A: The “Immediately redraw” is only for if that person has DRAWN a Creeper (or was dealt one at the beginning of the game). The idea is that, if you’re drawing, you are drawing to get a non-Creeper. If you get a Creeper, you are required to play it immediately, and because that draw-play acquisition was involuntary, it doesn’t count as a play or a draw for you… so you get to try again for a NON-Creeper. If you’re just taking or receiving a Creeper that was already in play somewhere else, you’re not attempting to execute a draw, you just get the Creeper.

Another way to note this is the case is that is says REdraw. If you didn’t get the Creeper by Drawing, then you can’t REdraw.

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A: You are required to reveal any Secrets you have, and face the consequences.

The only potentially confusing situation is if you are the Sandwich Thief, requiring you to discard your hand. Well, the person who found you out isn’t the one who should get punished, so you don’t discard your hand before Trading with them, leaving you with their hand, and them empty-handed. No. What happens is you admit your lunchtime larceny, they get the rest of your hand, you get theirs, and then must discard it.

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A: J’Accuse will cause any Secrets of the target player to be revealed, and appropriate penalties meted out.

However, if someone looks at your hand because of the Search Warrant, your Secrets are not exposed, since they don’t technically leave your hand. Now, if someone discovers your Secret, they may decide to try to make life difficult for you by forcing you to play it (or have it leave your hand) but you don’t take a penalty just from that one person finding out about it (even if they are the only other player in the game).

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A: To review: Just 1 More Thing has you draw an extra card at the end of your turn if you have an Investigator in play. This ends your turn immediately, and then you have to discard down to the Hand Limit if there is one. The mention of both Hand Limits and your turn ending immediately may be confusing, but, unless you’re mixing decks, you’re really only going to have to deal with one of those two issues at any given time. Here are a couple of sample situations:

Example 1: You have played all the cards in your hand, either because it’s Play All, or because you had fewer cards in your hand than you were allowed to play (starting with a hand of 1, Draw 1, Play 4, for example)… but you have an Investigator, and Just 1 More Thing is in play.

So you must now draw an extra card. Your turn now ends immediately, meaning you don’t get to play that card, even though the Play Rule would otherwise allow it. That’s the main thing that “your turn ends immediately” means: no more Plays, no more Free Actions. The only Hand Limit in Mystery Fluxx is Hand Limit 3, so the only times you’re going to have to invoke that immediate turn end, you’ll only have 1 card in your hand, anyhow, and won’t have to discard, so the Hand Limit is moot.

Example 2: It’s Play 2, Hand Limit 3. You have played your 2 cards, and have 3 cards left in your hand, and normally wouldn’t have to discard any… but you have an Investigator, and Just 1 More Thing is in play.

So you must now draw an extra card, and your turn ends immediately. There’s no confusion about whether you get to play that card, since you’ve already played your 2 for your turn (though note you can’t take any other Free Actions once you draw that 1 More Thing, either). In this case, the important thing to note is that you draw that extra card BEFORE having to discard down for the Hand Limit. After having drawn it, you have 4 cards in your hand, and must discard 1.

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A: When someone counters your Play with a Surprise, no, you do not get to choose a different card to play. That play was canceled.

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A: Yes, you must finish drawing the rest of your cards for your turn – you might draw another Creeper which would prevent your win. You must accept any and ALL Creepers acquired during your initial Draw phase before assessing win conditions.

Consider the initial Draw phase to be all one simultaneous thing. Think of it this way: not everyone draws one… card… at… a… time. Some grab the total number for the Draw, add them to their hand, then deal with Creepers at that time, putting them immediately into play, and drawing to replace. Differences in draw style should not affect the outcome of the game.

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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.

Note that you may be seeing this FAQ because your deck has a version of this card with a different name. There are so many analogues for Mystery Play that you should simply check the Fluxx Comparison Chart. Highlight the row for the Rule: Mystery Play, and scroll across to the deck you have to find the card this question refers to.

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…When a person is eliminated due to a Danger card, that person can jump back in once all other players have played a round. Does that mean they jump in immediately as soon as all other players have gone once? That messes up the turn order, but is that how it’s supposed to work?

A: No, you don’t change the regular turn order. Depending on where the eliminated person is relative to the person who knocked them out, they may have to wait longer than each other person going once. Turn order may mean that some people end up playing twice before the eliminated person takes their next turn. Here’s an example scenario with four players:

Player 1 goes
Player 2 knocks 1 out
Player 3 goes (must happen before 1 can jump in)
Player 4 goes (must happen before 1 can jump in)
Player 1’s turn is skipped because Player 2 has not yet played…
Player 2 goes (must happen before 1 can jump in)
Player 3 goes (happens because of standard turn order)
Player 4 goes (happens because of standard turn order)
NOW Player 1 gets to draw their new hand and take their turn.

Note that if the draw pile runs out and The Final Act (in Mystery Fluxx) or No More Lives (in Jumanji Fluxx) comes up before Player 1’s jump-in point, they don’t get to jump in!

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…Let’s say I have Giant Bugs in my keepers on the table. Let’s also say that I have the danger “Ouch!” In my hand. If an opponent plays the “Play All” rule, and I am forced to play that specific danger, do I eliminate myself in doing so?

A: Yes, I’m sorry to say, in that case, you would be forced to eliminate yourself! The Giant Bugs got you! Hopefully you haven’t run out of extra lives.

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Example: Player 1 has five cards on a Play All. On their third card they eliminate Player 3. Player 1 then finishes their turn and Player 2 goes. Does Player 3 then jump back in and take their turn or does Player 1 then take a complete turn before Player 3 draws new cards and play continues with Player 2?

A: The rule says all other players must complete a turn before you can jump back in. The short answer is YES, Player 1 completing the turn in which they eliminated Player 3 does count as that player having “completed a turn.” So, assuming there are only three people in your example, Player 3 could get back in after Player 2 takes their turn, since both other players will have completed a turn by then.

If there were a Player 4, however, Player 3 would have to wait until play had gone around past that person, and then through Players 1 and 2 again as per regular turn order before Player 3 could jump back in the game.

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A: They have no wording on them that indicates mandatory play, like Creepers. You hold them in your hand like any other card, until you want to play them. Unlike Surprises, they have no wording on them about being allowed to play them at any time, including out-of-turn. They are not left on the table like Rules, though I have to say, we really dropped the ball on the description of how to play these. Obviously we’ll be updating the rules to be clearer on the next printing.

So… they most closely resemble Actions in the way they’re played: you just play them, the effect happens, if applicable, and then they go in the discard pile. In fact, you could think of them as a special class of Actions which have the potential to “endanger” another player by knocking them out of the game.

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A: TLDR: Officially, no… BUT, when playing in any of our games which include interrupt cards which cancel a previous play (Surprise, Memo From Your Future Self, Stop Time) it’s good practice to play a little slower if you happen to be executing multiple plays, so that your opponents have plenty of time to play one of these cards, should they so desire.

Deliberately playing super-fast, “shotgunning” as one fan put it, is just rude, and, rather than avoiding arguments about interrupts, actually ends up causing them. So if you have someone who insists upon playing that way, feel free to implement a requirement of a full one-hippopotamus silent count between card plays. We think those worried about their second-to-last winning play being foiled by an interrupt will find that others are not as psychic as they feared. Read on…

So here’s a typical Surprise situation, which can cause a bit of controversy:

I recently won when the rules called for Play 2. I played my first card, a Keeper, and then a moment later I played a Goal card that caused me to win. My opponent then showed me that he had the Surprise card in his hand that could have stopped me from playing the Keeper, and we had a brief discussion about whether I should have left him more time to consider playing it.

(Related question: A player doesn’t have to “announce” or “report” their play out loud, right? They can just play their cards and if other players aren’t paying attention, that’s the fault of the other players? We all want to have good sportsmanship, but you know how games can sometimes get, in terms of either other players not paying attention, or in terms of being very competitive!)

Here’s our response:
While we don’t have any official guidelines about exact timing of card plays, We recommend a slight pause between a two-card play like this when the active player knows it’s going to make them win. It’s rarely the case that the person with the Keeper-stopper will intuitively know that the necessary Goal is coming… until it gets there (or vice-versa: if they had the Goal-stopper, and you’d decided to play the Keeper last, they couldn’t know you’d have the winning Keeper to play after the innocuous Goal), so playing slow is often to your advantage, as the player who’s about to win.

In fact, playing casually, even pretending you don’t know what you want to play next, can be a great move. Playing slowly enough to allow a possible Surprise doesn’t have to mean broadcasting your impending win. (For example, looking significantly around the table as if expecting a challenge). Of course, announcing your your play is in no way required, but could even be part of your nonchalant act, depending on how you do it. (“Hmm… Well, there’s this Small Moon… and… let’s see… That’s No Moon, for the win!”)

That said, one often doesn’t have the presence of mind to think about deliberately hesitating. In real life, you’re usually just taking your play, and winning, at regular game speed.

Here is where the question is really about what your opponent was thinking, and they have to be honest about it: did it only occur to them to play the Surprise after you’d played the winning Goal? If you’d just accidentally played the Goal first, and then the Keeper, their Keeper-canceling Surprise would have gone through and prevented your win. But just as they couldn’t know your next play would be the end of the game, you couldn’t know they had a Surprise. For all you knew, they had the Goal-stopping Surprise, and it’s just chance which order you chose to play those two cards in. It’s not as though you deliberately played in such a way as to deliberately thwart a Surprise on your first play.

The thing to point out here is that, had you stopped playing after the Keeper, would it even have occurred to them to use the Surprise? Probably not, if they’re being honest. It’s extremely rare that one’s opponent is prescient or observant enough to realize that this play might be your second-to-last. People rarely want to squander a Surprise on the off-chance that your next play will be the winning one*. In the kind of situation you describe, the Surprise-having player usually just shrugs, and says “Darn! I had [the Surprise that would have prevented your second-to-last play], and I could have stopped that play, but it’s too late now… Oh well. Let’s deal again…”

Because, in the end, if they didn’t get that Surprise in after the applicable card, that’s the way it goes, and that’s the official ruling if people get – ahem – unruly.

*I mean, imagine it. If they’d canceled your Keeper before you’d played the winning Goal, your best reaction is probably simply to shrug as if mildly confused by such a powerful play, apparently for nothing, and make them feel like they just wasted their Surprise on a random Keeper play… heh heh. You don’t have to let them know they totally blocked your win. Meanwhile… you don’t have to get upset about missing that chance… it’s just Fluxx, and victory is snatched away at all the time in the course of any given game – usually completely by accident. Or you can let them know their spidey-senses were working, or congratulate them on how observant they are. It’s up to you.

Now let’s return to that “shotgunning” player who’s deliberately playing quickly so that nobody can slip a Surprise in on that penultimate play… It is, as the fan above pointed out, not entirely fair, and, moreover, it invites the argument “But you didn’t leave me enough time to play my Surprise!” If, on the other hand they had played it slowly, as described above, their opponent has no excuse to challenge the win, on the claim that they “were going to play a Surprise.” The opponent had plenty of time, but in the vast majority of cases, they won’t play the Surprise, because they have no idea what’s coming next. That’s part of the beauty of Fluxx!

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A: Some versions of the rules deal with this explicitly, and some don’t, so we’re answering this here in the FAQ, just in case there is any confusion.

Creepers may not be held in your hand, so if you get a Creeper as part of your dealt hand, you put it on the table in front of you (play it pre-game, essentially) and draw to replace. If it’s another Creeper, continue until you have a starting hand containing zero Creepers.

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A: If you are the active player, counter-Surprising does not use up one of your total plays for the turn. By the same token, however, this means you cannot use the Surprise for it’s function which would use a play. To wit:

You can only use a Surprise to do one of three things:

1) use it on your turn as a play, for it’s in-turn function
OR
2) Use it to Surprise another player,
2a) on another player’s turn to cancel a play
OR
2b) on your turn to counter their interruption of your own play (“counter-Surprise”)

You cannot do more than one of those things.

So if you’re using it to counter-Surprise on your turn (2b), you can’t also use it as one of your plays for it’s “in-turn” function (1).

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A: It’s true, the Creeper card does say “immediately draw another card to replace it” but this doesn’t mean you replace the Creeper on the table, discarding it. This means “replace the Creeper in the number of cards you drew.” If you needed to draw 3 cards, and you drew them and one of them was a Creeper, you play the Creeper and draw another card, because that Creeper doesn’t count as one of the 3 cards you needed to draw (neither does it count against the number of cards you get to Play on your turn), so you have only drawn 2 cards, so you still need to draw a third.

You’re not replacing the Creeper from it’s place “in play” (i.e. on the table). You’re just replacing the card “lost” as part of your draw count because it was a Creeper. The idea is that Creepers go into play automatically, whether you want them to or not. They’re usually a problem for you, and you have to work to get rid of them (though sometimes you need them for Goals, otherwise, they hinder you).

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A: Those are not considered “Actions” in the sense that they are not Action cards, and Stop That (or Belay That) is intended to cancel out the playing of Action cards specifically. Nor will Veto! which cancels the playing of Rules stop these types of Free Actions. The Surprise you’re looking for is one found only in the More Surprises pack, and it’s called No Free Lunch.

There are a couple of other more broadly worded Surprises that prevent some types of Free Actions, however. For example, Skullduggery, It’s A Trap and You Can’t Take This Guy From Me are written so that they prevent “any game action” which causes Keepers to change hands. This can include the results of Action cards, Free Actions from Rule and Free Actions from Keepers or Creepers. It’s a Trap is in Batman Fluxx and Star Fluxx, You Can’t Take This Guy From Me is in Firefly, and Skullduggery is a promo card which can be found in the More Surprises pack linked above.

There might be some confusion on using the Action attached to Let’s Keep Doing That, since there is an Action card permanently in play, but it is intended to act as if it were a New Rule that grants a Free Action, so in functions like any other Free Action, and is covered by the first paragraph.

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…Example:
Player A plays a Hand Limit
Player B and C discard down to the hand limit
Player A plays Veto to cancel the Hand Limit for themselves.

Is this allowed?

A: Well, it all depends how Player A was trying to play the Veto. Every Surprise has two different instructions on it. One for when you’re using it to interrupt someone else’s play, and one for if you play it out of your own hand as a regular card on your turn.

First case (the out-of-turn function):

If Player A was trying to use the out-of-turn function to cancel the play of their own card, that’s not allowed. It’s their turn, so they can only use the in-turn function. See also: Can one ever use the out-of-turn function of a Surprise on their own turn?

Note that even if it were another person playing out-of-turn to cancel the card (let’s call them Player D) the Surprise should be played immediately after the card one wants to cancel: in the case of a Hand Limit, that would ideally be before anyone has discarded anything.

Moreover, even if everyone decided to cut imaginary Player D some slack about the timing, and they did let Player D play the Veto after some people had discarded, canceling the Rule would “prevent it from ever taking effect” and everyone would get to take all their cards back as though the Hand Limit had never been played. Long story short: you can’t Veto a rule just for you. The Rule applies to everyone, so when you Veto it, it’s Vetoed for everyone.

Second case (the in-turn function):

If Player A still had a play left on their turn after playing the Hand Limit, they could simply play the Veto for its in-turn function. What it does in this case is let them “discard [their] choice of up to 2 New Rules currently in play”. The Rules discarded don’t even have to be ones that were recently played.

In this case, those rules are not being “canceled” without ever having taken effect, they’re just being discarded. The Rules were played, they took effect for as long as they were in play, and then they were discarded. So if Player A did that, they could simply trash the Hand Limit before their turn ends, thereby avoiding having to discard down at all. Of course, this uses up one of their plays for their turn.

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A: No. Surprises can only be played for an out-of-turn effect when there is an effect to be had. You can’t just play a Surprise for no effect just to burn it.

When used for their in-turn effect, of course, they behave much the same way as Actions, and, as such, may or may not have an effect.

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A: It depends which Surprise you have, and when you play it.

If you have the promo No Free Lunch, found in the More Surprises pack, you can play it to prevent someone from utilizing Mystery Play (or any of its analogues, see below). The trick is, you’d have to play No Free Lunch when they declare they’re using Mystery Play, but before they reveal the card – you can’t wait to see whether it makes them win to declare you’re using No Free Lunch.

On the other hand the card that is drawn and played because of Mystery Play is affected by any of the “standard” Surprises. So if the winning card played because of Mystery Play was a Goal, then Canceled Plans would be able to prevent the win, since it cancels Goals. If the card played was a Keeper, you’d need to use the That’s Mine in order to stop the win.

Of course, you can’t cancel any of these if YOU are the one who is using Mystery Play.
See Can one ever use the “out-of-turn” function of a Surprise during one’s own turn? (spoiler alert: no)

*Note that you may be seeing this FAQ because your deck has a version of this card with a different name. There are so many analogues for Mystery Play that you should simply check the Fluxx Comparison Chart. Highlight the row for the Rule: Mystery Play, and scroll across to the deck you have to find the card this question refers to.

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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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Example:
Player A uses That’s Mine for its in-turn function to steal a Keeper from Player B
Player B uses It’s A Trap! to cancel the steal, and instead steal from Player A
Player A uses Canceled plans to cancel It’s A Trap, since Surprises can cancel Surprises.

Does the original steal go through? Player B argued that there was no steal in either direction, as both That’s Mine and It’s A Trap had been canceled by subsequent Surprises.

A: The short answer is that That’s Mine is carried out for it’s in-turn function for the Keeper steal.

The long answer:

• That’s Mine is played in turn: Keeper is stolen
• It’s A Trap is played out of turn by victim: That’s Mine is negated and the Keeper steal is reversed
• Cancelled plans negates It’s a Trap, which had previously been reversing the Keeper steal and negating That’s Mine. This leaves That’s Mine un-negated to steal the Keeper as originally played

It’s not that cards just get put on the discard pile, covered and they’re gone. Think of each card as going into a “being played” area only into the discard pile when they are done being used, or when negated for good. There was sort of a little wrestling match out there in the “being played” area between all the Surprises, and It’s A Trap lost.

Here is a generic version of what a battle like this could look like. It can continue until you run out of Surprises. Keep in mind that it’s totally possible and allowed for some other player, for example, Player C, to jump in on either side, potentially confusing the toggle state of the original play. If things come to this, it may be very important to keep track of the original play being canceled, perhaps putting it in the middle and flipping it over to indicate which state it is in: effective, vs canceled.

• A plays some card X.
• B plays Surprise 1, canceling X.
• A cancels surprise 1 with Surprise 2, so X is in effect again.
• B cancels surprise 2 with Surprise 3, so Surprise 1 goes through, and X is canceled again.

and so forth. If there were more, it would look like this:

• A cancels surprise 3 with Surprise 4, so Surprise 2 goes through, canceling Surprise 1, so X happens.
• B cancels surprise 4 with Surprise 5, so Surprise 3 goes through, canceling Surprise 2, so Surprise 1 is in effect again, so X is canceled.

So far, the maximum number of Surprises in a version is 6, in Batman Fluxx, but here’s the page where we would update that info:
Complexity Factors for Fluxx editions

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A: You can use the counter-Surprise function at any time, either during someone else’s turn or your own. Here are some basic examples:

On your own turn:
Someone cancels one of your plays with a Surprise. You play a Surprise to counter their Surprise. Note: although it is your turn, this does not count as one of your Plays.

On someone else’s turn:
They play a Surprise for the in-turn function. You play a Suprise to counter it.

On someone else’s turn:
They play a card. You cancel it with the appropriate Surprise. They counter-Surprise you. You counter-Surprise them!

On someone else’s turn:
Player A plays a card. Player B cancels it with a Surprise. You decide to counter Player B’s Surprise, for whatever reason motivates you.
(In other words, if there is a Surprise/counter-Surprise “battle” going on between two other players, as described in the previous example, you can jump in at any time on either players “side”.)

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A: If a Creeper is drawn by the active player, they must take the Creeper (play it in front of themselves) and draw to replace, such that all the cards they have drawn for whatever the Action indicates will contain no Creepers.

For example, if I play Everybody Gets One, then I, as the active player, am the one drawing cards. As such, I have to take all the Creepers I draw, redrawing until I’m holding enough non-Creeper cards to give 1 to each player including myself. In a deck with a lot of Creepers, anything that makes you draw cards is a liability!

There are a few cases where a card instructs you to discard Creepers encountered, in which case you do that, but the default is that the active player must accept them until the appropriate number of non-Creepers has been drawn.

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…I say it’s just one card, but my husband says it should be three, since three Creepers were drawn. Who is right?

A: For practical purposes, you are correct. If you have laid down three Creepers in a row like that, you are left needing to draw 1. After your draw phase, you should end up having drawn just 1 non-Creeper for your Draw 1.

If anyone is having a hard time wrapping their head around why this is, here’s a blow-by-blow description of what happens when you draw three Creepers in a row while trying to Draw 1.

You Draw 1. It’s a Creeper.
It goes in front of you, and you draw to replace it, hoping for a non-Creeper to satisfy the current Draw rule.
Your “draw to replace” is… a second Creeper.
It goes in front of you with the first, and you draw to replace it, hoping for a non-Creeper to satisfy the current Draw rule.
Your “draw to replace” is… a third Creeper.
It goes in front of you, and you draw to replace it, hoping for a non-Creeper to satisfy the current Draw rule.
Your “draw to replace” is… finally a non-Creeper, which you add to your hand, and you have successfully followed the current Draw rule, which is Draw 1.

As you can see, in some ways, your husband is right… but the thing is, the three cards that were “drawn to replace” did happen… they’re just over as soon as you draw 1 non-Creeper.

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A: There is no reason Surprises would work any differently depending on the number of players. Surprises always counter Surprises in full, no matter what the function of the Surprises in question.

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Some examples:

Example 3: Player A played Draw 3 Play 2 Of Them, drew three cards, and one of them is a Goal that let them win, so they played it. Player B then played Stop That (the counter-Action Surprise) to try to cancel the playing of Draw 3 Play 2, hoping to cancel the win.

A: In all of these cases, Player A’s actions stand, as the Surprise has been played too late. The counteractive Surprise must be played IMMEDIATELY after the card you wish to counteract. It also doesn’t apply to “the most recently played card of the target type played this turn.” Once another card of any type has been played, or a subsequent resulting action taken, it becomes too late to retroactively stop a previous card play with a Surprise.

Don’t be that person needing to ask for a special exception to the rules, and make sure the new players you’re teaching understand: Surprises need to be used in a timely manner. Whenever you have one in your hand, acquaint yourself with its power right away so that you can make a snap decision about whether to use it, since, if you hesitate too long, your opportunity is likely to pass.

So are there ever exceptions? It depends how relaxed you want to play, and how everyone is getting along. If Player B was a less-than-experienced player, it’s highly likely that it just took them a little while to read their own Surprise card to realize that it could be used in that way. If the results of a rewind are relatively inconsequential, one might cut them some slack. If Player A somehow anticipated that Player B was going to counter their play, and took their next action with barely a blink then that’s a bit rude. But if there was a heated disagreement, please do fall back on the official ruling. The ONLY reason you might choose to ignore it is if you wish to cut Player B some slack for being a n00b, or if you want to call shenanigans on Player A’s playing style for some reason.

Remember: it’s never appropriate to see the consequences of a previous card play, and THEN realize that you wish you’d stopped it before something else happened as a result of that play. In example 1, Player B probably didn’t realize that the first play would result in the win until the second card was played. In example 3, Player B couldn’t know when Draw 3 Play 2 was played that it would result in a win. Too bad. No exceptions for those cases.

This is where careful ordering of your plays and a good poker face are important so as not to broadcast your intentions. And people say there’s no strategy in Fluxx…

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… or does the card that was canceled go in the trash (or to my opponent in the case of That’s Mine), and my attempt has used up one of my plays?

See this answer in a video!
Little Answers

A: No, it’s that second thing you said: the card that got canceled goes away, and that play has been squandered. On the other hand, your opponent had to give up a card from their hand as well, so it’s not as though it’s without sacrifice on their part too.

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A: Yes.

See also: If multiple Surprises are canceled by each other, how do you figure out what happens…

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…For example, if they’re using Steal A Keeper, or Exchange Keepers, can I get the Keeper they’re acquiring?
Or if they’re Plundering a Keeper, can I take the Keeper they’re Plundering?
Or if someone plays Mix It All Up, or Share the Wealth, can I get a Keeper that’s being dealt out to someone else?

A: No, No, and No. You can only use the out-of-turn* function of That’s Mine when someone else is putting a Keeper into play in a situation where it was previously NOT in play. You can’t use it to intercept a Keeper being allocated, traded, stolen, or acquired in any other way.

In most cases it’s an Action, or possibly a Free Action, for which there are Surprises you could use – but they wouldn’t gain you the Keeper which is in transit. They would only stop the Action or Free Action from happening, preventing the Keeper from changing hands in the first place.

There are, however, some situations besides normal playing of a Keeper from someone’s hand, where wording on another card does actually include the word “play” in the way a Keeper is acquired. See this FAQ about cards played via the Free Action Wormhole (AKA Mystery Play). Or this FAQ about Actions which allow you to take a Keeper out of the discard pile and play it.

* Of course you could use your That’s Mine card on your next turn, for it’s in-turn function which is essentially the same as Steal a Keeper, so you’re really not in a bad place, even if you couldn’t get that Keeper in the middle of the results of an Action.

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A: Yes

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A: If you use the Surprise card as one of your plays during your turn, then you must use the “during your turn” functions. The “out of turn” functions almost always cancel some other card play, and it is not allowed to cancel your own play with your own Surprise. Thematically, consider this: it’s hard to really call it a “surprise” if you’re doing it to yourself in this manner.

The only time when you might not use the “during your turn” on your turn is when you’re using a Surprise to counter a Surprise played by another player against you during your turn.

See Does countering a Surprise on my turn count as…

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A: No. You can’t use the out-of-turn function of a Surprise during your turn. Note that the Canceled Plans card specifically says it is used to stop a Goal which another player has just played.

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A: Only the Goal just played.

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Player #1 contends that he won the game because the rules say that as soon as a goal is achieved the game is over and no other actions/cards can be played. Player #2 says that no, the Surprise card overrides the general rule and cancels the playing of the goal and therefore the game does not end. Which is true?

A: Yes. If the Canceled Plans card played is played immediately, it cancels the Goal and play continues to the next person. That is the intent of the card.

It works the same way for That’s Mine. If the winning play is a Keeper, That’s Mine can be used to cancel that play, preventing the win.

Again, Surprises are meant to be able to work this way… but you have to be using the correct Surprise for the type of play you’re canceling – and you must play your Surprise in a timely manner: say, within a few seconds of the player playing their card.

For more nuanced suggestions about how to resolve some tweaky timing issues, check
When a player is allowed multiple plays on their turn, are there any guidelines for timing between plays?”

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If I play a card on my turn and another player plays a Surprise to cancel it, then I play another Surprise to cancel the first one, since it’s my turn, does mounter Surprise count as a Play for me?

A: It does not count as a play. It’s sort of meta-out-of-turn.

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For example, Play 3 is in effect at the start of a turn, the current player plays Play 4, but another player plays Veto – what is the current play limit; 3, 4, or the default 1?

A: A: The newly played and Vetoed New Rule is canceled, so the old New Rule stays in play.

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Also, could I use a Surprise that was part of the subturn to cancel the attacking Surprise, and if so would that count as one of the plays?

Example:
Player #1 plays “Draw 3, Play 2 Of Them” and gets an Action, a Keeper, and a Surprise.
They play their Action and Player #2 plays Belay That [Avast, Stop That] to cancel it.
–> can Player #1 use the Surprise in their mini-hand to cancel that Surprise,
–> and if so do they still get to play their Keeper afterwards?

A: Yes, you can use a Surprise from your main hand, or from your sub-hand, to cancel another player’s Surprise during your Draw 3, Play 2 Action. Playing a Surprise to cancel a Surprise is a free action, so yes, you would get to play the third card if your second card is a Surprise that you use to counter a Surprise being used to stop your first card.

Using Goal Bonanza also results in the play of a “sub-hand” while the rest of your hand is put aside, and the same things would apply there as well. Yes, you can counter-Surprise from either your main hand or your sub-hand.

In the case of Fizzbin, you don’t have the option of using any of the cards in your temporary hand, you have to play them blind, in random order, so any Surprises that are in that temporary hand won’t be useful to you – but you can still use Surprises in your set-aside hand to counter Surprises played against cards played as part of your Fizzbin action.

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In this scenario Player #1 has the Trade Hands and Stop That, and Player #2 is being forced to trade hands.

A: No. If the surprise were in Player #2’s hand, then Player#2 could use it to stop the Action, but if the surprise is in Player #1’s hand, then Player #2 does not have access to the card until after the Trade Hands Action has been resolved, by which time it’s too late to be stopped.

If you think about it too hard, you’ll realize it can ONLY work this way. If it worked the way you described there would be a paradoxical loop:

You used the Stop That you received in Trade Hands to stop Trade Hands, so you didn’t trade hands, so you didn’t have the Stop That, so you couldn’t use it, so you traded hands, but then you had the Stop That, and you used it to prevent the Trade Hands, but then you didn’t have it, didn’t use it, but then you traded and had it…

…and so forth to insanity.

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Or must you discard a Goal/Action if you have one, and a random card only if you don’t?

A: Players get to choose. They may either look at their cards and select a Goal/Action to give up, or they may select a random card from their hand to give up. Of course, if they don’t have any Goals/Actions, they can only opt to lose a random card.

Note that random means RANDOM. They don’t get to decide which card they give up in this case. They can do this either by mixing their own hand face down, and pulling one out without looking, or they can have you pull one from their hand as they hold it up facing themselves.

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A: In the vast majority of cases, you cannot win if you have Creepers not specifically required by the goal.

Exceptions:
• Do your extraneous Creepers say that they keep you from winning? (Almost all Creepers do, but if they don’t then go for it.)
• Is there a Rule in play that lets you win even if you have Creepers? (There are a couple of these, depending on which versions you have.)
• In Batman Fluxx, if the Goal requires a Villain, Villains don’t prevent you from winning. However, if the Goal does NOT require a Villain, then Villains ANYWHERE prevent you from winning.

See also: The… Goal requires a Keeper and either of two Creepers…

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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.

Note that you may be seeing this FAQ because your deck has a version of this card with a different name. There are so many analogues for Mystery Play that you should simply check the Fluxx Comparison Chart. Highlight the row for the Rule: Mystery Play, and scroll across to the deck you have to find the card this question refers to.

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A: No. There is no limit to the number of Creepers you can have in front of you.

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A: It depends. The Creepers: Larry the Zombie, the Radioactive Potato, and the Time Bomb all move in the counter-turn direction whenever the Goal changes, however, the Time Bomb has a minor exception that makes it work slightly differently than the other two.

For Larry and the Radioactive Potato, the Goal change and the Creeper move are considered to be simultaneous. Basically, do both of the things (play the Goal and move the Creeper) and then check win conditions.

If Larry or the Potato are moving around the table preventing wins, and you play what would be the winning Goal, you need to time the play of your Goal so that they’re not going to move onto you with the play.

Conversely if the Rule: You Also Need A Baked Potato is in play such that you need the Radioactive Potato to move onto you with your winning Goal play, you’ll need to plan such that the Potato does move onto you with the Goal play. Getting the timing right to play the Goal you need is part of the challenge of having either of these on the table.

The Time Bomb in Mystery Fluxx has an exception such that, if you have the Bomb and the Body in front of you when you play the Goal: Blown to Smithereens, you can win immediately instead of having the Time Bomb sneakily slip out of your grasp just when you’ve played the Goal.

Unless you’re winning by playing that Goal yourself, however, the Time Bomb will functionally work the same way as the other two. So you’d better make sure you’re not handing your neighbor with the Body the win when you play Blown to Smithereens!

PS: Or you can plan for the sneaky Time Bomb to move to you when you have the Body, and win that way!

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A: You keep drawing until you get a non-Creeper.

You may be seeing this question because it relates to a deck with a Mystery Play analogue (a card with the same or nearly the same functionality, but a different name). To see all of the Mystery Play analogues, check out the Fluxx Card Comparison Chart, (also linked in the lower part of the right sidebar).

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