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Q: When you play Rewind or Quick Trip, and you look through the pile, can you choose not to play those if there’s nothing you want to play?

or do you have to go ahead with choosing and then playing the card you select?

A: This would ultimately be your call: how lenient do you want to be about letting people take back plays? You should form a house rule about this that everyone is clear on before they start.

But for perspective, this is how we usually rule it:

We have always played that, since anyone may look through the discard pile at any time (as it says on the Rewind card), one should check before playing a Rewind, and not play it if there isn’t something you want there. So we’ve always been lenient if someone played it, checked and realized there wasn’t what they needed, since it’s no skin off anyone’s back that they just looked through the pile after playing the card instead of before. They can retract their play, since looking through the pile is an action that made no difference to the game (except they revealed they have a Rewind, which is only bad for them – the cost of any play retraction “oopsie”).

Looking through the draw pile, however is hidden information, and we’ve always ruled that once you look through that, which you can ONLY do if you play a Quick Trip, then you DO have to choose _something_ and immediately play it. You can’t take back having seen what cards remain in the draw pile – so you can’t take back that play.

Q: What happens if I play Draw 3 Play 2 with no draw or discard pile? Do I redraw it as part of executing it?

A: You would draw as many as you can and make do with what you have at that point, even if that makes it “Draw 0 Play 2 of them.” If you don’t get your full value for the card because of the situation, maybe it’s not a good idea to play that card at this time.

The important point is that you would not redraw the Action played as one of the cards for the Action. The Action card does not become part of the discard pile until after the Action has been fully resolved. (I find it helpful to imagine that the Action card hovers in the air above the discard pile while the Action is happening, perhaps spinning slowly in space so that it can be seen by all, then gently settling down onto the discard pile afterwards.)

Note that this ruling will also apply to Draw 2 and Use ‘Em (D2UE) and Fizzbin. Neither the original action, nor the cards executed from your temporary hand are in the discard pile until the whole Action is completed.

Q: What happens if both the draw pile and the discard pile run out?

Suppose it’s a Draw 5, Play 1 type of situation and no one plays a Hand Limit or a multiple Play rule. Eventually everyone has a big hand and the draw pile runs out. The discard pile gets reshuffled and reused, but suppose the situation continues until there are no cards left to be drawn. What happens? Do you just skip the draw phase of your turn till your next turn comes up where you can draw enough cards for the ‘draw requirement’? or draw what you can now and proceed to your turn?

A: Draw what you can and continue. In general, if the rules command you to do something impossible, then you just do as much as you can, and move on. If the rule says Play 3 and you only have 2 cards, then you Play 2 and stop. Similarly, if the rule says Draw 4 and there are only 3 cards for you to draw (even after reshuffling) then you draw 3 cards and proceed with the Play phase.

So yes, if the Draw pile and the Discard pile are both empty for someone, you just continue with some people not getting any new cards during their Draw phase. Now, some cards might enter the discard pile during a person’s turn, but they don’t get to immediately Draw those available cards retroactively. You don’t assess whether the discard pile needs to be reshuffled until there is an actual need for someone to Draw. Mind you, you’ll all find yourselves drawing things someone else just played for a while, but you might not choose to use them right away.

In such a situation everyone will be holding massive hands of cards so there should be plenty you can Play, even if you’re not drawing any. At some point someone will play a Hand Limit and suddenly there will be plenty of cards to shuffle again. (This is why every version of Fluxx has Hand Limits.)