Twenty Questions: Is this cheating?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So on the lovely drive from Virginia Beach to DC yesterday, my darling bride and I decide to play Twenty Questions, since the scenery along 95 leaves something to be desired.
I went first, and picked a person who she claimed was unfair, largely, I think, die to the fact that she lost.

Among the “yes” questions:

Is this person alive?
Is he a scientist?
Have I seen his work?
And eventually she runs out of questions and I have to tell her that…

it’s Batman.

Well, she got all offended and said that I had misled her, but I don’t see a problem here. I’m going to turn it over to you good folks and see what y’all think.

2

I don’t think you can technically call a fictional character “alive”.

However it’s not clear you can call a fictional character dead either. So if your house rules allow fictional characters, then your DB should have asked “is this person fictional”?

So I’d have to say that you can’t call it cheating unless you’ve defined the rules that have been broken in advance.

3

I’d also argue that she hasn’t seen his work. Fictional characters have a difficult time creating things in the real world.

4

I’m leaning towards her side.

A “person” does not imply fictional characters. Person implies “real”…

Just as you wouldn’t want her come up with some “thing” and then have her select some fictional material from some comic book.

5

In our 20 questions games, fictional characters are treated as regular people, with the exception that “Is he/she fictional?” would be answered “Yes.”

I don’t think “Is he a scientist?” should have been “Yes” but that’s a judgement call, I guess.

6

Have fun brushing up on your “Days of our lives”.

7

I am of the position that a fictional character is not alive. More precisely, the question “Is this person alive?” is meaningless when applied to fictional characters.

8

[slight hijack]

While on a road trip I was involved in a new game, to me at least. The point of the game is that the person who starts the game is Noah. He-She says something that you can bring onto the boat. You state an object or person and Noah either answers yes or no, which tells you whether you can bring the object on the boat. For example, the person who started the game said ‘Hammer’. After a couple of rounds I said ‘butter’ and was right. The idea is that the two words both had double letters next to each other, and, therefore could go on the boat. I hope that makes sense.

Anyway, on the trip I came up with my own idea. My idea was that anytime another person figured out my scheme I would change my scheme. I kept it pretty simple but once they thought they knew what I was doing I changed it. When they finally gave up they were pissed.

[/Slight hijack]

Slee

9

Batman is not a scientist.

Industrialist? Yes. Philanthropist? Yes.
Not a scientist.