129 Situations

February 12, 2015 11:02 AM

Two men lie suffocated next to an igloo. A writer loses his concentration and dies. A sudden case of hiccups puts an old man in the hospital. What the hell is going on?
posted by Iridic (90 comments total)

My dad loves telling these. 1.25 blew my mind when I was seven or so.
posted by michaelh at 11:04 AM on February 12, 2015

Oooh, I love these! Thanks for posting!
posted by ogooglebar at 11:05 AM on February 12, 2015

Because the Norwegian chemist lives in the fourth house from the end and smokes Chesterfields.
posted by Curious Artificer at 11:07 AM on February 12, 2015 [5 favorites]

It's always struck me as really weird that these puzzles are treated as having a 'right' answer. Often there are a lot of different stories that might fit the facts as given. Surely the challenge, if there is one, should be coming up with as many possible answers as you can?
posted by Acheman at 11:14 AM on February 12, 2015 [31 favorites]

Luckily I have nothing to do for a while. Guess why?
posted by Splunge at 11:14 AM on February 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

I like the cut of your jib, Mr. Nog!

1.10. He was killed by breakfast.

He was trying to eat a breakfast burrito with a live rhino inside.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:15 AM on February 12, 2015 [17 favorites]

1.38. Mr. Browning is glad the car ran out of gas.

Alternate answer: Mrs. Browning is trying to run him down with the car.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:15 AM on February 12, 2015 [10 favorites]

"It's always struck me as really weird that these puzzles are treated as having a 'right' answer. Often there are a lot of different stories that might fit the facts as given. Surely the challenge, if there is one, should be coming up with as many possible answers as you can?"

FTA:

"In the game of situation puzzles, a mysterious situation is presented to a group of players, who must then try to find out what's going on by asking further questions. The person who initially presented the situation can only answer "yes" or "no" to questions (or occasionally "irrelevant")."
posted by I-baLL at 11:17 AM on February 12, 2015 [10 favorites]

My sixth grade class took a week-long trip to a camp in the Adirondacks. One of the counselors told a variant of 1.1. We asked questions for quite some time. Eventually one of the teachers or other counselors made a guess of what was in the area of a right answer but got some detail wrong (or the guy who posed the question was just being a jerk). At that point we were out of time and the counselor never gave the solution to his variant. I wondered about it on and off for years before finding the problem on the internet. I appreciate seeing this much longer list.
posted by audi alteram partem at 11:18 AM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

1.36. A flash of light, a man dies.

Alternate answer A: It's called a muzzle flash, you idiot.

Alternate answer B: It's Aug 6, 1945 at 8:16 AM, and the man is Japanese.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:19 AM on February 12, 2015 [6 favorites]

A man is killed on a train. He is found to have written "elf" on the floor in his own blood.

This is absurdly simple. He was killed by an elf. Or, possibly, an elm, and the last letter got smudged. Or, possibly, it was Professor Tolkien, killed to make sure the unfinished tales were left unfinished, but he started a new story with his dying effort.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:19 AM on February 12, 2015 [14 favorites]

FTA:

"In the game of situation puzzles, a mysterious situation is presented to a group of players, who must then try to find out what's going on by asking further questions. The person who initially presented the situation can only answer "yes" or "no" to questions (or occasionally "irrelevant")."

Yeah, the challenge is in coming up with the proper questions to develop useful information to solve the puzzle.
posted by ogooglebar at 11:20 AM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

I've only ever encountered these in puzzle books where there was definitely supposed to be one correct answer, no clues.
posted by Acheman at 11:20 AM on February 12, 2015

There was an AskMe on this type of puzzle not that long ago.

Love em, too.
posted by slipthought at 11:20 AM on February 12, 2015

A man dies in his own home.

The man is a snail, who resents being called a man, because snails are hermaphrodites, but the snail is dead nevertheless.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:21 AM on February 12, 2015 [19 favorites]

Man, albatross sandwich. We would kill weeks with that before the internets came along. Every new person was a delight to slowly dole out answers about it.
posted by jeribus at 11:25 AM on February 12, 2015 [4 favorites]

These remind me of a sort of word game that we played at summer camp. People in the know would answer questions about what was allowed in Bobby's world. For instance, pools, bubbles, and sheets were allowed, but dogs, beds, and colors weren't. The people who didn't know the rule that governed Bobby's world would ask questions about which items were allowed until they figured it out.
posted by A Bad Catholic at 11:27 AM on February 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

MindTrap
posted by cashman at 11:29 AM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

A Bad Catholic, I've played that game under the title "Deep, but not Profound." "Bobby's World" made me think of, well, Bobby's World.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:30 AM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

A man goes into a restaurant, orders abalone, eats one bite, and kills himself.

Goddamn seafood allergies.
posted by GuyZero at 11:32 AM on February 12, 2015 [13 favorites]

Man, albatross sandwich. We would kill weeks with that before the internets came along. Every new person was a delight to slowly dole out answers about it.

Because there always comes a point when someone finally asks, "Did the man ever eat albatross before?" and you answer "No," and watch the confusion on everyone's face as they try to process this piece of information.
posted by ogooglebar at 11:33 AM on February 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

My mom (who used to teach the gifted/talented classes at my elementary school) asked us the sawdust question once. It took us a while to get the answer, but I never forgot it. Glad to see it on the list (although she had used the variant question "If he had only seen the sawdust, he would be alive today")
posted by caution live frogs at 11:36 AM on February 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

These remind me of a sort of word game that we played at summer camp. People in the know would answer questions about what was allowed in Bobby's world. For instance, pools, bubbles, and sheets were allowed, but dogs, beds, and colors weren't. The people who didn't know the rule that governed Bobby's world would ask questions about which items were allowed until they figured it out.

I've never heard of that one before, but it seems a lot easier to figure out if you're reading it instead of hearing it.
posted by ogooglebar at 11:36 AM on February 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

Bobby's World is a pretty standard camp/drama class game. AKA I'm Going On A Picnic.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:41 AM on February 12, 2015

We called it Aunt Tilly Williams ("who likes books but not reading, and sheep but not goats, and bulls but not cows").
posted by wenestvedt at 11:45 AM on February 12, 2015

I bet she loves Qualuudes and hates Valium, too.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:47 AM on February 12, 2015 [14 favorites]

Most of the characters in these puzzles are prone to committing suicide at the drop of a hat for really weird reasons.
posted by painquale at 11:47 AM on February 12, 2015 [24 favorites]

I have known these as lateral thinking puzzles. There are print collections and games and they come up often on AskMe as here, here, here, and here (and many more, for those interested in searching). I used to use them quite a bit when teaching and camp counseling.
posted by Miko at 11:48 AM on February 12, 2015 [9 favorites]

MindTrap

Ehh. I bought that a few years ago, but was very unimpressed with the quality of the stories and "answers". Anyone who wants mine can have it.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:48 AM on February 12, 2015

1.1a answer: [{DESPOILERED, MAYBE}] When he actually eats albatross, he discovers that he had actually eaten his wife.

This sounds -- most sound -- perfect for those arty video games: IT WAS YOUR WIFE ALL ALONG. .

(last updated: 18 July 1999.)

Needs moar DHTML plz, kthx.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 11:51 AM on February 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

Some of these show their age; German spies, passenger trains, and the assumption that marital infidelity is an excuse for murder rather than divorce.
posted by acb at 11:56 AM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

What flavor is it? It's a bird, innit? It's a bloody sea bird . .. it's not any bloody flavor. Albatross!
posted by Naberius at 11:58 AM on February 12, 2015 [5 favorites]

The right but not correct answers:

1.11. Two brothers are involved in a murder. Though it's clear that one of them actually committed the crime, neither can be punished.

The brothers are twins. One of them shot the other dead, but no one could establish which was which.

1.17. A man is found shot to death in the front seat of his car; a gun lies out of his reach in the back seat. All the windows are closed and the doors are locked; there are no bullet holes anywhere in the car.

Really, now. The murderer shot the victim from inside the car, tossed the gun in the back, got out of the car, and locked the door before closing it. Or shot through an open window, tossed in the gun, rolled up the window, and locked the door before closing it.

1.22. A man tries the new cologne his wife gave him for his birthday. He goes out to get some food, and is killed.

He went to pick up the pizza his wife had ordered at the local pizzarhoea, where his wife's accomplice released the dog trained to attack anyone wearing a specific scent.

1.29. Every day a man drinks his breakfast and drinks his lunch. When his boss finds out, he is immediately fired. The man moves to another job and begins doing the same thing; this time, when his boss finds out, the boss jokingly tells him that he'll be fired if he stops.

He was fired from his first job because of his heavy drinking. He's a success at his second because the new job is QA Analyst for Jack Daniels.
 
posted by Herodios at 12:01 PM on February 12, 2015 [6 favorites]

Ooh, I invented 1.9 years ago (the only such puzzle I ever invented) and today Greg Nog used it to start a joke. I've made it!
posted by moonmilk at 12:03 PM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Hmmm. It occurs to me, if the situation occurred before 2003, the dead man on the train could have been trying to write "Elf Aquitaine," the French petroleum company. They have been involved in several costly hoaxes and scandals over the years, any of which could have gotten a man on a train killed....

Too many choices!
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:05 PM on February 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

Uh, 1.7 is...quite a thing. I mean, there are a TON of other reasons that could happen, right? Realizing that you have the same STD because you're sleeping with the same guy? Having your period and realizing you had a miscarriage because the other woman poisoned you? Seriously, that one is kind of bonkers I think. I mean, who keeps bloodstained KKK robes in their laundry hamper?
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 12:05 PM on February 12, 2015 [4 favorites]

1.51. If he'd turned on the light, he'd have lived.

He's playing Zork and was eaten by a grue.
posted by frogstar42 at 12:06 PM on February 12, 2015 [16 favorites]

Oh, yeah, here's my one-question solution to the old identical Lyarrs Tribe / Troothtellurs Tribe puzzle:

Don't ask "which road do I take to get the village?", or "if you were a member of the other tribe, which road . . . ?" or any of that complicated logic puzzle stuff. The simple way is to ask this one question:

"Say, did you know they were giving away free beer in the village?"

Regardless of what he answers, you just follow him.
 
posted by Herodios at 12:08 PM on February 12, 2015 [8 favorites]

At the risk of sounding grouchy or negative, these seem stupid to me. There are infinite answers to any of them. Like this one:

Two dead people sit in their cars on a street.

Answer: Because there was a heavy fog, two people driving in opposite directions on the same road both stuck their heads out of their windows to better see the road's center line. Their heads hit each other at high speed, killing them both.

Why is that the answer, and not that they were murdered? Or assassinated, or put there as decoys in part of a larger scheme, or a million other things? There's no deduction involved, it's just a guessing game, because the answers are arbitrary. Why would it be fun to try to guess an answer when there's no meaningful reason why it's the right answer?

Here's MY "situation puzzle"

A man is standing on the sidewalk. Suddenly, 5000 miles away, a shoe is manufactured.

ANSWER: Thousands of years before, agriculture was developed.
posted by clockzero at 12:11 PM on February 12, 2015 [23 favorites]

Now this is just ridiculous: A man urinates and dies.

I will propose that pretty much every person who has lived long enough to be "a man" urinated (usually many, many times) before they died
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:12 PM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

A man goes into a restaurant, orders abalone, eats one bite, and kills himself.

The man was at Red Lobster?
posted by dr_dank at 12:12 PM on February 12, 2015 [5 favorites]

A man snarks on Metafilter. The world erupts in flames.
posted by blue_beetle at 12:20 PM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Doesn't have my favorite:

"A chain breaks, a bell tolls, and a man dies."
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:21 PM on February 12, 2015

My favorite: "lightning crashes, an old mother dies"
posted by josher71 at 12:23 PM on February 12, 2015 [15 favorites]

"A chain breaks, a bell tolls, and a man dies."

He's a dead ringer for his brother?
posted by moonmilk at 12:24 PM on February 12, 2015 [9 favorites]

Here's one that came to me in a dream. I had to come up with the answer when I woke up.

The king loved pies. He found the best pie baker in the kingdom, who made the best pie. The baker presented the pie to the king, saying "this pie is poison". He said two more words, and the king ate the whole pie, which he doesn't normally do. What were the two words, and what kind of pie was it?

Put your Y/N questions on this thread! I'll answer them til I've gotta leave.
posted by Galaxor Nebulon at 12:32 PM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

His last two words were "for ringworms" because the king had this terrible case of ringworm and it was really embarrassing him and he couldn't ask out this cute prince from a neighboring realm on whom he had a crush so he ate the whole pie because he really wanted to get rid of that ringworm and it worked and he and prince dated for a while and then split up amicably and still send each other cards over the holidays. It was a ringworm poison pie.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 12:36 PM on February 12, 2015 [25 favorites]

>> People in the know would answer questions about what was allowed in Bobby's world. For instance, pools, bubbles, and sheets were allowed, but dogs, beds, and colors weren't.

> Aunt Tilly Williams ("who likes books but not reading, and sheep but not goats, and bulls but not cows").

"I like coffee, but I don't like tea." (I like sheep and dogs, but not goats or cats; I like apples and oranges but not fruit; I like cars and buses but not trains ...)

Bonus: once you figured it out, the answer was right there in the initial statement of the puzzle all along.
posted by RedOrGreen at 12:50 PM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

"I like coffee, but I don't like tea."

Yeah, I first heard this puzzle as "Queen Anne", sometime around 1970.

It was posed to me, of course, by a bookkeeper.
 
posted by Herodios at 1:02 PM on February 12, 2015 [6 favorites]

When he actually eats albatross, he discovers that he had actually eaten his wife.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For An Albatross
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:03 PM on February 12, 2015 [10 favorites]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I was thinking, Mrs. Pterodactyl.

The two words were "for dogs", and it was a chocolate pie. The king normally shared his food with his dog, so the baker warned him not to. Therefore, the king ate the whole thing himself, which he doesn't normally do.
posted by Galaxor Nebulon at 1:05 PM on February 12, 2015 [11 favorites]

Aw, that's lovely! I'm really glad that even though he loved pies he shared them with his dog. What a nice story.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 1:21 PM on February 12, 2015 [13 favorites]

The hiccups thing actually happened to me. It was a weird side-effect of out-patient surgery, I couldn't hold anything down, and putting me on an IV seemed like a better option for than shooting it up my bum.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 1:24 PM on February 12, 2015

MindTrap

I bought this years ago thinking it would be a fun party game for my puzzle-loving friends. Then I realized that most of my friends don't live within party distance, and anyway I've never given a party, so MindTrap sort of just sat on my shelf for a long time. My husband and I have recently discovered the optimal use for the game, however: get tipsy and take turns reading cards to each other, solving what you can and jeering at the poor design of the rest. "Assumes facts not in evidence!" "Clearly this writer didn't understand vexillology!" "That would in no way lead the the death they say it caused; have these people never met science?"

We end up giggling and convinced we're smarter than puzzle designers, which is a pretty ok way to spend an otherwise boring evening.
posted by Hold your seahorses at 1:24 PM on February 12, 2015 [7 favorites]

There are a couple of editions of Black Stories available.
posted by MsVader at 1:39 PM on February 12, 2015

1.70 is a long time favorite of mine. It took me close to a week with a friend to get it and I then delighted in telling it to others.
posted by Hactar at 2:03 PM on February 12, 2015

Say what you will about the absurdity of these puzzles; most TV murder mysteries are more complicated and less likely.

Fucking puppy shot the man, then evolved into two goldfish just after disgorging a fish bowl he'd earlier gobbled without chewing.

Obviously.
posted by IAmBroom at 2:06 PM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

The abalone/albatross one - a classic of the genre - always struck me as self-parody, even as a kid before I knew what self-parody was. I remember trying to solve this one for days and days at a summer camp when I was probably too young to flesh out all those details, and finally the counselor revealed the answer when I gave up, and it was like the worst shaggy dog story I could imagine. I was like, wait. Fuck this. I have to recreate an entire backstory based on a couple stray details? What about all my alternate stories that made sense?*

I see the fun in this type of puzzle now, I do, but I still prefer the ones where the guesser isn't responsible for 99% of the pertinent information.

*The best one I came up with, the only one I still remember, was that the man was on death row and was allowed to actually go to a restaurant for his last meal. He chose the albatross, took a bite, was content and at peace, and then killed himself to deprive the state and the grieving family whose cat he killed the pleasure of watching him die. Back then I didn't know that (a) albatross is gross (at least that's how I understand it) and (b) you don't get the death penalty for killing a cat although YOU SHOULD
posted by ORthey at 2:09 PM on February 12, 2015 [10 favorites]

1.10. He was killed by breakfast.

So what? MeFi kills more guys by breakfast than most sites do all day.
posted by The Bellman at 2:10 PM on February 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

The people who didn't know the rule that governed Bobby's world would ask questions about which items were allowed until they figured it out.

Golly Gee, Fannee Doolee!
posted by The Bellman at 2:16 PM on February 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

1.5 Two men enter a bar. They both order identical drinks. One lives; the other dies.

The one who lived was a pretentious chemist; the one who died was just as pretentious, but not a chemist:
"I'll have H2O."
"I'll have H2O too."
posted by Etrigan at 2:19 PM on February 12, 2015 [27 favorites]

Now this is just ridiculous: A man urinates and dies.

Because he was standing on an electrified railway and pissed onto the third rail. (Those high voltage signs are there for a reason!) Obvious answer is obvious.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 2:32 PM on February 12, 2015

A man is hit by a car every five minutes in New York City.







Poor fella. . . .
 
posted by Herodios at 2:36 PM on February 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

Two brothers are involved in a murder. Though it's clear that one of them actually committed the crime, neither can be punished.

Easy. They're Siamese twins.
posted by acb at 2:40 PM on February 12, 2015

The abalone/albatross one - a classic of the genre - always struck me as self-parody, even as a kid before I knew what self-parody was.

Agreed. Perhaps he's got incurable cancer, and eating one bite of abalone was the last item on his bucket list[ugh]. Maybe he has a horrible allergic reaction to abalone, ate it by mistake, and can't face the untreatable suffering it will cause him. And so on. These are contrived, but no more so than the given "solution" (although it's more interesting).
posted by thelonius at 2:50 PM on February 12, 2015

Ooh, I invented 1.9 years ago (the only such puzzle I ever invented) and today Greg Nog used it to start a joke. I've made it!

(This has nothing to do with lateral thinking puzzles, but) I invented a tongue-twister (actually, several of them) about 16 years ago and submitted it to a website that collected tongue twisters in many languages; this past Christmas, Stephen Fry read it on an episode of QI with Carrie Fisher. In my adult life I have never come so close to wetting myself.
posted by Wolfdog at 2:51 PM on February 12, 2015 [9 favorites]

"He's a dead ringer for his brother?"

No, but his face rings a bell.
posted by klangklangston at 3:08 PM on February 12, 2015 [4 favorites]

Herodios: "pizzarhoea"

I am both hungry and grossed out.
posted by Splunge at 3:56 PM on February 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

I saw the domain name and thought this was going to be about Kids in the Hall sketches.
posted by desjardins at 4:00 PM on February 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

Two men enter a bar. They both order identical drinks. One lives; the other dies. (CR; partial JM wording)

They both ordered peanut butter shakes and one of them is allergic to peanuts?
posted by ymgve at 4:01 PM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

The albatross is calling from inside the house!
posted by chavenet at 4:07 PM on February 12, 2015

"Look out! He's got an albatross!"
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:11 PM on February 12, 2015

"Hahaha! You think this is the real bird?"


Squawk!
It is.
posted by cashman at 4:39 PM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

that lady in 1.21 is pretty smart. I never woulda thought of that.
posted by janey47 at 4:48 PM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Could you actually push a mine out of the path of a cruiser using nothing but the pressure from a deckside fire hose (1.54)? I might have to burn an AskMe on that one.
posted by Iridic at 4:57 PM on February 12, 2015

This post, and this whole thread, that's why I keep coming back here.
posted by JHarris at 6:39 PM on February 12, 2015

They must use there to train doctors because its exactly like taking a patient history: Two unrelated and meaningless details volunteered by the patient as all that necessary for diagnosis, a life threatening illness, and hours of discursive questioning to get the patient to tell the IMPORTANT BITS that make the story make sense. "Yes. If you'd mentioned six hours ago that you were in a car accident caused when you both had your heads out the window and smashed faces, we might be further along here than when you led with " two men in stopped cars, bleeding ."
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:23 PM on February 12, 2015 [12 favorites]

These used to make me SO MAD.
posted by gottabefunky at 8:58 PM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Which one was it, Wolfdog?
posted by Dreadnought at 9:09 PM on February 12, 2015

It was the "lazy laser raiser" one. Amazingly, the site where I submitted it is still there after all these years. Numbers 95 and 97 are also mine, as well as a couple of Hungarian ones.
posted by Wolfdog at 1:48 AM on February 13, 2015 [4 favorites]

Actually I am almost equally stoked to discover that someone selected my tongue twister about a snake to include on this page for school children (it's the one with clip art of a snake).
posted by Wolfdog at 3:41 AM on February 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

A man standing on an albatross eating an abalone is knifed by a bird and thirty years later his brother is found dead in a car with a cactus out of his reach on the back seat. The cactus immediately commits suicide. What happened?
posted by kyrademon at 6:37 AM on February 13, 2015 [2 favorites]

A man standing on an albatross eating an abalone is knifed by a bird and thirty years later his brother is found dead in a car with a cactus out of his reach on the back seat. The cactus immediately commits suicide. What happened?

WHO CARES, GET THERAPY IMMEDIATELY.

oh sorry thought it was green in here
posted by Wolfdog at 7:19 AM on February 13, 2015 [4 favorites]

These puzzles make much more sense now that I see you are supposed to invent them and play a variant of "20 questions." There is a subtle difference between that and a brain teaser which has only one logical solution.

Most of the characters in these puzzles are prone to committing suicide at the drop of a hat for really weird reasons.

Q. A hat drops to the ground, and a man dies soon after.

A. The man is a character in a game of Situations.
posted by TreeRooster at 7:56 AM on February 13, 2015 [4 favorites]

I was infuriated by this until I realized I had completely skipped over the part about the "yes" or "no" questions.
posted by DrAstroZoom at 2:23 PM on February 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

ORthey: "I see the fun in this type of puzzle now, I do, but I still prefer the ones where the guesser isn't responsible for 99% of the pertinent information."

It's a fundamentally different game, though. One is a riddle, and the other is 20 Questions (except without a limit on the number of questions). I think a whole lot of people are under the impression that these are riddles.
posted by Bugbread at 10:08 PM on February 15, 2015 [3 favorites]

The abalone comes with a side dish of beans and he can't cope with the cognitive overload.
posted by Segundus at 2:03 AM on February 17, 2015

My boss thinks I can't either, because I'm sitting here in the office with tears of laughter streaming down my face for no apparent reason...
posted by Segundus at 2:05 AM on February 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

Oh, I loved these as a kid! There was one that had a goldfish with a knife or something, or I think the goldfish was used as a knife? Or...and there was some ice? And of course a dead guy. Some glass was broken or something. I'll never forget it, as long as I live.
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:10 PM on February 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

I think a whole lot of people are under the impression that these are riddles.

Well, I think they are often presented as such. Some of these ARE riddles, some are more of the unlimited-20-question variety you speak of.
posted by ORthey at 3:33 PM on February 17, 2015