for instance, the above riddle has an internal inconsistency which shouldn't affect the outcome, but can be improved.

"What gem can be set in no ring on the hand"

might be better, though a little wordy, perhaps.

It's probably best to ASSUME that a created riddle is garbage, and go from there when writing one. Try to make it as iron-clad as possible.

Also---another rule. There is to be NO posting of answers by the poster, unless it's REALLY necessary, ie, on a ridiculously hard riddle that no one can get, or for a crappy riddle that has more than one riddle or wasn't well thought out to begin with.

Posting the answers ruins the tradition.

Yet another disclaimer--don't be a git about this, either, and post a wonderful riddle that rhymes, follows metre, has only one answer, which is of course, something like "The priniciple of anti-matter inflection rates as applied by popular biomathematics! DUMBASS!!!!"

Raven

That was my guess too. I assume that even though you (Raven) said that the author of the riddle can't post answers, can they confirm/deny answers?

I was thinking "star" until I got to the bit about betraying the master, which I couldn't make fit.

The poster is allowed to confirm or deny answers, due to the fact that people could move onto the next one with the wrong answer by accident.

Mine is not a star.

Assuming the gem isn't literal, is the answer the twinkle in your eye?

twinkle in the eye is correct.

And the above riddle about something and nothing is, I believe, "nothing".

Nothing kinda correlates to "what you've forgotten" but it can also mean "what you're imagining" or "what you fear" so it's not precisely the same.

I do believe ambrosia's closer than my guess, though.

well, okay, since I now know that ambrosia's guess is wrong, I'll actually spend some time looking at the question :)

I'm also assuming that my other variants are wrong too, like "What you fear".

Also, that is what I love about riddles. Of course the sender thinks they're softballs. And even to someone who's seen the riddle before but forgotten it can get stumped, as it may soon be in my case.

This thread is totally your excuse to have other people solve the Lenny Connundrum for you.

You're wrong. This thread is here because I love riddles.

The Lenny Conundrum is *very* rarely an actual riddle, it's more like, well, what we've got right now is a word maze that requires us to find a path through various letters that form a phrase from the site.

Not a riddle.

And a while ago there was that engineering question. Not a riddle. In fact, I've yet to see an actual riddle on the conundrum, even through all the looking at old ones that I've done.

So yeah, moving on.

I think I'm stumped for now regarding this something/nothing question. It could be nothing, or gossip, or fear, or imaginings, or what has been forgotten--the phrases allow for all of these, and more, probably, but I've assumed that it's not any of these, and scoops has not corrected that assumption, so...

Anyone else got a clue yet? :P

Raven

I'm going to say death, it is something to you when you've not known it, but if you are already dead, it is incapable of being anything to you, as you technicslly can't possibly know you have died.

stumped? really?

not death, not ignorance, not gossip, fear, imaginings....

although fear might be good... it's not that airtight of a riddle i guess..

the answer to the riddle is a riddle.

when one does not know what it is, then it is something (a riddle)
but as you pointed out yourself raven, when you know what it is, it is nothing.

ehhh that's not the greatest answer....

A riddle solved is still something to me, and to many riddle solvers.

Sure, it seems OBVIOUS afterwards, but it's not nothing.

Raven

I'll let someone else answer the classic but I'll post a riddle.

Man has tamed us but some of us still run wild.
We are constantly hungry and need to be fed often.
If i were to lick your finger, it would turn red.

Fire.

Dreams, or time.

btw is no one going to attempt the one I posted?