unforum

[Sylvia]

Both Rogi's and Macavity's puzzles are excellent.

Rogi's consist of two steps to solve and I would not have been able to solve it had he not sent me the explanation via PM. However, if we omit the fist step then it becomes too easy to solve using an alternative method than the one suggested.

As for Macavity's Enigma, I can't solve it. So, I can't give an accurate analysis of it. I don't know how many steps it takes to get to the answer. So Macavity, could you let us know.

My suggestion since a few of us got together last time and decided on the last puzzle, I think that Rogi and Macavity should team up on this one and let Falthis have it.

As for following the rules, I will let the rest of you decide on that. Pesonally I say, trash the rules like Falthis did. But that might cost us Metatron with Falthis being the demon that he is.

So, what do you guys think?

[Darren Knight]

My two cents is we should follow the rules. After 'mongering' over the rules to win, im sure that that is what Falthis will do. However, these rules are so vague, we could twist them to our likeness. As an example, it never said the hint had to be in english, etc. there are so many possibilite.

We could simply just use these rules against him, but we should follow the rules.

[Rogi Ocnorb]

Either is fine with me.

With the Enigma, there is a ZERO chance Falthis will be successful (Unless there's a high-powered Enigma solver out there I've never found.).

And it represents a victory of human over demon intelligence using a purely human developed method.


With mine, there really isn't a "first step", given who we're dealing with.

And the case could easily be made that we've presented him with a puzzle that does away with the ambiguity of the written word, making it an even more "In your face, poser!" offering.

The down-side is that there is a (I think, fairly remote) chance that Falthis could happen upon the means to ultimately find the answer, after doing a whole lot of trial and error.

[southernbitch]

 I miss all the important stuff, gonna have to get an aircard

[Macavity]

Sylvia, I PMed the explanation of my ENIGMA puzzle to you.

(If I left anything out, let me know - it's 1:30 AM here, and I'm at work, so my brain is less than fully functional.)

ETA: Rogi, if you're interested, I'm more than willing to collaborate with you tomorrow. I'll be around from about 11 ET to 4PM ET, but after that I'll be at work.

[nilradical]

Whee, missed a bunch of excitement! Nice job everyone, both with the 'rules mongering' (as DK put it), and the puzzle ideas! A quick note regarding keeping the solutions secret from Falthis/not posting them on the forum here-- I thought Bobby said he was going to play answer-keeper for all the challenges now, to keep Falthis from pulling another rule twisting stunt? So the pm's will get the answers along with the riddle regardless... I could be totally misremembering though. Unfortunately, if that's correct, it means they can always "solve" the riddles we give (since we have to send them the answers as well), so maybe we should see about encrypting/zipping/etc the answers we send to Bobby using the password (like Rogi did with his riddle earlier)? If we have to send in the answers in plaintext, then we might as well post them here as we develop riddles, since the pm's will get them anyway.

Anyhow, as for the actual riddle-- an unbreakable code of some kind sounds like a good plan to me... enigma works, or a vigenere with a random key as long as the message (we talked about that some on the first riddle, before the word scramble idea), or heck, I'd be down to use RSA. I'll take another look at Rogi's riddle as well-- I remember it looked pretty awesome at first glance, but I didn't really play around with it before. Can someone email me/pm me the solutions (actually, and the enigma puzzle as well if there was a specific one)? (nilradical0SPLATgmail.com) Thanks!

Regardless, I definitely agree that whatever sort of puzzle we send him, there should be no holding back or being 'nice' on this one-- it should be thoroughly unbreakable.

[Rogi Ocnorb]

I sent mine to sylvia for vetting as valid based on having worked with her on several other games.

No offense to those who haven't been around unfiction as long as others but in all due diligence, I am leery to send the answers to someone who's join date on the forums is the same day we got the trailhead and who has posted to this thread, exclusively.

It's very likely a coincidence(We've had weirder ones around here) and having said that, I'll leave the choices on sharing the answers up to the group as a whole.

[Sylvia]

[Sylvia]

analysis finished

[Macavity]

That sounds like a workable compromise.

I just hope Falthis agrees with us.

[Rogi Ocnorb]

I'm down with whatever the group decides.
Giving him a choice makes us a magnanimous opponent.
As long as we make it clear this is not a multi-part puzzle in any way, that our confidence allows us to be generous and the choice is truly his which of them he wants to go with.

[nextday]

These are all great ideas! But I think we should only send him one riddle just so he cannot try to pull anything or we could contact Bobby and make sure sending a choice is within the rules.

I just do not want any chance for Falthis to try to cheat on us or to find a loophole in the rules with our riddle again.

[Darren Knight]

It really does not haave to be that hard because even though we are giving Falthis the riddle, we are also giving the answer to bobby. If the PM wants falthis to win, falthis will win.

So which one am I sending, i need a direct decision. Or, if not, the first one to send me either enigma or rogni's. I think that if we were to give him the choice, he would void it under the rules "Falthis will accept a SINGLE riddle, cypher or puzzle".

[Sylvia]

Where did Bobby say that we have to give him the answers?

If that's the case, then why waste our time? Just send something silly like this:

If curiosity killed the cat, what brought it back? Satisfaction

[Darren Knight]

This was from a while back, but it was posted here: