Archives

Q: If it’s not my turn, and I acquire an attachable Keeper which brings me over the Keeper Limit, and I have an unattached Attaching Creeper, does it attach before I comply with the Limit?

A: Yes, the unattached Creeper will instantly attach to its newly-found victim, and, after that happens, you discard a Keeper to bring you back down to the Limit. This means you can choose to discard the afflicted Keeper, thus ridding yourself of the Creeper. If, however, for some reason you wish to keep the Creeper, you can choose to discard a non-afflicted Keeper instead.

Q: If a Keeper has the ability to “detach and discard” a Creeper, does that Creeper need to be attached in order for them to discard the Creeper?

A: There are a handful of cards which are able to get rid of certain Attaching Creepers, and the language about how this happens varies.

In Star Fluxx, both the Doctor and the Engineer say they can “detach and discard” Brain Parasites and Malfunction respectively. The “detach and discard” language does mean that the Creeper must be attached in order for them to discard it. Let’s use Malfunction as our example, for reasons we’ll discuss in a sec.

If you have Malfunction, and it’s not attached to anything, there isn’t anything Malfunctioning. Nothing is broken, so the Engineer has nothing to fix. Thematically this works perfectly, though it’s a bit harder to justify why the “floating possibility of a Malfunction” could prevent you from winning, but that’s the way it goes. Maybe you just have bad luck hovering over you, waiting to happen, and that’s enough to do it.

Note that it’s actually impossible to have the Doctor available to cure unattached Brain Parasites. If the Doctor is there, then the Brain Parasites will attach to him, and he won’t be curing anyone (of Brain Parasites, the only known health issue in the universe… or, well, the deck)

Interestingly enough, in all four of the Trek Fluxxen (Original Series, TNG, DS9, and Voyager) the language on the Engineer’s card says simply. “If you have a Malfunction, you may discard it.” With this wording, there’s no question about whether Malfunction must be attached; clearly it doesn’t have to be.

Ironically, however, without the “detach” language, technically any afflicted Keeper should be discarded with its Malfunction. However, we all know that the Engineer is supposed to fix things, not just toss them when they break, so we hope that nobody has been doing that. (So wasteful!) Just in case, though, we have an FAQ specifically for that instance. Obviously, we should have used the same language on the Trek Engineers as we did in Star Fluxx… but we didn’t. Oh well.

Finally, in Cthulhu Fluxx, we have two Keepers which can remove attached Creepers. One is the Sanitarium, which says, “you can discard Nightmares and/or Madness if they are attached to one of your other cards.” Though it doesn’t mention detaching, like the Trek engineers, nobody seems to question that the Sanitarium isn’t going to kill its denizens (though this is Cthulhu Fluxx, so…).

Lastly, there’s The Dreamer, which says, “you can detach and discard Nightmares if they are in play.” It uses the “detach and discard” language, which we’ve clarified above. (You can only discard them if they’re attached.) What’s interesting about The Dreamer is that it’s the only card like this which would let you cure someone else’s Keepers if you wanted to. This would seem to be counter-productive, but there are, of course, Goals which call for certain Creepers, so it’s conceivable that you might want to get rid of an opponent’s Creeper.

Q: Can a Keeper have more than one Attaching Creeper attached to it?

A: Yes. In Star Fluxx, you could have an Evil Malfunctioning Robot. In Cthulhu Fluxx, you could have a Metamorphosing Poet who is plagued by Nightmares.

The only exception to this is in Anatomy Fluxx, where, the way the Creepers are written, you can only attach them to a Keeper which is not already afflicted, so any given Keeper can only be attached to one Creeper. On the other hand, in Anatomy Fluxx you also have the only case where you can have multiple Keepers attached to one Creeper.
If the Rule It’s Spreading! is in play, then, every time your turn comes around, you must attach an additional Keeper (if you have any unattached in play).

Q: Can the Magic Sword in Fantasy Fluxx banish itself if it is Evil?

A: To refresh, in Fantasy Fluxx, the Magic Sword Keeper has the ability to move one Creeper away from you to another player. Evil is an Attaching Creeper which could be attached to the Magic Sword. Evil does not impair its Keeper, however (cause it to lose its special ability), so the Magic Sword could still be used to “banish” Evil. Since Attaching Creepers and the Keeper they’re attached to stay together unless otherwise noted, the Magic Sword would end being used to banish itself. Think of this as the player looking at the sword, realizing it’s evil, and yeeting it away from themselves.

Contrast this with the behavior of the Laser Sword in Star Fluxx, which can be used to destroy a Creeper. The Laser Sword can not destroy the Creeper attached to itself, because that would mean destroying itself. Picture the player picking up a laser sword and attempting to use the laser sword to strike itself. It’s just not possible.

Q: In Fantasy Fluxx, if Evil is attached to a Keeper which is Invisible, what happens when Mix It All Up is played?

…Mix It All Up detaches Attaching Creepers. That is clear enough from the card, but what if the Keeper is Invisible, but it has a Creeper attached (Evil is the only Attaching Creeper in Fantasy Fluxx, so we’re basically talking about just that)… Would they stick together and both “become visible” and go into the Mix? Would they be split? Or would they both be considered Invisible?

A: This is a tricky case, so I consulted with Andy. His ruling is that attachment to an Invisible Keeper renders the Evil Invisible as well, so it would not be included in the Mix. After all, as an Attaching Creeper, Evil is a modifier of the item as much as Invisibility. If a Keeper is Invisible, it doesn’t make sense that becoming Evil would suddenly render it visible again.

Q: If I use That’s Mine (or Twist of Fate) out of turn to take a Keeper from my opponent, is there time for one of their attaching Creepers to attach to the Keeper I’m stealing, forcing me to take the Creeper as well?

A: Although the attachment of attaching Creepers is almost instantaneous (happening even before something like the Elder Sign or Necronomicon can protect itself from the Creeper) the intent of Surprises is to nullify the targeted card play as if it hadn’t happened, or, in the case of the Keeper-nullifier, as though you had played the Keeper directly to yourself instead of your opponent playing it to themselves.

“Out of Turn: When another player plays a Keeper, it goes in front of you instead of them…”

So, in this case, it’s as though the Keeper being hijacked would technically not hit the table in front of your opponent at all, and therefore it is not possible for any of their Creepers to attach (or be covered, in the case of the Elder Sign).

TLDR: If you Surprise a Keeper-play of someone with a Creeper that could accompany the Keeper, you are not forced to take the Creeper. You just get the Keeper.

Q: If a Goal requires a Keeper and Attaching Creeper, must it be attached to the Keeper on the Goal, or could it be attached to any of my Keepers?

… – For example: The Spock’s Beard Goal requires Spock and the Mirror Universe. If I had Spock, but the Mirror Universe is attached to Uhura, do I still win? Or does it have to be attached to Spock in order to win with that goal?

A: No, the Creeper does not have to be attached to the Keeper it goes with for the Goal.

This is sort of the corollary to this question: If my Attaching Creepers are not attached to the Keepers I need to win…

Q: If I have the Computer in play, and I draw Malfunction as my first card, does it immediately eliminate my extra draw?

…We had the Basic Rules in play, and I had the Computer, so I would be drawing 2 on my turn. If the first card I draw is the Creeper Malfunction, does it immediately attach to the Computer, thus eliminating my extra draw? What if it’s the second card I drew, do I NOT get to draw to replace the Creeper?

A: Not everyone draws their cards one… by… one… in fact, the draw phase should be considered one simultaneous acquisition of your Draw allotment at that time. So you should draw 2 cards. Then, seeing that you have Malfunction, you should put it down and, yes, redraw, as you need to complete the draw phase in its entirety as defined at the time you started it. Then and only then do you have to worry about exactly what your Malfunction is going to attach to.

In short:
According to the game-state when you started your draw phase, your Draw allotment (the Draw rule for you) is 2 cards.
So you draw 2 cards, and if there’s a Creeper among those, you put it down on the table and redraw until you have drawn 2 non-Creepers.
Then you attach the Creeper if applicable.

Now… later in your turn, if you increase the Draw rule, you’ll have to take a look at your current Draw allotment for your turn, which no longer includes a mathematical increase to your draw. So if you go from Basic Rules (Draw 1) to Draw 2, you’ll take a look at how many cards you drew for your turn, and conclude that you’ve already drawn 2, so you don’t get to draw for the increase.

The situation is similar to this: It’s just as though the Draw rule (for you) at the beginning of your turn is Draw 2, so you get to do that. Then Malfunction effectively reduces the Draw rule (for you) down to 1. Well, you’re not required to “undraw” that extra card you took, but if the Draw rule then increases back to 2… well, you’ve already drawn 2 on your turn, so you don’t get to draw extra. (Or if you increase to Draw 3, then you’d only get to draw 1 more, since you already drew 2 on your turn.)

Q: At the end of a turn, which would happen first: the Holographic Projector/Holodeck turns off, or Keepers are discarded from a Keeper Limit?

…One player would have been winning on their turn due to the Holographic Projector imitating another Keeper, except that they also had a Keeper-With-Attached-Creeper. At the end of their turn, the Keeper Limit compelled them to discard a Keeper, and they discarded the one with the Creeper, so they were no longer prevented from winning… but was it no longer their turn, so the Holographic Projector was no longer imitating the other required Keeper?

A: In this case those two things are considered to happen simultaneously: the discard of the Creeper (via the Keeper Limit) and the “turning off” of the Holographic Projector. Execute both things, and THEN evaluate whether anyone is meeting the win conditions. That player essentially goes instantaneously from not-winning because of the Creeper, to not-winning because their Hologram isn’t working. A sad story for them.

For more details, see this Order of Events in a Fluxx Turn

Q: How does Share The Wealth (or Mix It All Up) interact with attaching Creepers?

A: We’re very careful not to include cards that don’t play well together in a deck. So, for most decks with Creepers, we use Mix It All Up (or one of its analogues, like Crawling Chaos) instead of Share The Wealth. Star Fluxx doesn’t have either card (Share The Wealth OR Mix It All Up). The only deck with Creepers that has Share The Wealth is Pirate Fluxx, which does not have attaching Creepers, and Crawling Chaos (in Cthulhu Fluxx), which includes Creepers but specifically says that you do detach Creepers to mix them up, so that should be clear.

Mix It All Up is clear in its wording that it will detach Attaching Creepers, in that it says to gather them all, and when redistributed “Creepers that attach are attached to a new Keeper…” We don’t want a “memory condition” to exist where you have to remember what a Creeper was attached to when you mix them all together.

If you’re encountering Share the Wealth with Attaching Creepers, it would only be if you were mixing decks, in which case, please treat it as if it were a Mix It All Up card: detach all Creepers, and mix them all in with the Keepers to deal out. If you’re just playing Pirate Fluxx, it should not be an issue to play Share The Wealth as written, i.e. not including Creepers.

Q: Can the Laser Sword (or Laser Pistol) destroy itself if it is Evil?

In Star Fluxx the Evil Creeper can be attached to any Keeper, including the Laser Sword, right? And the Evil Creeper doesn’t impair the Keeper it’s attached to… so if I have an Evil Laser Sword in front of me on the table can I use it to destroy itself?

The card says “You can discard any Keeper in front of you if it has a Creeper attached to it” which technically doesn’t exclude this case – but it doesn’t really make sense. How to resolve that?

A: Wow, you’re right. The wording doesn’t specifically exclude the Laser Sword being able to destroy itself, and yet that’s pretty illogical. It looks like we should have worded it:

“You can discard any other Keeper in front of you that has a Creeper attached to it.”
(emphasis added)
Or for the Laser Pistol “You can discard any Keeper in front of any player that has a Creeper attached to it (except the Pistol itself).”

We’ll probably want to tweak that wording on future print runs. For now, please go ahead and use the the logical interpretation that it can’t destroy itself. The Laser Pistol should be similarly limited to specify that it cannot destroy itself.

Q: For the Action Creeper Reassignment, what does “other” mean? Other myself, or other than the person who had it?

…We were playing a two player game, and I drew Creeper Reassignment on my turn. We were at hand limit zero, and draw 1, play 1, so I had to play it. I had no Creepers, and my opponent had one. Creeper Reassignment reads:

“Take any one Creeper currently in play and move it to be in front of any other player. If it’s currently attached to a Keeper, detach it before moving the Creeper. You must attach it to an appropriate Keeper (if possible) after moving it”

How do I interpret “other” in this case? Do I move it to another player other than me; therefore I give it back to the player who had the card? Or a player other than the player who had the keeper; therefore, I must take the Creeper?

A: This is a tricky one. I had to consult Andy himself, and he admitted that it was tricky too. He acknowledged that according to the wording, you’d be forced to take it if “other” meant “other than the person you took it from” and you’d be barred from taking it yourself (you might want it for a Goal) if “other” meant “other than yourself.”

However, he says his intent was always that you should be able to take it yourself if you want it, but being forced to take it yourself if you don’t want it sucks, and wasn’t really the intent either. We have tweaked the wording on this card, but if you have an older edition, consider it to read as follows:

“Take any one Creeper currently in play and move it to be in front of any player. If it’s currently attached to a Keeper, detach it before moving the Creeper. You must attach it to an appropriate Keeper (if possible) after moving it.”

So you can move the Creeper anywhere you want, including “moving” it to be in front of the person it’s already in front of, i.e. not moving it.

Q: Attaching Creepers say “both cards stay together until discarded.” Are there exceptions to this rule?

A: While one of the most obvious ways to get rid of a Creeper attached to one of your Keepers is to destroy them both (or move them both), there ARE ways that you can destroy the Creeper while still retaining the Keeper. The key things here are 1) explicit wording, and 2) thematic appropriateness.

In Star Fluxx*, the exceptions are the Doctor, who can cure Brain Parasites, and the Engineer*, who can fix a Malfunction. In both cases they detach the Creeper, and the Keeper is left, good as new. Creeper Reassignment also specifically states that you detach the Creeper to move it. In Cthulhu Fluxx, the Dreamer states that he can detach Nightmares and discard it. Meanwhile the Sanitarium logically can cure an afflicted Keeper of Nightmares or Insanity. In Anatomy Fluxx, special actions allow you to “cure” yourself.

Some examples where the Creepers DO stay attached would be, in Star Fluxx, the weapons Laser Sword and Laser Pistol, which, again, quite logically, destroy the Keeper in order to destroy the attached Creeper. And while the Phaser in Star Trek or TNG Fluxx targets just the Creeper, it doesn’t say anything about detaching the Keeper either, so if you use it to get rid of an attached Creeper, the Keeper it’s attached to will also be destroyed. The Teleporter will move a Keeper… and its attached Creeper. If a Keeper or Creeper goes into the trash, then it’s attached card goes along.

In Cthulhu Fluxx, The Feds are pretty much the equivalent, though they also destroy themselves in the process. The Necronomicon lets you move any Creeper… and says nothing about detaching it, so you’d have to move any attendant Keeper (and extra Creepers if more than one is attached).

Trash Something is the generic Action version of what the weapons allow you to do. You could trash a Keeper, and it’s Creeper will go along, or you could trash a Creeper, and it’s attached Keeper would go along. There’s no logical reason or explicit wording that lets you detach connected Creeper-Keeper combos for this Action.

*In various Star Trek Fluxxen, there are specific Engineer analogues: Scotty, Geordi, O’Brien that work the same way with respect to Malfunction.

Q: If a player has both the Mi-Go/Fungi Creeper & the Elder Sign (& several investigators) what happens when Mi-Go Migration is played?

(and of course the Mi-Go/Fungi is not covered by the Elder Sign). The first part of Mi-Go Migration says that all players discard an Investigator, except for the player with the Elder Sign. The second part of Mi-Go Migration says that the player with the Mi-Go/Fungi Creeper loses ALL their investigators (and the Mi-Go), but doesn’t mention any protection from the Elder Sign in this case. What should happen in this case?

A: We consulted Keith (our game designer friend and Lovecraft expert who adapted Fluxx to the Cthulhu theme for us) and he ruled that, in a strict reading of the card, you’d take each paragraph separately, in order:

1) All players discard an Investigator except the player with the Elder Sign.
2) The player with the Mi-Go in play loses ALL their Investigators. As it comes second, it ends up overriding the first rule entirely.
Result: The player with the Mi-Go loses all their Investigators, and the Elder Sign does not protect against this effect at all.

HOWEVER: It was put forth that another possible call would be to rule that the Elder Sign is capable of protecting exactly ONE Investigator, and no more, so that the person who had both Mi-Go and Elder Sign would lose all but one Investigator. He says this would be a perfectly reasonable Keith-approved house rule one might choose to implement.

Q: What happens if I Zap a Creeper attached to a Keeper? Or Zap a Keeper with a Creeper attached?

A: The Creeper and Keeper stay attached together until something separates them. So they would go to you, and attempt to go into your hand, which would separate them, since a Creeper cannot be held in your hand. So you’d end up with the Keeper in your hand, and the Creeper on the table in front of you, which will immediately attach to a Keeper, if possible (some can attach to any Keeper, some only to certain types.)

Q: How is the Elder Sign covering a Creeper different from other Keepers with a Creeper attached?

The Elder Sign, in Cthulhu Fluxx specifically states that the Creeper it’s covering moves with it. This is not specifically noted for other attaching Creepers. Does that mean other attaching Creepers don’t move with their attached Keeper?

A: The reason the Elder sign specifically tells you that its Creeper comes along for the ride is that the Creeper associated with the Elder Sign is not actually attached, rather, it is being nullified. Hiding in this fashion does not constitute attachment: you’re completely hiding the Creeper as though it doesn’t exist for you. Therefore it can’t prevent you from winning, but neither can it be used for a Goal.

Also note that the Elder Sign can hide ANY Creeper, even if it’s one that is not capable of attachment (but if it is an attaching type Creeper, you can’t hide it if it’s already attached to some other Keeper, hence the requirement that the Creeper be unattached in order to hide it).

Q: Does the Mooch travel with Weed if it is stolen?

A: The Mooch is not technically an attaching Creeper like some others, so he does not simply travel with the Weed when it is stolen. He is merely attracted to the Weed and chases after it if it’s around, and he’s not that fast on the pickup. So he doesn’t go with the Weed immediately if it moves, but as soon as your next turn rolls around, you can move him away to wherever the Weed is.

Q: If I’m using my Laser Pistol to shoot another player’s Keeper-with-Creeper, and they have the Expendable Crewman, what happens?

Does this negate the Laser Pistol power (as the Expendable Crewman has no Creeper attached)
-or-
Do we discard the Creeper (attached to a different Keeper) and the Expendable Crewman?
-or-
Do we discard the Expendable Crewman only?

See this question in a video!
Our Friend The Expendable Crewman, Part 1
Our Friend The Expendable Crewman, Part 2

A: The Expendable Crewman’s powers take precedence over the Laser Pistol’s. So even though you aimed and shot the Laser Pistol at the Keeper/Creeper combo, the Expendable Crewman leapt (tripped?) into the line of fire, and was offed instead, leaving the Keeper/Creeper combo still there to be dealt with some other way. Note that in Star Trek Fluxx, Ensign Smith functions as the Expendable Crewman, and in TNG Fluxx, Tasha Yar has that power.

So, knowing this, you might choose not to even point the Laser Pistol in that direction, knowing that annoying Expendable Crewman is hanging around – but that’s up to you.

(Keep in mind that if you’re the one with the Expendable Crewman, AND the Laser Pistol or Sword, you’re free to target your own Keeper-with-Creeper, without accidentally hitting your own Expendable Crewman. If the shot is coming from within his own ship, he will dutifully follow directions, and stand aside, letting the attack go through. It’s only when outside forces threaten that he gets flustered or over-brave.)

Q: Can the Elder Sign or the Necronomicon protect themselves from unattached Metamorphosis?

If I draw (and play) Metamorphosis while I control The Elder Sign, do I have time to put The Elder Sign on top of Metamorphosis before Metamorphosis can attach? What about the reverse order? Suppose I have Metamorphosis but no Keepers (so Metamorphosis is unattached). Can I play The Elder Sign on top of Metamorphosis?

Similarly, with the Necronomicon, do I have time to use its special power to move Metamorphosis away before it attaches itself to the book?

A: Just for the record, it’s not so much that you play the Elder Sign on top of a Creeper, as it is that you hide a Creeper under it after both are on the table. After discussing this with Andy, his ruling was that Creepers attach instantly to applicable Keepers they share the table with (in front of a given player). It doesn’t matter which order you play Metamorphosis and the Keeper; Metamorphosis would attach instantly, and the Keeper would lose its special ability before it had a chance to use it to get rid of or neutralize Metamorphosis.

Q: Please explain how Metamorphosis and Madness impair Keepers in Cthulhu Fluxx.

A: The Keepers in Cthulhu Fluxx that have special powers (meaning there is some ability which could be impaired) include:

The Dreamer (cure Nightmares anywhere on the table, whether attached or not)
The Reanimator (steal The Body, if in play)
The Socialite (steal The Poet, if in play)
The Sanitarium (cure Nightmares or Madness if attached to your Keepers)
The Elder Sign (hide, i.e. neutralize any one unattached Creeper)
The Necronomicon (move any Creeper from player to player, then put the Necronomicon back in your hand)
The Ghoul (discard The Body, if it is in front of you)
The Cultist (win if in play when The Dunwich Horror Ungoal causes everyone else to lose)

Here is a flavor-text interpretation:

Regarding Madness (which only affects Investigators)
The Dreamer, Reanimator and Socialite can’t do any of that nifty stuff they do if they have gone Insane. Easy. Remember that Nightmares, however, don’t impair the Keeper, so The Dreamer can still get rid of them, even if he’s the one who has them.

Regarding Metamorphosis (which can attach to ANY Keeper)
If a Keeper starts to Metamorphose, it just can’t function the way it should. A Metamorphosed Sanitarium probably isn’t going to cure your Madness or your Nightmares (in fact, it will probably make them worse) and neither will a Metamorphosed Dreamer. The Socialite just isn’t going to be particularly attractive to The Poet once she starts turning into a frog-person.

There are some other theming issues that are raised with Metamorphosis, however, because it is so far-reaching (attaches to any Keeper).

For example, does it really make sense that Wilbur Whately wouldn’t win if The Dunwich Horror occurred, just because he was Metamorphosed? I thought a main quality of this personage was that he was pretty darn metamorphosed to begin with. Also, somehow I thought a Metamorphosed Ghoul would still eat Dead Bodies.

I consulted Andy on this, however, and he had to conclude that, while it does not necessarily make the best thematic sense, the rule with regards to gameplay, is quite clear: those special abilities are lost if that Keeper is Metamorphosed. Maybe they start morphing into something NICER than they were before!

Ghoul: “My tummy feels funny! That Dead Body just doesn’t look that appetizing anymore…”

Wilbur: “OMG where are my abdominal tentacles?! Dad’s* totally not going to recognize me without them! I am SO toast…”

* For those less familiar with The Dunwich Horror, Wilbur Whately is the abomination of a son resulting from a human woman bearing the child of an Elder God. Wilbur is trying to summon his father, Yog Sothoth, to the Earthly plane.

Q: What counts as a “special power” that might be impaired by an attaching Creeper?

any of these?
Card text (paragraphs)
Card title or name
Card Type (special symbols)
Doom/anti-doom hourglasses

A: The special powers referred to on Creepers that can be canceled out are found in the paragraphs describing any special actions or abilities related to having a given Keeper in play. There’s nothing special about a card being a Keeper, or about the name (there are no “names” of cards that give you any abilities are there?) Doom/anti-doom counters are also a separate concept, unaffected by Creepers: Doom is a quality, not an ability.

Q: If my attaching Creepers are not attached to the Keepers I need to win, can I still win?

A: Creeper cards say “You can’t win if you have this unless the Goal says otherwise.” This means that having a Creeper in play in front of you prevents you from winning whether it is attached to one of the Keepers needed for the Goal or not.

Creepers occur in many versions of Fluxx, but only in a relatively few versions do they attach to specific Keepers. So the question of attachment does not affect the general behavior and limitations of Creepers.

This is sort of the corollary to this question: If a Goal requires a Keeper and an Attaching Creeper…

Q: If the Federal Agents have Metamorphosis attached, can they use their power to get rid of it?

A: Metamorphosis (and Madness) specifically state that any special powers of the Keeper they are attached to are nullified, so the Feds cannot “cure themselves” of either one. Note that in order to use their special power, you sacrifice the Feds Keeper, so in this case, it makes them seem oddly sane that they don’t want to kill themselves even when they go Mad or start to Metamorphose.

Nightmares, on the other hand, while they do attach, do not impair the Keeper, so the Feds could “kill themselves” to “cure” themselves of Nightmares. This would be perfectly effective, gameplay-wise, though it does seem a bit drastic, thematically:

“Agent Jones is having terrible nightmares, Sir!”
“Well, clearly, the only way to solve this case is to kill him, even if it means taking some casualties ourselves….”
“I’ll assemble a team, Sir!”

Q: Must attaching Creepers be attached at the first available opportunity, or only are they only attachable when first played?

For example, if an attaching Creeper is played when there is no appropriate Keeper to attach to, does it stay unattached forever (or until the Action Creeper Reassignment is played), or does it attach to the next available Keeper which accompanies it in play? In other words, does it only attach if there are (appropriate) Keepers in play when it goes down on the table, or will it attach to Keepers played later?

A: The text on attaching Creepers states “If you have any [appropriate Keepers] in play, you much choose one to attach this to.” This property is not limited to the moment when the Creeper is first played. If there is no appropriate Keeper to attach to when it is played, it will attach to the first appropriate Keeper that arrives.

Q: When you use the Teleporter or Transporter on a Keeper with an attached Creeper, does the Creeper move as well?

A: If you are using the Teleporter in Star Fluxx, then yes. Whatever Creeper or Creepers are attached to the Keeper teleported will move as well. That’s one of the ways you can get rid of Creepers in front of you: to teleport the Keeper they’re attached to to some other player.

Note that the Transporter in Star Trek Fluxxen has a different function, however. Rather than moving a Keeper from one player to another on the table, it takes any Keeper on the table up into the hand of the player who has the Transporter. In those cases, it’s more like a repeatable, personal Beam-Us-Up-with-Transporter. In those cases, think of it this way: both cards get sucked up into the hand of the person with the Transporter, and then the Creeper, which can’t be held in your hand, goes back onto the table in front of the person who took the Keeper.

See also What happens if Beam Us Up is played with the Teleporter/Transporter in play, and someone has a being/crew member with a Creeper attached to it on the table?

Q: When I trash, destroy, discard, exchange, or recycle one half of a Keeper/Creeper attached combo do they stay together?

A: You may notice that Attaching Creepers are usually something which modifies the qualities of the Keeper itself. The idea is that they become as inseparable as one object. You don’t have a Doctor and a Brain Parasite, you have a Sick Doctor; you don’t have a Poet and Insanity and Metamorphosis, you have an Insane Mutated Poet; you don’t have a Holodeck and a Malfunction, you have a Malfunctioning Holodeck; you don’t have a Bacteria and Liver and Heart and Thyroid, you have one giant Liver-Heart-Thyroid Infection (yipes!); you don’t have Spock and the Mirror Universe, you have Mirror Universe Spock, and so on, and so on…

That’s the whole point of the “stays together until discarded” wording. Anything that you could do to the Keeper will also happen to the Creeper which is attached to it, and vice versa. In Star Fluxx, when you use the Laser Sword or Laser Pistol to attack a Keeper with a Creeper attached, you are attacking the afflicted Keeper, and the whole point is that it’s a way to get rid of the Creeper.

In the Star Trek Fluxxes, the Phaser is similar, but the language states that you are targeting the Creeper (because the Trek Fluxxes include non-attaching Creepers as well, it makes the Phaser more useful against ALL Creepers, not just attaching ones). When you destroy the Creeper, then if it is attached to a Keeper, the Keeper will be destroyed too (it’s not possible to shoot just the Mirror Universe aspect of Mirror Universe Spock, you have to shoot the dude as a whole…)

You can Trash a Keeper, Exchange Keepers, or discard it because of a Keeper Limit. All totally valid ways to rid yourself of annoying attached Creepers! (If you Trash Something to discard the Creeper, the Keeper it’s attached to will also be trashed, of course.)

You can even Recycle it (bonus!) and the attached Creeper will go into the discard pile with the Keeper. “Oh, this thing is messed up and useless to me now. In fact, it’s a hindrance!… I don’t want it anymore. But hey! At least I can recycle it!”

In fact, if you’re trying to acquire a certain Creeper to meet a Goal, you can Steal a Keeper (or Steal Something), and you’ll get the whole Keeper/Creeper combo. see: If a Goal requires a Keeper and Attaching Creeper…

Your Hologram or Holodeck is not duplicating just a Robot, it’s duplicating an Evil Robot… for better or for worse, as the case may be! see: If the Holographic Projector/Holodeck is used to imitate a Keeper with a Creeper attached…

There are some exceptions, and they’re usually very explicitly worded to let you know they are exceptions. see: …Are there exceptions to this rule?

Or they follow directly from qualities of the Creeper (i.e. things which would take the Keeper up into someone’s hand, but it has a Creeper attached, will result in the Creeper being “spat out” in front of the person who took the combo up into their hand.
see: If someone plays Beam Us Up, and one player had a being/crew member with a Creeper attached…
see: What happens if I use Zap a Card on a Creeper/Keeper combo?

Q: If the Holographic Projector/Holodeck is used to imitate a Keeper with a Creeper attached, does the Hologram count as both the Keeper and the Creeper at the same time?

Say I have a Robot with Evil attached to it. If my girlfriend plays the Holographic Projection and then the Robot Uprising Goal, does she win?

A: Yes. Your girlfriend wins.

Think of an attached Creeper as being simply an aspect of its host Keeper, something that transforms the whole rather than just riding on top. The Holographic Projection copies the whole thing, and if that’s all you need for victory, you win. On the other hand, if you need just the Keeper, but it has a Creeper attached, then suddenly you also have the Creeper, which will probably prevent your win.

If all you needed was the Creeper from the Hologram, and you have the other half of the Goal yourself, you could also win. For example, if she had the Starship, and you had the Robot with Evil attached, she could Hologram the Evil Robot, and win with the Goal Imperial Destroyer (Evil and the Starship).

Note, however, that if you need the Keeper to win, but not the Creeper, if you Holographically imitate the Keeper, you’ll also “acquire” the Creeper, which will prevent your win if it’s not the exact Creeper needed for the Goal.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
I must admit it seemed illogical to me (Alison), but Andy and I recently debated this again. The wording on the card says that if you have the Holographic Projection in front of you, it’s as though you have the imitated Keeper were in front of you AND NOT them (emphasis added). So you have it INSTEAD of them.

When I protested to Andy that you having a holographic projection of something that I have shouldn’t negate my having the actual thing, he argued that he’d prefer to stick with the original wording, as it is actually clearer in terms of gameplay (as opposed to calling it a tie, in which case you’d have to keep playing until a clear winner emerges, which, by the way, is the rule for any situation in Fluxx where there appear to be dual winners. Except for the APTWE. Of course).

Moreover, Andy had this logical workaround: the holographic projector is SO GOOD that if you have a holographic projection of something duplicating it, it’s as though you’ve swapped with the other person, and they suddenly realize they don’t have the original/s any more at all:

“OMG! How long has this doctor been a hologram???”

Q: If someone plays Beam Us Up, and one player had a being/crew member with a Creeper attached, what happens? What if someone has the Teleporter/Transporter?

A: The Keeper and Creeper would get sucked up into that person’s hand… but a Creeper can never be in your hand, so the Creeper is then immediately played back to the table by that player. It would either then reattach to some other Keeper if possible, or hang around for as long as it takes for a new Keeper of the right type to show up to attach to.

Once you understand what’s happening with Beam Us Up in the normal case, you can figure out what will happen if someone has the Teleporter or Transporter in play. The Creeper won’t be left behind with the original owner, it is attached to the Keeper which is Beamed up, and when taken up into that person’s hand it’s then “spat out” in front of that player… not the person the Crew Member was taken from.

Q: Why don’t Brain Parasites impair the Keeper? And if they don’t impair, why can’t the Doctor cure himself?

A: No. Brain Parasites don’t inhibit their host Keeper’s power, but in the case of the Doctor, he cannot treat himself. As the card says, he can only discard Brain Parasites if attached to one of your other cards.” Of course, if you have the promo card The Android Doctor, then he can cure the Doctor of Brain Parasites, and vice versa (the Doctor could cure the Robo-Doc). Like the Doctor himself, however, the Robo-Doc can’t cure himself either.

Here’s the full thematic explanation of why Brain Parasites don’t inhibit Keepers’ abilities, but they DO keep the Doctor from healing himself:

The reason is not due to the fact that he’s lost his curative powers. If you have Brain Parasites, then your every action will be subject to the whims of these aliens who have invaded your head. The Brain Parasites might WANT the Engineer to repair that computer. They might WANT the Captain to steal the Scientist. After all, they don’t want to do stuff that’s bad for their host, right?

But it simply doesn’t make sense for them to ever allow the Doctor to use his curative powers to evict themselves from his own cozy cranium. In fact, if there were multiple Brain Parasite Creepers in the game, the Brain Parasites would, logically, bar the Doc from curing anyone of Brain Parasites (which would effectively nullify the Doctor, since in this game that’s apparently the only curable disease in known space.)

PS: The real question in my mind is why the Brain Parasites don’t nullify the powers of The Expendable Crewman, since his “power” is that he frequently gets himself kidnapped or killed. Kidnapped is fine… I can totally imagine a scenario where the Brain Parasite might want it’s host to get stolen and taken to another ship (“Oh goody, we shall spread to a whole new crew!”). But one of the possible (though perhaps drastic) ways to get rid of an attaching Creeper is to destroy the host Keeper, and the Expendable Crewman’s power is to somehow step into the line of fire, even when he’s not the intended target. Maybe the “power” of the Expendable Crewman is just so strong that even having his mind controlled by an alien being can’t keep him from being a hot-headed klutz.

Q: Can I put more than one Attaching Creeper on the same Keeper?

A: Yes, as long as the Keeper is compatible with the Creeper. Some attaching Creepers can only attach to Keepers with certain specific qualities, like they have to be sentient, or they have to be investigators, or they have to be mechanical.

For example, you could attach both Evil and Malfunction to the Teleporter to get an Evil Malfunctioning Teleporter. In Cthulhu Fluxx, The Poet could be Mad and also have Nightmares… heck, he could also be Metamorphosed as well.

This can make it easier to get rid of those Creepers, since you only have to get rid of that one VERY afflicted Keeper to ditch ALL the attached Creepers.

Q: Does Evil cause the Keeper that it’s attached to not to work?

A: No. (If that were the case, the card would say so.)

Thematically, it actually works quite well, sometimes BETTER if the Keeper is Evil. I think if you were using the Dark Side of the Unseen Force you’d be even more likely to mess with people’s heads. If you were a Bad Guy Space Captain it would totally be in character for you to shanghai other people’s Crew Members. And just because you’re an Evil Engineer doesn’t mean you can’t fix that Malfunctioning Robot – I mean, it might be your Killer Death Robot! You could be an Evil Doctor seeking to eradicate the peaceful Brain Parasite species. See, it totally works.

Evil also occurs in Fantasy Fluxx, where it is the only Attaching Creeper. Again, there’s no reason why it should cause anything to not work. The Magic Wand still turns any non-magical being into a Spellcaster, whether Evil is attached to the Person or the Wand, it makes no difference. There really aren’t any thematic reasons it should impair the Keeper either: there are plenty of Evil Spellcasters in the literature, evil Magic Rings (the most famous one does, in fact, turn one invisible, no less!) Evil Dragons, Evil Pirates, and so forth. Sadly, Evil is versatile, and seems to “work” with everything…