I've never liked it when the Two Brothers riddles are worded like this. Either the "always telling the truth" brother is the one saying the riddle, and you know who to ask which door is safe or its the "always lying" brother, in which you don't know what the actual riddle is (as the one they just told you is a lie) and both doors probably lead to the certain death.
(I should probably add that I get the refrence in the post, I'm just being nitpicky)
Am I missing something? If you ask brother A, he would say his brother likes small butts. If you ask brother B, he would also say his brother likes small butts. How do you differentiate?
It works the same as the original puzzle. If you ask the lying small butt brother, he'll lie and say his brother would say he likes small butts. If you ask the truthful big butt brother, he'd say his brother would say he likes big butts, because he knows his brother likes small butts and would lie about it.
Essentially the negatives work out so that each brother answers with the kind of butt they themselves like, which you can then use to determine which is truthful (though at this point that somehow seems less important).
Yes, but you're not asking him what his brother likes, you're asking him what he would say he likes, which is what flips it. You're basically making sure the answer is a lie regardless of which brother you ask.
The truth is that the whole setup is moot if it's one of the door-guards that tells you the rules, since they might be lying about the whole thing. There needs to be a trusted third-party involved, who knows about the guards but doesn't know which one's lying and which one's telling the truth.
True. It seems there are different versions of the puzzle, but from a quick search it was popularized by the movie Labyrinth, and there they get around it by having a second set of guards who don't know the answer explain the setup.
I really like this idea, and now I want to put it in a session. Like, we go through the whole 2-brothers riddle, but it turns out that the one explaining the rules is the one lying.
Maybe both doors lead to "death"/encounters, maybe the players are free to just walk past the brothers without consequence, maybe a third more interesting thing happens.
If you trust the guy telling you this, you can just ask him which door leads to certain doom. If not, you have no way of knowing if you're in a knights and knaves puzzle.
