Need Help with an Unanswerable 8-Ball Question

[admiralducksauce]

One of the PCs in my DFRPG campaign is basically a magic item thief, and I've been working on some wondrous items for him to encounter.  I've got a good idea for a Magick 8-Ball that knows the answer to anything for a Fate Point, but gradually compels you more and more to forget things.  When you get rid of the 8-Ball, the curse remains, eventually leaving you with the sole knowledge that getting the 8-Ball back can give you your answers again.

Anyways, it's a nasty item with what I hope is a tempting power.  I have decided that to destroy the 8-Ball, you have to ask it the one question it cannot answer.  The problem is, I have no idea what would be a good question.

I think that the 8-Ball will know the answers to "What is the capital of Assyria?", "What goes black, white, black, white, black, white?", "What is your favorite color?", and quite possibly "What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?".  I would give a FP to the first player who tried hitting the 8-Ball with Monty Python by way of apology, but I'm not sure that should work on the artifact.   Any thoughts as to what would make a good question?

[MijRai]

Ask it the meaning of life. If the answer is not 42, it is incorrect.

[Blaze]

How can I make [insert] love me?

There is no answer!  Love must be given freely.

[knnn]

1) One classic way would be to go with a paradox question: (assuming that "yes" and "no" are the only possible answers):

If the next question I ask you is "will you agree never to answer another question again", will you answer it in the same way you answer this one?

2) A question that cannot be answered until the end of time: (this assumes that it cannot see into the future):

What is the last question anyone will ever ask you

3) Maybe the Eight Ball was created with a "safe word" to prevent malicious use:

How can I kill your creator

[Blackblade]

Hell, building off the last one, just ask it "How can I destroy you?"

[Runhide]

Most items of that type would not be able to answer a question on how to destroy its self or how to remove the curse.  That may be too easy but you would be surprised at how many people don’t ask the obvious questions.  To make it more difficult to destroy you could make it an outer limits (TV show) moral object they have to learn a lesson to get rid of it.  To destroy an item of power you have to do something very specific you could have that condition be something a person with the 8ball would almost never do.  Also you have to keep in mind that an object that does that would break the Third law ( no mind messin) and the wardens would be hot on its trail.

Finally I read a book the other day that had a great item for what you are looking for.  It was a coin that gave bad luck or turned Murphy ’s Law against you.  Anything that can go wrong does, Flat tires, Losing your keys, Slivers, Getting food poisoning.  The trick of getting rid of the coin is that you cannot give it away the person who takes it must take it from you.  The Characters in the book finally got rid of it by going on a trade route they knew had bandits.  

[Wolfwood2]

Anyways, it's a nasty item with what I hope is a tempting power.  I have decided that to destroy the 8-Ball, you have to ask it the one question it cannot answer.  The problem is, I have no idea what would be a good question.

The plot where there is one right answer to a situation and the players have to guess what it is seems counterintuitive to FATE.  I mean, it doesn't often work well in any system, but especially it seems wrong in a system where players are often encoruaged to make up aspects of the narrative themselves.

[eberg]

The plot where there is one right answer to a situation and the players have to guess what it is seems counterintuitive to FATE.  I mean, it doesn't often work well in any system, but especially it seems wrong in a system where players are often encoruaged to make up aspects of the narrative themselves.

Beat me to it. Hell, even when not running FATE, I will allow the PCs to be correct if their ideas are better than mine.

[admiralducksauce]

The plot where there is one right answer to a situation and the players have to guess what it is seems counterintuitive to FATE.  I mean, it doesn't often work well in any system, but especially it seems wrong in a system where players are often encoruaged to make up aspects of the narrative themselves.

I agree with you, and I can see from what I wrote it sounds like an exercise in pixelbitching.  That's not my intention, I assure you.  I am just looking for some suggestions for what the question might be.  To the PCs' perspectives, there's only the one question that can free them, but to the players, that's not necessarily the case.  Like my Killer Semi idea, I have an idea of how and why it exists but it's only as a backup in case the players don't happen to supply that for me.

For example, if they want to sit down and puzzle it out, then I think the paradox question knnn posted works best.  If they want to try to "cheat" the 8-Ball and ask it "how can we destroy you?" (this would place them under the device's power, since they're asking it a question), to which the answer is "Ask me the question I cannot answer", the PCs can follow it up with "What is the question you cannot answer?", then we make it a road trip and the Ball answers something truthful but difficult, like "The question that is scrawled into the pool table felt at Such-and-such bar in Some-kinda-place-far-enough-away-for-a-fun-road-trip."

And then I compel the PC that fell under the 8-Ball's sway with memory loss the whole way there.  Good times!  When they get there, they're still going to want to know the question regardless of whether they actually had to puzzle anything out or not.

[cgodfrey7]

I think it would be fun if the magic 8-ball had to be dumped into the River Styx to make it forget its purpose and be forgotten.

[Slife]

Alternatively, maybe the eight-ball is the eyeball of some sort of cosmic horror living on the moon.

See: the next five pages

[admiralducksauce]

I think it would be fun if the magic 8-ball had to be dumped into the River Styx to make it forget its purpose and be forgotten.

Heh, nice.  There's a couple Greek rivers of the underworld; I'd say any would work.  A quick search shows the River Lethe is the river of forgetfulness, that'd work real nice.  Also rumored to be in Alaska as well as Spain and Portugal.

Alternatively, maybe the eight-ball is the eyeball of some sort of cosmic horror living on the moon.

I have this answer, actually.  The 8-Ball being an Intellectus explains its power very nicely I think.

[devonapple]

This dovetails with an issue I had last session, trying to handle riddles in DFRPG. I used Sanctaphrax's Sphinx NPC, which has the Master Riddler Stunt that allows it to use Scholarship as a Social Attack. I could certainly have done a great deal more prep than I did, but would a Social Conflict be there to establish an abstract framework for the encounter, or should I be laying down actual riddles so that a player who knows the answer simply "win" that exchange (and roll Scholarship as a Defense if they can't)?

[Sanctaphrax]

It makes me irrationally happy to hear that someone is using what I wrote. Hope it went well.

As for your actual question, I had two ways of handling riddles in mind when I made the Sphinx.

The first would be where the Sphinx poses a single riddle that can be solved by either the players with the answer or by the characters with Scholarship rolls. If they get it right, then the Sphinx won't have toughness powers in the fight that ensues afterwards.

The second would be a full on social conflict where the Sphinx tries to take out the players with riddle-based attacks. I wouldn't use specific riddles for this conflict for fear of slowing the game down, so the players would just have to defend with their skills and hope for the best. Players who win this social conflict would get to avoid a physical battle.

Hope this helps.

[devonapple]

It makes me irrationally happy to hear that someone is using what I wrote. Hope it went well.

You're welcome! Thank you for creating it.

FYI, after test running the Sphinx, I decided to tweak it slightly, giving it Human guise, casting him as an information broker and very tough Emissary of the Sphinx, rather than a Guardian beast, and then giving him a stake in the game's main Threat (involving Evil Masons and Outsiders). I'll reserve the Legendary Sphinx as a much larger figure.