A Game of Three Truths

A suggestion of a game mechanism.

In Horst's game his Company encountered a Bridge Knight, someone of Fey origin. He would not let the Company cross the bridge unless they won in a duel. One of the Knights suggested the Game of Three Truths.

You can listen to the episode here where Horst gives a full explanation and some clarifying details. It starts around 1h22.

My explanation needed some further clarification, so I made the following handy step-by-step guide:

Further explanation:

Example 1

Here is a further example with more thoughts.

Let's say the first player says "I will make a statement about whether you prefer lime or melon ice-cream".

The second player probably doesn't care about his knight preferring one flavour over the other and says "it doesn't really matter, so let's make the odds 50-50".

The first player now chooses lime flavour. It's a 3-in-6 roll, so the die will determine lime on a 1,2 or 3 and melon on a 4,5 or 6.

Finally the second player rolls,... it's a 4. "Alas, I prefer melon, I guess, funny way to find that out".

Example 2

Here is another example with more meaningful repercussions.

Now the first player says "I shall make a statement whether you betrayed your mentor".

The second player doesn't want his knight to have betrayed his mentor and contemplates a 0-100 split, but that would be an easy way for his opponent to gain a point. He has played his knight as valiant so far, so decides that a mere 1-in-6 chance is fitting. "I really don't think that suits the character of the knight, so let's keep the chance low and I will set it at 1-in-6 chance that he did betray his mentor".

The first player really wants a point so opts for the 5-in-6 chance, hoping for anything but a 1. This might cost more work to make a dramatic declaration, so this player says "you were teetering on the edge of betrayal, and the thought kept you up many a night, but you remained true."

Finally the second player rolls,... it's a 3. The first player chose correctly and gains a point.

Final thoughts

The core idea is that the odds work best for the first player with an unbalanced split. If you can manage to threaten a truth that the second player just absolutely does not want to be true and thus picks 0-in-6 odds, then you are guaranteed a point. In the first example the split was 3-in-6 (50-50), but in the second example the first player "forced" the second player to up the odds from 50% to 83,33%.

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Hope that clears things up.