A: Quite a few! For those who don’t know what Board Game Arena is, it’s an online platform where one can play our games remotely against other people, either friends or strangers.

All our games are available without the Premium paid membership. Games have to be specially coded and go through an alpha and beta testing phase to get up on BGA, so our whole line isn’t there, but we currently have the following:

Just Desserts
Fluxx 5.0
Star Fluxx
Homeworlds
Get the MacGuffin

(Also, here is someone’s fun list of all of the free games available on BGA, ranked by number of plays.)

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A: To recap, the Action Rotate Hands says: All players pass their hands to the player next to them. You decide which direction.

We would say that to ROTATE hands, the movement should be in a circle around the table. We understand that there are some games where “across the table” is one of the directions one can pass cards, but, because it would only work with an even number of players, that makes the instructions more complicated for us to describe on the rule sheet.

It’s a fine house rule, however! Of course the thing about house rules is that you have to make them clear BEFORE the game starts. In other words if everyone agrees beforehand that “across” is a valid direction, go for it! It’s totally fine with us if it’s fine with all the players. It sounds like a fun option to add!

But, in the middle of the game, you can’t suddenly claim that you want everyone to pass “across” for Rotate Hands. You have to have previously agreed that that’s a valid option, since it’s not the default intention of the card. It’s not a problem to pass across, but you have to make sure everyone knows and agrees to that option before the game, and not in the middle of it.

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A: Consider the Rich Bonus to have increased your official Play allowance by 1, so if you are sacrificing that play, yes, you would get that extra Play as a Draw if you’ve Swapped Plays for Draws. We wouldn’t think of it as swapping the Rich Bonus, but think of the Rich Bonus as increasing the number on the Play rule just for you. It does come to the same thing, of course.

So if the current rules are Play 1, Rich Bonus, Swap Plays for Draws, and you are the Rich player, you could decide to play none and Swap Plays for Draws immediately. Because you are the Rich player, you have a total of 2 Plays which you are sacrificing (swapping), so you’d Draw 2.

(Or, of course, you could Play 1, Swap Plays for Draws, and draw 1 for your remaining Play.)

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A: No, the Surprise you draw via Mystery Play* cannot be used to stop the previous Canceling of your play. It’s far too late. Whatever card you played has been Canceled, and that’s that. With no Surprise available, you could not stop the Surprise, so you have moved on and taken your next game action: choosing to use Mystery Play.

Since choosing to use Mystery Play will always disrupt the immediacy required for a reactive Surprise play, any Surprise drawn via Mystery Play would have to be used for it’s in-turn function.

* Or any of its analogues below:
Mystery Play in Fluxx 5.0, SE, Remixx, Astronomy, SpongeBob, and Wonderland
Mythtery Play in Fantasy
Wormhole in Star, Star Trek TOS, TNG, and Voyager
Shiny! in Firefly
Allons-y/Geronimo! in Doctor Who
Spontaneous Reaction in Chemistry
Egads! in Batman
Unknown Variable in Math
THWIP! in Marvel
(the Infinity Gauntlet Keeper in Marvel has this as its special power as well)
Great Idea! in Stoner
Magic Spell in Fairy Tale
Magic Portal in Adventure Time
Magic Shoes in Oz (if you click your heels together three times)
Open The Door in Monster (if the Spooky Door is in play)
Open A Gift! in Holiday (if The Gift is in play)
Chemical X in Cartoon Network (if at least one Powerpuff Girl is in play)
Time Doorway in Regular Show (if the Time Machine is in play)

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… The wording “final play” makes it seem as if there’s more than one play needed….

A: If you have only one Play (or only one card to play, even if the rules allow more) then that one card would be both your first and your final play. So yes, there IS a final play, even if you’d only be playing one card.

So, in order to use Get On With It, you’d have to do it before your final play, i.e. before your ONLY play. You’d just not take your Play for that turn, and do Get On With It instead.

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A: This is VERY good question, which we are surprised hasn’t come up before! We had to sit down and really contemplate the situation to make a ruling on this.

To recap, the Play All But 1 (New Rule) says “If you started with no cards in your hand and only drew 1, draw an extra card.” And, as we all know, when you play a card that increases the Draw amount, you get to draw the difference to increase your total cards drawn to the current New Rule in play.

The way Andy framed the question is “Is the extra card one draws like a ‘salary advance’ on your regular draw allotment , or is it more like a ‘bonus’ on top of your regular draw?” After some thought we felt that what the Play All But 1 card is doing is more like a temporary modification of the Basic Draw rule, and, as such, would make the extra card part of your total Draw allowance for your turn.

So, in the example presented in the question above, where (after having started with no cards, and Drawing 2) you have played Draw 4, you would draw only 2 additional cards (and continue to Play until you have only 1 card left in your hand).

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To refresh: the Rich Bonus lets you play 1 extra card on your turn if you have the most Keepers in play (no ties). This means, as the questioner has noted, that the person who is the “Rich” player, during Play All But 1 has the option to Play All, since Play All But 1 +1 = Play All.

In this case, the questioner’s opponent had 3 cards in hand, played 2, and then, for their third play (one extra because of the Rich Bonus) they increased the Draw, which then put cards back into their hand. The question here is… do they play until they have just one card left, because they “already used up the Rich Bonus” or do they Play All because the rules for them are still effectively Play All But 1 +1 = Play All.

A: As with other Bonuses which apply a formulaic increase to the Draw or Play rule, this is not something that can be “used up.” After much discussion between Andy and myself (Alison) The Rich Bonus should be rewritten as below. This will make it more clear that it’s a formulaic modifier to the Play rule AND is no longer optional, bringing it more in-line with other Bonus cards.

“If one player has more Keepers in play than any other player, the number of cards played by this player is increased by 1.”

So, for the purposes of this question, specifically, the Rich player would need to keep playing until they had Played All

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A: Short answer: No.

Since Mystery Play requires you to play the exact card you draw from the top of the deck, there’s really no reason it should actually enter your hand at all. Having it go in your hand, even momentarily, opens up the possibility of it getting mixed with other cards you might prefer to play. Therefore, it should not be considered to increase your hand temporarily mid-resolution like this.

It’s draw and play the card you drew. Execute that in full, and then check your hand-size. It is most likely to still be the same size, unless the Mystery Play card you got increases your hand size for some reason (Draw Rule increase, Jackpot Action, etc.)

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…Double Agenda says “A second Goal can now be played…” The person I was playing with thought this meant they automatically got to put a second Goal down as part of the Double Agenda play.

A: Double Agenda allows there to be two Goals at the same time, but playing a second Goal (or even first if you’re really early in the game!) still uses up one of your plays for your turn.

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…I have friends say you ignore the random last card since you don’t have anything left to pick from. Or do you pick the last card to be played first and set it aside and then continue your turn ending with that last card that was picked?

A: First of all, this card is only found in unthemed Fluxx decks 1.0,2.0, or 2.1. It’s very old. So if this card’s existence is a mystery to you, that’s pretty much as it should be.

In fact, this exact problem is the reason we switched Last Card Random to First Play Random: under any rule set which would have you playing all your cards (Play All, or an extended Play more than you’re Drawing per turn) it would seem that your last play could not be truly random, since you only have one card left as your last play, and that’s confusing and anticlimactic.

While we’ve heard of some people playing that second way, where you pick the last card randomly at the beginning, and it’s fine to have a house rule like that if everyone agrees, there are various reasons why we do not endorse that way:

The rules could change significantly from the beginning of your turn to the end. What if you choose your “final card” at the beginning, and then, mid-turn you change the Play All to Play 2, and your turn is suddenly over with that last card card played. Oops! You didn’t play that card you picked. This situation would render your last play not-random no matter which way you were choosing to interpret that card.

If you’re Playing more than you’re Drawing, and you choose your “final card” but then end up getting way more cards in your hand, either by increasing the Draw rule, or playing some Action which adds cards to your hand, then those additional cards were not in the running for your original “random last play pick.” So you might end up having cards to choose from in the standard way for Final Card Random (randomly from more than one card at the end) and yet you already picked something a different way, from a pool which didn’t even include those extra cards.

Or what if you pick that “final card” in advance and then… Trade Hands? There are so many ways which foil the “pick your last card to play at the beginning of your turn” solution.

Our best answer for you, if you’re going to have some house rule to solve this dilemma, is to treat the card as if it were what we ended up changing it to, which is First Play Random. That’s very easy to implement. You still ignore it if you’re only playing one card, but you simply pick a random card from your hand to be your FIRST play, instead of your last. Then that’s done – you played a random first card – and you can proceed with the rest of your turn, without worrying about all the wacky stuff that could happen by the time it’s over.

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A: No. The card says you can take any card “in play” on the table. That includes: the current Goal, any current Rule (not the Basic Rules, of course), or any Keeper or Creeper in front of any player. Note, of course, that Creepers cannot be held in your hand, so they go back into play in front of you if you steal them from someone else, instead of going into your hand.

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…Do I get to play those cards because of Play All, or do I have to discard them because of the Hand Limit 0?

A: You must play those extra cards because of Play All. Hand Limits only apply to you when it’s not your turn, and when you played the Draw increase, you extended your turn. You need to keep playing, and would only need to comply with the Hand Limit if one of the subsequent cards you played changed or removed the Play All rule.

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A: Not quite. If you Zap a Creeper, you would simply then place it in front of you. You don’t get to draw anything.

The reason the Creeper card includes the words “then draw to replace” is that if you draw a Creeper, it goes down in front of you, and that doesn’t count as one of your draws (or one of your plays) so you still have a draw left, which you get to execute. Or if you were dealt a Creeper at the beginning of the game, it needs to go down in front of you, and you need to replace the card missing from your initial hand, since you should not start the game with a smaller hand than everyone else.

If you gain a Creeper any other way, you just gain it. It cannot ever really go into your hand, so it goes directly into play. If you choose to Zap a Creeper, you just get that Creeper. The reason is that Zap isn’t meant to give you an extra card in your hand so much as it is meant to give you whatever card you Zapped. So it’s not like you somehow missed out on the card Zap was intended to give you, such that you need to draw to “replace” anything.

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A: The card Play All But 1 says: Play all but 1 of your cards. If you started with no cards in your hand and only drew 1, draw an extra card.

So, the player in question, starting with zero cards, must play the card they draw. If that card turns out to be Play All But 1, then, as per the directions on that card, since they “started with no cards in [their] hand and only drew 1,” then they need to draw an extra card. Since the current Rule is Play All But 1, they are left with 1 card in their hand, and their turn is over.

*Note that in some earlier printings, the last instance of the number 1 is written out as “one,” but, to avoid conflicts with Inflation, it should actually be a numeral as written here.

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…Since these cards are all played as part of a single play, would the player get to finish playing them out, or would their turn just stop? And if it just stopped, what would happen to any unplayed cards? We’ve been letting the player keep them.

A: The clear answer is that if you decide to play one of these turn-ending Actions, your turn would end immediately, and you would not get to continue playing cards from your temporary mini-hand (in other words, no, you would not get to finish playing D3P2/D2UE.

Of course, in the case of Fizzbin, you don’t get a choice as to the order of cards played, but that card most closely resembles D3P2/D2UE, since you set your main hand aside, and are working from a temporary hand of extra cards to execute the Fizzbin.

Using the optional Free Action Rule Goal Bonanza also creates a sub-hand with your main hand set aside. While it’s not in any decks with turn-ending Actions, it’s in the More Packs, which could be added to any deck, including those with turn-ending Actions.

However, there is NO way that any remaining cards would go back into your set-aside hand. They are never intended to go into your actual hand at all, as indicated by the requirement to set your hand aside. Any cards left unplayed when you played the turn-ending card are discarded. If you wanted to play them, you should have done it before the turn-ending card.

Brain Transference: Discard remaining cards in your temporary hand and trade places with the player of your choice. Turn ends.
Time Portal: Choose a card as described and add to your set-aside hand. Discard remaining cards in your temporary hand. Turn ends.
What Do You Want: If you choose to take a Keeper or Goal out of the discard, it goes into your set aside hand. Discard remaining cards in your temporary hand. Turn ends.
I’ll Be In My Bunk or I’ll Be Right Back: This card does not specifically say that your turn ends immediately, but you certainly can’t continue your turn if you “Excuse yourself from the game and leave the room for a few minutes.” Discard any cards remaining in your temporary hand. Leave the room.

Swap Plays For Draws and Get On With It, while they do involve having your turn end immediately, are New Rules, not Actions, so, as you can see from this answer, things would work a bit differently:
See: Can you Get On With It or Swap Plays For Draws with your cards from an Action like Draw 3 Play 2?

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…I had one card in my hand, with Play 4 in effect. I played my card, an Action card which was then discarded. I wanted to claim to able to get 3 new cards because “Get On With It” which was on the table says I could since I had discarded my hand and had 4 – 1 = 3 plays left.

A: In order to take the option to Get On With It, you must be sacrificing (at least) one of your Plays, and you must be discarding a hand of at least one card.

The most obvious issue is that, at the point when you wanted to Get On With It, you didn’t discard your hand. You played an Action, and now your hand is empty. You have to have something to discard in order to discard something. Your hand has to exist in order to be discarded.

The second issue is almost a side effect. We would not consider you to “have plays left” if you have no cards to play. In this case your first play WAS your final play, so you can’t take this option because it’s not before your final play. In order to have a final play, you have to have a card to play.

The whole thing follows logically, since the card/s you could have played – but didn’t – will be remaining in your hand, and therefore among the cards you’re throwing away.

See also: Is Swap Plays For Draws limited by the number of cards you have in your hand?

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…It seems like it wouldn’t really matter.

A: Actually, this is mostly unnecessary. There used to be a rule where one could take things out of the top three cards, but that card has been replaced in all current versions with this one, which is more liberal. That said, there is a promo card which allows you to take the bottom card off the discard pile, so it would matter if you were playing with the promo card Composting. Hmm.

In Nature/EcoFluxx, the Action Scavenger lets you look down through the discard pile and play the first Keeper you find. Anyhow, you could look at the other cards in your deck, and see if this is going to matter for the version you’re playing with. It’s a matter of logic.

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A: No. The instructions on Get On With It (or Swap Plays for Draws) only temporarily override the instructions on Play All and only on the turn of the player using it. Since choosing to use one of these is optional, simply putting either of them into play doesn’t contradict Play All, so you wouldn’t discard Play All just because you played one of them (nor vice versa!)

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A: This situation should not cause any problems. You play cards until you have only one card left in your hand. At that point your turn is over, and you must comply with the Hand Limit, so you discard that one card left in your hand so that your hand has zero cards.

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A: Whenever something played during Draw 3 Play 2 (or Draw 2 and Use ‘Em) affects your “hand” it means your real, set-aside hand, never your “temporary mini-hand”. So you’d give up your actual hand if you lost.

That said, if you still had one more card to play from the Draw 3 Play 2, you’d still complete that. It’s even possible that you could recover cards back to your newly emptied real hand, via… I don’t know… Jackpot, Everybody Gets 1, or just a Draw increase (you’d draw the difference between your original draw and the new draw, and these newly drawn cards would go into your newly emptied hand).

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A: Cards (Actions) that end your turn immediately if you play them:

Brain Transference: Star Fluxx
Clean Cup!: Wonderland Fluxx
Time Portal: Star Fluxx, Doctor Who Fluxx, TNG Fluxx, Voyager Fluxx,
What Do You Want?: Star Fluxx, Oz Fluxx, Doctor Who Fluxx
I’ll Be In My Bunk: Firefly Fluxx
I’ll Be Right Back: Fluxx Remixx
(These last two cards don’t specifically say that your turn ends immediately, but you certainly can’t continue your turn if you “Excuse yourself from the game and leave the room for a few minutes.”)

Cards (Rules) that end your turn immediately if/when you execute them, but not when you play them:

Swap Plays for Draws
Get On With it
Play All +1 (not optional, but see below)

Free Action Rules are optional, so you could choose not to use one that will end your turn immediately. While Play All +1 is not optional, you have some options about when you choose to take that final +1.

Other questions pertaining to cards which cause your turn to end immediately:

Interaction with Play All
Interaction with Hand Limits
Using immediate turn-end Actions with compound Actions like Draw 3 Play 2, etc
Using immediate turn-end New Rules with compound Actions like Draw 3 Play 2, etc
Interaction with Play All +1

Also see:

Order of events in a Fluxx turn

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A: We would rule that any legitimate holiday you can think of should work. No making stuff up…”Yeah, it’s National Elevator Day! That’s the ticket!…” unless it really is National Elevator Day.* You don’t have to specifically celebrate that holiday yourself.

It may be a good idea to apply a house rule about “no looking up today’s date during the game to see what holiday it might be.” I think in our house, we’d probably rule that you could use the internet to verify, but not search for a holiday mid-game. But that would be up to your gaming group.

IN FACT, you could even choose to look up any possible holiday BEFORE the game, so everybody knows (and agrees on) exactly what “special day” it is if that card comes up for them. “Well, we’re about to play Holiday Fluxx, and, just so everybody knows, it happens to be International Day of the Nacho, so, if everybody agrees, that will be what counts for the card Today’s Special!”

Perhaps the most important part of this FAQ is that deciding what is and is not a valid “special day” is something you and your gaming group should agree on BEFORE you start playing. It’s more important that you AGREE than that you be CORRECT about what counts, and that agreement needs to be established before the game starts, not when the card comes up in play.

For example, if you can’t agree what counts as “a holiday” in the broader sense, then you could alternate which way you will play. One game, before you start, agree that you will use one person’s definition/rules. Another game, before you start, agree that you will use another person’s definition/rules.

* There does NOT appear to be a National Elevator Day, but there IS a National Talk in an Elevator Day. It is on the last Friday in July and nobody seems to know where it came from, though you can find it on numerous sites that list silly daily “holidays.”

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A: If you’re not sure which edition you have, or whether your Fluxx set should have Creepers, here are links to the card lists for every version of “basic” Fluxx, in order. Only 4.0 had Creepers.

If you’d like to know which other versions of Fluxx have Creepers, check out the Fluxx Complexity Factors chart

Note that for most of these, the edition number is listed on the box panel with the bar code.

Fluxx 1.0 CARD LIST • wider cards • single piece tuckbox with one stack of cards • no color anywhere on the cards or box • no card stripes, just card title along left edge available in our webstore
Fluxx 2.x (2.0 and 2.1) CARD LIST • color logo on black and white box • single piece tuckbox with one stack of cards • color stripes • black and white art Long out of print. Sorry.
Fluxx 3.0 CARD LIST for 3.1, with notes about 3.0. • color logo on black box • single piece tuckbox with one stack of cards • black and white art • HAS Go Fish and I Need A Goal • does not have Jackpot. Out of print. Sorry.
Fluxx 3.1 CARD LIST for 3.1, with notes about 3.0. • color logo on purple box • single piece tuckbox with one stack of cards • black and white art • HAS Jackpot • does not have Go Fish and I Need A Goal Out of print. Sorry.
Fluxx 4.0 CARD LIST • color logo on purple box • two part lidded box holds two stacks of cards side by side • all artwork is in color from this edition onwards • only version with Creepers Out of print. Sorry.
Fluxx SE CARD LIST • yellow logo on red & purple box • tuckbox with hangtab, holding two stacks • all artwork is in color available in our webstore	Which printing of Fluxx SE do I have?
Fluxx 5.0 CARD LIST • color Logo on black box • two part lidded box holds two stacks of cards side by side • all artwork is in color available in our webstore

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A: Yes, removing a card from play with Zap A Card would have the same effect as discarding it… unless it’s a Creeper, in which case it cannot be held in one’s hand, and would effectively just be moved from in play in front of one player, to in play in front of the player who Zapped it.

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A: No, you cannot freely discard a Keeper, you can only do that if an Action or a New Rule compels you to trash a Keeper. So “All You Need Is Love” is actually trickier than it seems at first.

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Or do we keep throwing until someone has won two out of three? If Inflation is in play, do we need to play four rounds? What happens if there’s a tie in that case?

A: You keep playing games until someone has 2 out of 3 wins. Just re-throw ties: since they don’t result in a player gaining a win, they don’t count towards the number of games played.

If Inflation is in effect, you would indeed need to play 4 games instead of 3. If that turns out 2-2, keep playing until someone gets one more win. Like “sudden death” in an overtime tie situation: whoever scores first wins. Essentially, you’ll have to play until one player gets 3 wins, instead of just 2 as for the non-inflated tournament.

In either of these cases, there is no situation where no-one loses cards (unless, I suppose, someone didn’t have cards to lose in the first place). Perhaps it’s clearer to say: there is no such thing as a tie in this tournament; no situation where there is not a winner and loser.

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A: No, they do not contradict one another, though they’re guaranteed not to apply to the same player at any given time. One person might have the fewest Keepers, and take that Bonus, while another player has the most, and takes that Bonus.

It IS possible, however, for one’s status as Richest or Poorest player to change during one’s turn such that one may start as the Poorest player, get to take the Poor Bonus (drawing 1 extra) then subsequently during one’s turn, play enough Keepers to become the Richest player, thereby getting to take the Rich Bonus (an extra play). One might also lose Keepers and switch status the other way, though under most circumstances you wouldn’t be able to actually utilize the Rich Bonus if you moved that direction.

Also keep in mind that in the case of ties, no-one gets the bonus.

It’s totally reasonable and possible for them to be in play together without contradicting.

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A: You may notice that Meta-Rules have different backs from the rest of the cards. They are meant to not be shuffled into the deck at all, and the different back facilitates finding and pulling them if you accidentally shuffle them in. You just decide at the beginning of the game whether you want to play by those permanent rules or not. It’s like they are a house rule which all players decide on before starting.

This page has a short list and descriptions of all the MetaRules, with a little commentary.

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… I know we’re supposed to “keep playing until a clear winner emerges” but shouldn’t that be just between the two players who tied?

A: Actually, when the rules say to “keep playing until a clear winner emerges,” that does mean “until a clear winner emerges among ALL the players”. So, in your example, the third player absolutely wins.

Sometimes there’s a tie, and what happens is that the tie is eliminated when the Goal goes away, and the game just continues until someone wins in a totally different way. That’s probably the most frequent way that “tied” situations are broken by continued play, actually.

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A: This question is here mostly so I can refer people to it who are missing cards from their Fluxx “Special Edition” (aka “Target Fluxx”) deck (LOO-051). We actually changed a lot of graphic elements, and if we’re sending out replacement cards, we want them to match whichever version you have, if possible. Also, sometimes when the decks are packed out separately, the box got packed out wrong with two of one deck, and none of the other, so we need to know which cards are in which half of the deck. The current version has both halves of the deck shrink-wrapped together, so we hope that particular problem won’t be happening anymore.

Here’s the link to the lists of which cards are in which half-deck for each printing. This is mostly for internal Looney Labs use, but, of course fans are welcomed to compare their decks to whichever deck is appropriate, if to confirm which deck/cards they need to have sent.

• Have square corners at the top of the hang-flap • no numbers in the upper left corner of the hang-flap • Have the tagline “The rules may change, but the fun never stops!” along the top • Have a yellow bar along the bottom, with game stats in red (age, players, time) • Have “Family” in red in the lower left • Words on color stripes are in black text, titles at top of card are in all-caps • Keepers have a black bar, with “boilerplate text” above, and the image below. –> you have a first printing

• Have rounded corners at the top of the hang-flap • Say “ELM 205 13” (or “ELM 204 13” or something similar) in the upper left corner of the hang-flap • Have the tagline “NEVER THE SAME GAME TWICE!” above the game title • Have no yellow bar along the bottom, with game stats (age, players, time) on the main purple background • Have “Family” in green in the lower left • Words on color stripes are in white text, titles at top of card are capitalized first letter only • Keepers have only the green stripe, no “boilerplate text” and no black bar. –> you have a second printing

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…As written on my deck, Play All But 1 reads “Play all but 1 of your cards. If you started with no cards in your hand and only drew one, draw
an extra card.” This means that if my Draw 1 was Inflated to Draw 2, then I don’t get to draw the necessary extra card to enable me to have any plays at all on my turn.

A: As you may have noted, the fix for this is simple, which is to treat the second “one” as a “1”, which it should have been in the first place. We’ll be implementing this fix on all subsequent printings starting in 2016.

Please treat this card as though it read: “Play all but 1 of your cards. If you started with no cards in your hand and only drew 1, draw an extra card.”

Note that Adventure Time Fluxx has the card Mathematical, which is an analogue of Inflation.
Math Fluxx has Increment All, which is like Inflation, but only applies to Actions and New Rules.

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A: There are many analogues to Wormhole (the first one we made) or Mystery Play (the most generic one). Some may require a token action (click your heels together to use Magic Shoes in Oz Fluxx, for example) or condition (if a certain card is in play) to activate them but they are essentially all the same kind of card.

Mystery Play in Fluxx 5.0, SE, Remixx, Astronomy, SpongeBob, and Wonderland
Mythtery Play in Fantasy
Wormhole in Star, Star Trek TOS, TNG, and Voyager
Shiny! in Firefly
Allons-y/Geronimo! in Doctor Who
Spontaneous Reaction in Chemistry
Egads! in Batman
Unknown Variable in Math
THWIP! in Marvel
(the Infinity Gauntlet Keeper in Marvel has this as its special power as well)
Great Idea! in Stoner
Magic Spell in Fairy Tale
Magic Portal in Adventure Time
Magic Shoes in Oz (if you click your heels together three times)
Open The Door in Monster (if the Spooky Door is in play)
Open A Gift! in Holiday (if The Gift is in play)
Chemical X in Cartoon Network (if at least one Powerpuff Girl is in play)
Time Doorway in Regular Show (if the Time Machine is in play)

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A: The wording on Let’s Simplify is as clear as we could make it. If we had said that you may discard up to half of the New Rules in play, and there were an odd number (for example, five of them) you wouldn’t know whether you should round up or down. But we tell you that you should ROUND UP when figuring out what “half” is, so in this example, you know you can discard up to three.

Of course, you may discard up to half – you don’t have to discard three; you could choose to discard just one or two, or even zero if you want. Those numbers are all less than “half (rounded up) of five”.

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…or do I have to choose a face-down Keeper, and hope I get the one I’m looking for?

A:You have to select a Keeper, not knowing what it is, hoping you remember its placement. Part of the point of Government Cover-Up is to make Steals and Exchanges more difficult for one’s opponent.

A player could even deliberately mix their Keepers around after turning them face down, if they wanted to (then check their locations, since one can look at one’s own Keepers any time). Remember, everything that’s an advantage for your opponent under Government Cover-Up, is also an advantage for you if your opponent were in a similar position to Steal one of your Keepers.

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When a card states that you “may” play 1 extra card (e.g., Rich Bonus or Party Bonus), and Inflation is in play, it is treated as you may play 2 extra cards. Does this mean that you have to choose between playing 0 and playing 2, or can you also play only 1?

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Little Answers

A: It’s either zero or two. There is no one.

Adventure Time includes the Inflation analogue, Mathematical! Inflation is also available as a promo card to add to any Fluxx deck.

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In other words, if I started the turn with an empty hand and drew 3 cards because of the No-Hand Bonus, and then I play Inflation, do I draw another card?

A: No. While everything happens immediately in Fluxx, things don’t happen retroactively. The action of the No-Hand Bonus only triggers at the start of your turn, therefore it doesn’t give you an extra card when Inflation is played during your turn. Inflation WOULD affect the current Draw Rule, but that’s not considered a retroactive effect, since the Draw Rule says you must “have drawn X cards on your turn” which is a status for your entire turn, from the beginning. By contrast, the No-Hand Bonus occurs specifically BEFORE the regular draw for your turn, and does NOT count as part of your draw.

Note that Mathematical In Adventure Time Fluxx is an analogue of Inflation, but that Adventure Time Fluxx does not have No-Hand Bonus.

Math Fluxx, on the other hand, has both the No-Hand Bonus as well as Increment All (an Inflation analogue which only applies to Actions and New Rules).

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A: No. You have set your main hand aside, and cards drawn as part of Draw 3 Play 2 of Them (or Draw 2 and Use ‘Em) are not considered part of your actual hand. They exist in an alternate temporary mini-hand dimension.

The same is true of the cards drawn as part of utilizing Goal Bonanza. Those cards which you draw and must immediately use are not considered part of your “main hand.”

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A: You could certainly put either of these New Rules (Get On With It, or Swap Plays For Draws) into play as part of an Action like Draw 3 Play 2 of them (D3P2) or Draw 2 and Use Em (D2UE), or Fizzbin (or your cards drawn via the Rule Goal Bonanza) but you could not utilize their functions while in the middle of executing one of these cards. While all four of these Actions/Free Actions do give you a sort of temporary hand, you can’t substitute it for your real hand to “discard and draw back up to 3”, for example.

You would either need to invoke Get On With It! before the Free/Action with the temporary hand is played or after. The Playing of D3P2/D2UE/Fizzbin/Goal Bonanza, and all actions as a result of it are considered 1 “Play”.

See also: What happens if I play an Action that causes my turn to end immediately in the middle of Draw 3 Play 2 or Draw 2 & Use Em (or Fizzbin, or Goal Bonanza)?

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A: When you play an Action or use a New Rule card says “your turn ends immediately” it means it’s specifically overriding any Play rule that might otherwise require you to keep playing cards on this turn. You also end any option you may have to use Keeper powers or “Free Action” Rules. If it says “your turn ends immediately” then your turn ends immediately – so make sure you’re all done with stuff before you play/use one of these cards!

See: Q: What cards have effects that include ending my turn immediately if I play/use them?

Also see: Would putting either of these two into play cause Play All to be discarded?

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Does one have to have at least one of something to be “in the running” at all?

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Little Answers

A: Zero Keepers is indeed fewer than one Keeper. A score of zero is indeed lower than a score of one. No, you do not have to have at least one of something to be eligible for the competition.

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If I qualify for drawing three cards because of the No-Hand Bonus, and the Draw rule is five, do I draw a total of five cards or eight?

A: The No-Hand Bonus states: “Draw a new hand of 3 cards BEFORE observing the current draw rule” (emphasis added). Your drawing 3 cards is considered a “pre-turn action”: these cards essentially make up a “new hand” which simulates you having had a hand BEFORE starting your turn. Then you observe the current draw rule, which says draw 5 cards.

So you draw a total of eight cards in this case.

Secondary Q: So if I increase the Draw rule from Draw 2 to Draw 4 on my turn, do I still get to draw an extra 2 cards? One of my opponents argued that I had already drawn 5 for the Bonus plus the Draw 2, so I couldn’t draw more when I increased the Draw rule.

A: Since the cards drawn for the No-Hand bonus are separate from those drawn because of the Draw rule in play, and don’t count towards the number of cards drawn for your turn, YES, you get to draw two more cards when you increase the Draw from 2 to 4.

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If you and an opponent each have 11 cards in your hand, and you play Trade Hands, would you win because after the card’s effect occurred you had 11 while the opponent had 10, or would the opponent win as soon as the card was played and left your hand?

A: You should need to finish the Action (i.e. follow through with the hand swap), before considering the issue of someone meeting the Goal. Thus, it’s that first thing you said.

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A: Yes. Because the Keeper and Hand Limits only apply to you when it’s NOT your turn, they are suspended (for you) DURING your turn. You can draw cards way up above the hand limit, and play Keepers to the table beyond the keeper limit, possibly meeting those Goals during your turn. Of course, if you don’t meet the Goal and win, you’ll have to discard down at the end of your turn.

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Suppose the Goal is All You Need Is Love, and someone plays an Action which causes all of the Keepers to be shuffled and dealt back out. If someone then gets Love as their first card, do they win immediately, or must they receive whatever other Keepers are headed their way before they can claim victory?

A: The latter. This is another tricky timing case in which the instant win concept collides with the principle of everything happening immediately. In this case, the Action must be completed first. The best way to play cards like Scramble Keepers or Share the Wealth is to deal everyone their new Keepers face down, with all players then revealing the cards they got all at once.

See also: Does the total effect of playing a card have to be resolved…

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A: No. Hand and Keeper Limits apply to you when it’s not your turn, so you would observe them as soon as your turn ends.

See also: Q: What cards have effects that include ending my turn immediately if I play/use them?

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In my version of Fluxx, Everybody Gets 1 says (in part) “Count the number of players in the game (including yourself). Draw that many cards and give every player 1 card.” If we do that with Inflation, we only draw four cards in a four player game, and then we don’t have enough to give each player 1(+1), i.e. 2 cards.

A: Unfortunately, in the first printing of Fluxx 5.0 the wording on this card was accidentally modified so that it broke when used with Inflation. We have subsequently fixed the card to read as clarified below. Simply treat it as you would to execute “Everybody Gets 2”, specifically: “Draw enough cards to give each player 1, then do so.”

We have fixed the wording on this card to read exactly that for subsequent printings, starting in 2015.

Math Fluxx includes both Everybody Gets 1, and the Inflation cognate Increment All, which only works on Actions and New Rules.

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If I draw the number of cards I have left in my hand to play, do I have to play them all? Which one takes precedence? Play All, or Swap Plays?

A: Once you have exercised your option to Swap Plays for Draws, you have no more plays left (you have swapped all your remaining plays) so your turn is over. So, no, you don’t play those new cards drawn. In that sense Swap Plays “takes precedence” since you may still have cards in your hand at the end of your turn even though Play All is in effect.

Specific example:
The Swap Plays For Draws card explicitly states that when this rule is in effect, you may choose at any time to play no more cards, and draw the number of cards as you have plays left. Play All says to play all your cards this turn.

So lets say you have five cards in hand. You play two cards, and decide you want to swap the rest of your plays for draws. Since you have three cards remaining, and Play All is in effect, you have three plays left to swap, so you draw three cards, thereby ending your turn.

Likewise, if Play All But 1 is in effect, then as long as you have more than 1 card remaining in your hand (which would mean you have plays left to swap) you would get to draw the number of cards in your hand minus 1, since the number of plays you have remaining is simply 1 less than the number of cards in your hand. As with Play All, of course, once you choose to swap your remaining plays for draws, you have no more plays.

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A: Sort of. If you have more than enough cards in your hand to cover the number of plays left allowed by the Play Rule, then you just subtract how many plays you took from the number shown on the Play Rule. You played 1 and it’s Play 3, and you have 7 cards left in your hand? Play 3 minus the 1 play you took leaves you 2 remaining plays you could swap for draws. Your hand size does not affect how many plays you have left to swap.

If, however, the Play Rule indicates more plays left than you have cards left in your hand, then the number of plays you have left is the number of cards in your hand. The number of plays you can swap for draws is the number of ACTUAL card plays you could make, not the theoretical number of plays allowed by the Play Rule.

EXAMPLE:
Draw 1, Play 3 is in effect.
You have a hand of 0 and you draw 1 card. Now you have 1 card in your hand. How many plays can ACTUALLY be taken by you? Not 3 because the Play Rule says 3, but 1, because you only have 1 card in your hand. You can’t play cards you don’t have. At whatever time you choose to exercise Swap Plays For Draws, the question is: how many ACTUAL plays do you have left? In this case, you have only 1 play available to you, which you could choose to swap for 1 draw. Now you have 2 cards in your hand, but do you get to play them because the Play Rule says 3? NO, because with Swap Plays For Draws, you are deciding to sacrifice ALL your remaining plays for draws, so, by definition, no matter how many you drew, you have no plays left in your turn.

This is turns out to be exactly how we figure out how many cards can be drawn when the Play All (or Play All But 1) is in effect. In that case, you look at the number of cards you have left (or that number minus 1) and that’s how many plays you have, so that’s how many cards you draw. Again, remember that using Swap Plays For Draws means you have no more plays left in your turn, so you won’t be able to use any of those cards you just drew until your next turn.

Swapping Plays For Draws is one of the ways you can avoid having to playing a card that would make someone else win.

See also: Can I use Get On With It if I played my only card, but the Play rule says to play more?

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Do I have to set my hand aside so that card doesn’t mix with it, and play that card exactly, or does this just add to my total play, so I can add the extra card to my hand, and play whatever cards I want, increasing the number of plays I have?

A: “Draw and Play 1 extra card per turn” just increases your total draws and total plays for the turn by 1, so whatever card you draw that is “extra” just gets added to your hand like all the other cards you drew, and you can play whatever cards you want from your hand up to the play quantity plus 1.

Unless the card says you have to set aside your hand, you don’t, and you’re not required to play the specific card you drew card unless the option you’re invoking specifies that.

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Or can it replace the single Goal in play, leaving a spot empty?

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Little Answers

A: If there is an empty slot for a Goal because of Double Agenda, the next Goal played must fill that spot, and not replace the single Goal already in play.

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The Computer promo card, or Batcomputer in Batman Fluxx, for example, increases both your Play and your Draw by 1. So does the Rich Bonus. Play 1 extra doesn’t affect Play All, so why would it affect Play All But 1?

A: Play All But 1 isn’t the same as Play All: when you Play All But 1, you do have 1 card remaining, so when you are then required to play +1 cards, you do have one left to play, so you must play it.

You need to take Play All But 1 as a unit into consideration: you can’t just break out the Play All, and apply the effects of the Computer, and then apply the …But 1 part.

Note that since the effects of the Computer are not optional, you have to do it, whether you like it or not. Other similar effects may be optional, so always check on that. It’s pretty easy to see whether something says you “may” do it, or if it just happens.

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Do I get to decide who gets what? Do I get to decide how many to deal to each player? Do the recipients put them in their hands or on the table in front of them? Are they face up or face down? When I’m dealing them out, who do I start with?

A: First of all, only for Everybody Gets 1 (or Dreams & Omens) does the active player get to look at and decide who gets what. That’s a very different situation that the ones we’re talking about here. This question focuses on random (fairly even) redistribution along the lines of Share The Wealth.

The cards in question are shuffled or otherwise randomized so that the dealer does not know what’s being given out. They are then dealt out evenly, going around the circle clockwise, one card to each player in turn, continuing until the cards are all gone. Dealing starts with either the active player or the player to their left, with the intention of providing any possible benefit to the active player.

• So if it’s for Keepers, or a mixture of Keepers and Creepers, the active player should get the first card, because this is felt to be to their advantage, so they won’t get shorted if the number doesn’t deal out evenly. However, we would consider it an officially sanctioned house-rule if your group wanted to give the active player the option of starting with the player to their left instead of themselves. There could be reasons…

• For redistribution of Creepers-only, the card will usually say to start with the player to the left of the active player, because Creepers are generally considered a disadvantage, and this would mean that if anyone was going to receive fewer, it would always be the active player. However, as with other redistribution cards, your group may choose to let the active player decide whether they want to start with themselves or the person on their left. Again, we can think of reasons why someone might want to start distributing Creepers to themselves first.

Once dealt, all cards will be put into play immediately, so it’s OK to deal them out face up, but it’s sometimes better to deal them out face down, then have everybody reveal what they got all at once. As mentioned above, re/distributing by dealing will cause all players to end up with roughly equal numbers of cards. So if there are large discrepancies in the number of cards players had in play, this will even them out: players with a lot more than other players will end up with fewer than they had, and players with few or zero cards in play may end up with more. That’s the way it goes.

Here’s a list of redistributing cards, and their types:

Scramble Keepers, which is only in early versions of “Basic” Fluxx (1.0-3.x) is the only Action which is different. While you still shuffle up the Keepers and hand them back randomly and they go back into play, you don’t deal them out evenly, but instead give each player the same number of Keepers they had before. When we came up with Share The Wealth, we felt it was far superior, as we liked the way it leveled the playing field, keeping the game more competitive, to maximize player engagement.

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The card reads, in part “You decide who gets what.” My brother thinks I should hand them out without looking at them, but I think I get to look at them so that I know what they all got, but they only know what they each got.

A: As you have surmised, there is indeed no meaning to the phrase “you decide who gets what” unless you get to look at all the cards before you hand them out (yes, the intention is that you hand them out face down so that each person only knows what they themselves got).

Many people’s first instinct upon seeing someone else play this card is to simply reach forward and draw from the deck themselves, as if it were indeed intended to be random, but most, upon a careful reading of the card, come to the correct conclusion.

Since we have plenty of room on this card, we started implementing clearer text on this card in 2016:
“You look at the cards and decide who gets what, dealing them out face down to each player.”

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Based on the wording of the card, it would seem that you still only get one extra turn.

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Little Answers

A: Correct. You can’t save up any extra Another Turns. The maximum number of turns you can take in a row using this card is two. Most, but, unfortunately, not all, iterations or versions of this card have that language on them. Keeping things consistent across so many Fluxx decks is surprisingly difficult.

For those wondering how this card could be played more than once, it’s quite possible that one could play Take Another Turn, and then Let’s Do That Again (either during their first turn, or their “Another” turn)… but you can’t take another “Another Turn,” so don’t pick that card to Do Again.

Shadow Out Of Time in Cthulhu Fluxx functions the same way.

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A: Yes. Since everything happens instantly in Fluxx, Draw 3 Play 2 Of Them (D3P2) suddenly becomes Draw 4 Play 3 Of Them (D4P3, if you will). The player should immediately draw an extra card and add it to the remainder of the cards being chosen from (the mini hand for the Action, not the set-aside main hand). It’s kind of like if you’d only drawn 2 cards instead of the 3 you were supposed to, realizing the mistake after playing one of them, and drawing the extra card you need at that point.

Of course, your regular hand will also need an extra card, since the Draw Rule itself has also incremented. You could do that at the time you’re executing your D3P2 by drawing a card and adding it to your set-aside hand, or you could catch up with that when you pick your regular hand back up again after the action. Note you’ll also have an extra Play to execute as well.

Star Trek Fluxx includes Fizzbin, which is similar to D3P2/D2UE. If Inflation was played as part of Fizzbin, all numbers would need to be increased, so you’d draw an extra card from the draw pile, and take an extra card from your neighbor. You should then reshuffle your temporary Fizzbin hand and continue.

Adventure Time includes the Inflation analogue, Mathematical! Inflation is also available as a promo card to add to any Fluxx deck.

Math Fluxx includes a card called Increment All, which is similar to Inflation except it only affects Actions and New Rules.

Drinking Fluxx includes a card called Double Vision, which is similar to Inflation, but only changes 1 to 2, without affecting any higher numbers, so actually, it won’t affect Draw 3 Play 2, but it’s worth noting.

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See this answer in a video!
Little Answers

A: Yes. For a brief moment in between your turn and your extra turn it is technically not your turn, and you must comply with all Limit rules at that time.

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My friends think you can add it to you hand, and play some other card from their hand.

A: You are correct, your friends are incorrect. You pull the top card off the deck, and immediately play that card. You do not get to add it to your hand, or play any other card from your hand.

Also see: What are all the different cards in different versions where you get to draw the top card and play it immediately?

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If it’s not, the same card could get passed all the way around the circle until it’s back with the person who played the Action.

A: Yes. Everyone is supposed to pick a card from their hand, and pass it simultaneously, specifically to prevent a single card being passed around.

For example, what would happen if only one person had a hand? If the card pass happened sequentially, there would be no change in anyone’s hand! (And how do you decide who starts?) What actually happens is that the person with a hand passes a card, and everyone else passes nothing, since their hands are empty.

A good rule of thumb is: when in doubt, assume that things in Fluxx happen simultaneously.

See also: We think we broke the game…

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