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Q: If the Batcave is being exchanged with Exchange Keepers, can that be stopped with a Surprise?

A: It depends on who played the Exchange Keepers card – the person with the Batcave, trading it away for some other Keeper, or another player, using Exchange Keepers to try to get the Batcave.

To refresh: the Batcave says “Other players cannot play Surprises during your turn.”

In the first case, where the person with the Batcave plays Exchange Keepers, that cannot be stopped with a Surprise, because, at the time you’d have to play the Surprise, that person has the Batcave, and you can’t play Surprises during their turn. Letting it be possible results in a paradox: If you stop the Exchange, then they have the Batcave, and you can’t stop the Exchange…

In the second case, however, the person playing Exchange Keepers does not have the Batcave at the time they play that Action, so they are not yet protected by the Batcave’s super-ultra-high-security, and are susceptible to being Surprised.

Q: If my only Keeper is the card which is in the center of the table as the Central Axis, can I use it to Exchange Keepers with another player?

A: No, you can’t use the Central Axis card to Exchange Keepers with another player. It may count as yours during your turn, but not to the extent of being able to trade away what is essentially public property.

It would be like, if, every Wednesday, the cow on the commons got to be yours, and you could milk it. You could even enter it into a contest and win! But you can’t decide to trade it away for a new refrigerator just for yourself.

Q: What things can trigger You Can’t Take This Guy From Me? It seems like a really harsh card!

A: Assuming the card being taken away from someone is a character Keeper, the following can trigger You Can’t Take This Guy From Me (YCTTGFM): Mix It All Up, Trash Something, Steal Something, Exchange Keepers, Plunder, and Keeper powers that let you take someone else’s Keeper.

Cards which definitely DON’T trigger YCTTGFM would be things which take cards from your hand, like Use What You Take, or Random Tax.

We would agree — YCTTGFM is a bit harsher than average for Fluxx, but there it is. Fluxx cards can vary from harmless or ineffectual to… taking someone’s whole hand. It does tend to even out, on the whole, we feel.

If you really hate the card, feel free to take it out of your deck. Totally your prerogative! Fluxx is supposed to be fun, so if this takes the fun out of it for you, then ditch it. We want you to have fun!

Q: For the card I’ll Be In My Bunk, does it mean that no-one can steal a Keeper, or just that they can’t cheat and look at your cards?

A: It means no-one can steal a Keeper, or a card from your hand, or trade hands with you, or whatever might alter your assets while you’re gone* (but you also would not benefit from Everybody Gets One!). We would consider not looking at someone’s hand to be baseline good sportsmanship, which does not have to be regulated.

“Don’t cheat” is kind of the first rule of every game (unless the game is really outside-the-box, in which case I’d expect it to be very explicit about what kinds of “cheating” are allowed, I guess. And if it’s allowed… is it cheating?)

* Here is a list of the cards in Firefly Fluxx which would not apply to you while you were “In Your Bunk”:
Exchange Keepers
Steal Something
Random Tax
Mix It All Up
Everybody Gets 1
Trash Something
Trade Hands
Use What You Take

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: Can It’s a Trap! be triggered by Exchange Keepers? What about Mix It All Up (or Share the Wealth)?

A: After some discussion, we decided that Exchanging Keepers or Mixing Up everyone’s Keepers does not count as “Stealing” a Keeper.

Think of it this way: you cannot then reverse the action against your opponent. What would that mean? “…and instead you [Exchange] one of their Keepers”? “…and instead you [Mix Up] one of their Keepers”? Those doesn’t really make sense. So we concluded that Exchange or Mix It All Up are unstopped by It’s a Trap!

However, You Can’t Take This Guy From Me (YCTTGFM) (from Firefly Fluxx), which has the same “trigger” does not have this “reversibility” issue. The reason why It’s a Trap can’t be used is that part of it’s consequences is to strike back in the same way, but YCTTGFM has a different penalty which does not use reflective language like It’s a Trap, so it can absolutely be triggered by Exchange Keepers. See: What things can trigger YCTTGFM?

What It’s A Trap! was designed to protect you against, in addition to Steal a Keeper, is any of those annoying other Keepers, like the Captain and the Scientist (who can steal certain Keepers at will. One of my favorite things is to put out a juicy Crew Member and wait for the person with the Captain to try to take it, at which point, instead… It’s A Trap! and I get to steal their Captain instead!

In Batman Fluxx, it was included for highly thematic reasons: Batman was always getting trapped by villains (at least in the live-action version). Also, Batman Fluxx includes a version of Plunder, called Crime Happens, which would be exactly the kind of thing which It’s a Trap! might also protect you from.

Q: How does the Expendable Crewman work when Exchange Keepers is played?

[In Star Trek Fluxx, Ensign Smith has the same function as the Expendable Crewman, and in Star Trek: TNG Fluxx, it’s Tasha Yar]

A: It all depends on who has the Expendable Crewman, and who played Exchange Keepers.

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

If the player who has the Expendable Crewman is the one who plays Exchange Keepers, they can choose to trade whatever they want. It’s only when someone else is taking a Keeper away from you that they must take/destroy the Expendable Crewman.

If, on the other hand, your opponent has the Expendable Crewman, and you play Exchange Keepers, you’ll be getting that dork in the red shirt, no matter what you’re actually coveting in your opponent’s collection.

Think of it this way: he readily obeys his own captain’s orders, but he always seems to leap forward at the last minute when a hostile force demands hostages!

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: What if two people simultaneously meet the win condition/s?

This could happen with Double Agenda in effect. For example, in a 2-player game, if the goals are Star Gazing and Time is Money. Player A has The Eye and Time in play while Player B has The Cosmos and Money. Player A plays Exchange Keepers and exchanges The Eye for Money. Is the game over, with two winners, or must it continue until one and only one player has a winning condition?

This could also happen with 10 Cards In Hand

A: You would keep playing until only one player currently meets the win condition.