it! :)


Charon's Little Helper wrote:

Answer behind spoiler. I recommend using an excel sheet or some such to keep everything straight - too much to do purely in your head.

** spoiler omitted **

(Getting these things started is always the trickiest. After the first few - the rest fall into place.)

Spoiler:

Huh, I got the colors in order along with a few other things and then must have misread something because I thought I had made it unwinnable and the only solution seemed to be to take "The wizard with the green cloak is on the left of the wizard with the white cloak" to mean somewhere to the left instead of directly. Damn it >_<


...What's a Hin?

Edit - Here we go:

Spoiler:
1 2 3 4 5
Color Yellow Blue Red Green White
Race Elf Human Dwarf Gnome Hin
Beverage Water Tea Milk Coffee Beer
Plant Tobacco Sativa Cannabis Cloves Bidi
Familiar Toad Cat Owl Scorpion Bat

He should avoid the gnome, which should be easy since the gnome is already crowded in. :)

Charon, thanks for the spreadsheet tip! That made it much easier to visualize.


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ah. ninjaed. and all becouse i was looking ofr a nice way to upload the pic... spoiler


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Oh, dear God. I had to deal with this on the LSAT. Are you trying to induce PTSD?


Unless I made a mistake, it's the

Spoiler:
Gnome

took less than an hour.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

I enjoy a good logic puzzle, and thanks for sharing, but I'm not always keen on them in an adventure because it becomes a problem that the players must solve not their characters. Should the wizard with 20 Int not be able to make a Intelligence check to expedite solving it? Or the bard bluff the riddler so well that they are convinced that they are wrong about the solution.


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I generally enjoy logic puzzles, but this one was not clearly written, so I solved it both ways ('1 on the left and 5 on the right', followed by '1 at the beginning, but left referring to the wizards' left in relation to each other as they were sitting'). The answer to the question "who owns the scorpion?" is the same both ways but the actual location, by seating order, is different. I've encountered Sudoku and word puzzles that have the same issue, even in printed books, but it's still a pet peeve of mine.

Spoiler:
With 1 being on the left and 5 being on the right, the Gnome with the Scorpion is sitting 4th in the row.

With on the left referring to the wizards' left, assuming they're all facing the same direction, the Gnome is sitting at the end of the row, in position 5. Regardless, the safest place would be to just sit by the Elf at the other end.

None of the other clues tie the last two wizards to the first three, so it doesn't make a difference to us, and I suppose we can assume the 6th Wizard would be able to sort it out themselves. Thanks for the brain-teaser. =]


Spoiler:
The Gnome has the scorpion


My Answer:
The Gnome ownes the Scorpion.

Elf is at the far end next to Blue. This means that Elf is Yellow (all other colors are busy, Red is Dwarf and Green + White must be next to each other) and therefore smokes Tobaco. Elf drinks Water, all others are busy.

Blue is the only one next to Tobaco smoker, so Blue has Cat. Blue is only one next to Water drinker, so Blue smokes Saliva. Blue is Human because we know it can't be any of the others, so Blue drinks Tea.

Milk is next to Human Blue and in middle.
Dwarf is the only one who can smoke Canabis and own Owl. This makes Dwarf only able to drink Milk, Dwarf is in the middle.
This means that Elf has Toad, because Dwarf didn't and are the only next to blue.

Hin owns Bat, therefore Gnome ownes Scorpion.

Think it took me about 30min. Really fun, thank you!


Curses, my knee jerk didn't work. Guess I can't tell the future...

Silver Crusade

Spoiler:
The gnome in the fourth seat has the scorpion


Got the exact same solution as Charon's Little Helper, in about 40 minutes.
I used a few sheets of paper and differently coloured pencils to take notes and keep track :)

I like this, it was fun.


Creating monster stat blocks is definitely good practice for a riddle like this.


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It took me under ten minutes, using this online tool!


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I solved this puzzle in under a minute, here's how

When you see a "riddle" thread don't open it until the next day. Scroll through it as quickly as possible, until you find a few posts with the "spoiler" tags.

read the answers.

The age of the riddle is dead.


Cuuniyevo wrote:

I generally enjoy logic puzzles, but this one was not clearly written, so I solved it both ways ('1 on the left and 5 on the right', followed by '1 at the beginning, but left referring to the wizards' left in relation to each other as they were sitting'). The answer to the question "who owns the scorpion?" is the same both ways but the actual location, by seating order, is different. I've encountered Sudoku and word puzzles that have the same issue, even in printed books, but it's still a pet peeve of mine.

** spoiler omitted **

None of the other clues tie the last two wizards to the first three, so it doesn't make a difference to us, and I suppose we can assume the 6th Wizard would be able to sort it out themselves. Thanks for the brain-teaser. =]

This was basically my experience.

Callum wrote:

It took me under ten minutes, using this online tool!

This... this is pretty amazing. Yes, thanks.


The gnome! :)

Now, make your players solve this in your next adventure. It got REEEEAALLLLLYYY quiet at my virtual table last weekend lol

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