Need Help with an Unanswerable 8-Ball Question

[easl]

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.

These are a couple more paradox-type questions:

For 2 fate points: "What is the question you cannot answer?" followed by asking that question.

Or if your players wants to do it in one: "If I were to ask you the one question to which you don't know the answer, what would your answer be?"

[Slife]

Or if your players wants to do it in one: "If I were to ask you the one question to which you don't know the answer, what would your answer be?"

"This one"
alternatively
"Incorrect"

[craggle]

Or how about an easily breakable "predestined" question?  "What will be the next question that I ask you?"  Whatever it's answer, as you will know the answer, it will be easy to change and therefore invalidate the answer given.  You could optionally compel the forgetfullness so that they forget the question it says though. 

Or, you could have it that the item doesn't get destroyed until the person asks a different question next, in which case, you could really mess with their heads by making the answer be something like "Your next question will be: What is the one way I can save my own life?" (or the life of someone they deeply care for).  Then watch them agonise over whether to destroy the item, or hold on to it to ask what is obviously going to be a very important question!

[admiralducksauce]

Or, you could have it that the item doesn't get destroyed until the person asks a different question next, in which case, you could really mess with their heads by making the answer be something like "Your next question will be: What is the one way I can save my own life?" (or the life of someone they deeply care for).  Then watch them agonise over whether to destroy the item, or hold on to it to ask what is obviously going to be a very important question!

This is FTW, should it come up!

The funny thing is, the "drop the 8-Ball into the River Lethe" solution is growing on me, for the sole reason that it could very well require a trip to the Nevernever, which means chainmail and axes.  My PCs are all bikers, so with the combination of leather, spikes, mail, and twisted otherworldly landscapes that results I get a pilgrimage through a heavy metal album cover.  That is far more awesome than some stupid riddle. 

[Motman]

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

Depending on how squirrelly the 8 ball can be that one is easy.  When you ask it tells you to ask it how to destroy it self it simply tells to ask it a question it cannot answer.  Then it is asked what question it is, it says the one I cannot answer.  This could be a defense mechanism built into the device to keep it from being destroyed to easily.  If it must give a straight answer the response may be "I am not permitted to know either the question or the answer to what I cannot answer."

[Vars]

I think the idea of a quest possibly heading into the Nevernever is great, but I wouldn't use the River Styx. Why use the river of death for a fortune telling device that robs memories? Instead I suggest the Fountain of Forgetfulness, this is also in greek mythology as one of the locations Psyche had to visit because of Aphrodite. And as for ways to destroy the item, instead of an unanswerable question why not make it "The only way you can destroy me is to forget me." but since you can only remember the orb thats impossible...without the fountain! When the orb is destroyed the person regains all memories lost to them and gains "Eidetic Memory" never being able to forget again! Also if you want to be a truly mean DM you can make a whole lot of bad stuff happen along the way and style the orb to not let them remember what happened but that they know its bad. This way when you get them to the end, they have to make the decision to either never remember anything or to get every bad thing that has ever happened to them permanently etched in their memory..perfect and unforgettable. Lemme know what you think of these ideas please.

[admiralducksauce]

but I wouldn't use the River Styx

Indeed.  That's why I said I'd use the River Lethe.    My group has the 8-Ball now, and one of them is "infected" by its curse after asking it "how do we destroy you?" and getting the answer about the River Lethe (and a subsequent question to find out where the dang river was).

Now Step 1 of their plan is to get as close to the NeverNever River Lethe as they can, but the further they travel in the real world, the greater danger there is from human agents sent to retrieve the 8-Ball.  If they just pick somewhere thematically close and jump into the NN sooner rather than later, they'll have a longer trek through the NN which has its own dangers.  Either way, I plan for multiple shenanigans along the way.

When the 8-Ball is destroyed, I'm thinking that it keeps what it took and it takes back what it gave.  Knowledge lost from Compels stays lost; knowledge granted from invoking the 8-Ball disappears (because they COULD ask for really game-breaky stuff before they drop the thing in the river and this is meant to counter that).

they have to make the decision to either never remember anything or to get every bad thing that has ever happened to them permanently etched in their memory..perfect and unforgettable

Remembering traumatic shit isn't a threat to my group of PCs.  One of 'em has the Sight.  One's a former Denarian host.  One is fucked up from the war.  The reason they take chainsaws to monsters now is because of the bad shit that they've seen.  They need and possibly want those memories so they have that fuel to ensure such things don't keep happening to people.