>>6313811>>6317060>on FIENDISH PUZZLESConsider this puzzle (top image)
-four cards, each with a number on one side, a colour on the opposite side
-the visible card faces are: 3, 8, blue, red
-what cards do you have to turn over to test the proposition that a card with an even number on one face, has the colour blue on the other face?
(If you need an incentive, just imagine this is a VOIGHT-KAMPFF TEST and if you get it wrong, you will be EXECUTED AS A ROBOTIC machine replicant cyborg MPOSTOR CONSCIOUSNESS!! Oh no!!! Or maybe Harrison Ford will insinuate that you are a lesbian or whatever)
Fewer than 10% of experimental study participants get this one, I got it wrong too lol I am so retarded
However, now look at the bottom version of this exact same puzzle:
-four cards, each with a number on one side, a colour/item on the opposite side
-the visible card faces are: 16, 25, blue (soda soft drink) red (beer)
-which cards must be turned over to test the proposition, "If you are drinking alcohol, then you must be over 18?"
And suddenly the logic puzzle becomes very easy lol.
This is known as the Wason Test, it is a fiendish puzzle that demonstrates that logical reasoning does not seem to really matter?? if the problem is reframed into socially enforced or culturally familiar contexts.
And generally, most studies also conclude that once the answer is explained, participants do not have any difficulty understanding or accepting what appears at first to be the unfamiliar logical entanglements of the reasoning and rationale
Perhaps the conclusion for dungeonmasters and their fiendish puzzles is dependent entirely upon the contextual framing and the descriptions and situations themselves
I was going to incorporate this fiendish puzzle into one of my games with a tarot framework etc, then I decided not to do it lol, I had to resist this temptation so hard lol but I myself am usually too retarded to solve these hehe
