This mechanism is fairly convoluted. But I hope it's weirdness will lead to a very solid AHA moment.
EDIT: Convoluted? How naive was I to think this would be convoluted? This was my second serious attempt at a meta and I was trying (and I think I succeeded for the most part) to keep it simple. The only convolution is I hadn't quite (and still haven't) figured out how to hide answers in plain sight. Still compared to every other meta I've attempted to construct this is a simple and straightforward as I seem capable of doing.