I’m working on a campaign that has the player meet a creature pretending to be a sphynx and ask riddles of the players.
The trick is that that creature is both not that smart and thinks he’s very clever. They way past him is to praise him for being so smart that he agrees to let the adventurers go
What are some good ‘bad’ riddles to ask ?
“You are driving a carriage. The carriage is empty when you begin your route. In the morning, you bring 2 merchants to an auction. In the afternoon, you take 3 farmers to the market. In the evening, you bring a noble to a ball. What color are the driver’s eyes?”
The creature was told this riddle by someone else, and misunderstood the answer: when the creature was “the driver,” the answer was “purple,” because its eyes are purple. It still believes the answer is “purple,” even though the players’ eyes are not purple.
“A man is sentenced to death. He has to choose from three rooms to receive his punishment. The first room has a firing squad holding fully charged Wands of Magic Missile. The second room is full of deadly poison. The third room is full of bulettes that haven’t eaten for six months. Which room should he choose?”
The creature believes the answer is the second room, because it is immune to poison. It does not understand that bulettes feed constantly, so a bulette that hasn’t eaten in 6 months would be dead, and refuses to grasp the answer no matter how many times it’s explained.