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.
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If there is a Keeper Limit and I have a Bag of Holding and someone steals my bag of holding can they steal one of my other keepers before I go down to the keeper limit?
A: TLDR: no, they may not.
The loss of the Bag and your Keeper Limit adjustment are considered to happen simultaneously, so there’s no time between your losing the Bag, and your discarding down to the Limits.
In fact, to accurately represent this, technically _nothing_ should happen in the game until you’ve discarded down to the current Limits. The active player should wait to play their next card (Exchange/Steal a Keeper, maybe?) and they should wait to perform any Free Actions (City of Thieves, maybe?). None of that should proceed until you’re done discarding. (Frankly if they wanted to take one of your Keepers having the choice of your entire array, they should have done it before stealing the Bag of Holding. After all, they don’t have to discard down to the Keeper Limit until their turn is over anyhow.)
Of course, in reality, as long as they’re not going to do something to your Keepers, they could probably keep going with their turn while you figure out what to discard, but, since, in this case, it’s all about which Keepers you have available to steal… they’ve got to wait.
Q: Do face-down Keepers still count towards Keeper Limits? What about Keepers hidden under another Keeper?
…for example a Keeper turned face down via Camouflage or, in very early versions, Government Cover-Up or Secret Data.
A: Yes, you must count face-down Keepers when you are counting your Keepers in play. Though they do not count as “in play” for purposes of using powers or winning Goals (though you can usually reveal them at any time) you still own them as generic “Keepers” for the purposes of Limits.
If you have a number of Keepers hidden under another card, however, as with the Treasure Map in Pirate Fluxx (or the Secret Stash, a Stoner Fluxx promo), those are all counted as just “one Keeper” (the one Keeper showing on the top of the other card/s).
Q: If I have a Keeper which says I get some benefit from discarding or moving it, can I take that benefit if I’m forced to do that for some reason, like a Keeper Limit?
A: No. Keepers which give you some benefit for discarding or giving them away are supposed to be a cost to gain the benefit. If you are forced to move or discard, it won’t count as your sacrifice. For example, if you discard one of your Keepers because of a Keeper Limit, you don’t get to gain the benefit of the sacrifice. That’s an independent penalty.
However, if it’s your turn, and you are going to have to discard Keepers at the end of your turn anyhow, it would certainly behoove you to decide to use that power during your turn, so that it’s not wasted by the Limit.
If it’s not your turn, however, you can’t take that benefit if you discard because of a Limit. These benefits for moving/discarding a Keeper are like other Free Actions and, while they are “free” they can only be used on your turn.
See also: When a Keeper/Creeper (or Rule) says I can do something if I discard or move something, can I do that as a Free Action or…
And also: If a Creeper says I can get rid of it if I “discard a Keeper.” Does this mean voluntary discard…
Q: When a Keeper/Creeper (or Rule) says I can do something if I discard or move something, can I do that as a Free Action or do I have to do it based on some other card, like an Action or Rule that lets me do these things?
Some cards say things like “If you discard one of your Keepers, you can move this Creeper to another player,” or “You can discard an opponents Keeper, but you have to move your own Keeper to them,” or “If you discard X cards from your hand, you can draw some more cards and play them immediately.” Do those moves or discards need to be caused by an Action or Rule, or are they part of the card’s stated function?
A: You do not need some other means of moving or discarding the cards in question in order to utilize the function stated. The movement or discard is part of the function itself. Usually there is some benefit, and the move or discard is part of the “cost” or “sacrifice.” It would be far too limited if these moves or discards had to occur organically through some other mechanism in the game.
See also: If a Creeper says I can get rid of it if I “discard a Keeper.” Does this mean voluntary discard…
And also: If I have a Keeper which says I get some benefit from discarding or moving it…
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: Limit cards say that the player whose turn it is should discard at the end of their turn. Does that mean the Limit card is discarded as soon as all other players have complied?
A: No, it’s not the Hand/Keeper Limit card which is discarded at the end of the active player’s turn. The Rule stays in effect like any other unless it is specifically replaced or discarded with an Action. The discarding which happens at the end of the active player’s turn is the active player discarding down to the Limit themselves.
Since Limits only apply when it’s NOT your turn, the non-active players discard down to the limit as soon as the card is played, while the active player does not have to discard until the end of their turn – since at the end of their turn, they cease to be the active player.
Q: If the person before me plays a Hand or Keeper Limit card as the last card in their turn, is it instantly my turn, so I can ignore the Hand Limit?
A: Until everyone observes the Limit Rule as the last play, that turn is not over, so no, you do not get a pass on the Hand Limit just because it was played as the last card of the person before you.
Q: The Hand Limit and Keeper Limit cards seem like sort of a downer. What is their advantage? Why would we ever want play them?
We weren’t sure how best to play with them, so we’ve been leaving them out of the game…
A:It’s true that the Hand and Keeper Limit cards can be sort of a downer, but sometimes you want to be able to limit your opponent if they seem to be getting way ahead of you in one or the other of those things. In that way, they are “game balancing” cards that help level the playing field, keeping one person from having a vast advantage over the other/s.
In addition the Hand Limit cards can be nice if your hand size is getting so huge you can barely hold it or mentally process it all. I’ve seen many a brand new player put down a Hand Limit card with a sigh of relief, just to get their hand down to something they can look at all in one go. It’s similar to playing Rules Reset or Let’s Simplify when you have six or eight different Rules out on the table. Yes, having lots of rules is fun, but sometimes it’s nice to have fewer.
On a more strategic note, beyond just overall game balance, there are times you can make sneaky combo plays where you impose a Limit on your turn, so that your opponent/s need/s to comply, but then manage to get rid of it before the end of the turn (with Trash a New Rule, or Let’s Simplify, or even Rules Reset).
Since Limits only apply to you when it’s NOT your turn (you have to comply when your turn ends if they are still in play) this means that your opponent/s will have to discard cards or Keepers, and you won’t. Now, you might still consider this a “downer”, but in any game there are things you do to get yourself ahead of the competition.
Finally, we are glad that you felt free to simply leave them out if you find that you don’t enjoy them. That is always an option for you. It’s your game, it’s your house, and you can have “house rules” (as long as everyone understands them at the start of the game and there are no unpleasant midgame surprises for those who are used to playing the game the way it comes out of the box).
Q: Do Keeper Limits apply to Creepers as well?
A: No. There is no limit to the number of Creepers you can have in front of you.
Q: If I Take Another Turn, do I have to comply with Hand and Keeper Limits in between my two turns?
See this answer in a video!
Little Answers
A: Yes. For a brief moment in between your turn and your extra turn it is technically not your turn, and you must comply with all Limit rules at that time.
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: Are the powers of the Computer optional?
A: Well, it depends which version of The Computer you’re using. The bottom line is: check the language. Where it says “may” or “can” it means you don’t have to if you don’t want to. If it just says certain parameters are increased… they’re just increased, no choice about it.
For all versions of The Computer, the increase in Draw and Play quantity is required, which interacts with Play All But 1 to make it Play All – no choice for you. For the versions in Star Fluxx and both Star Trek Fluxxes, the Limit increase is optional, but for the promo card version and the Batcomputer, the owner must use the increased limits.
Note that BMO (Adventure Time Fluxx) has the power of optionally increasing Limits by 1, and Data (Star Trek: TNG Fluxx) has the power of optionally increasing Play by 1.
|
Star Flux Star Trek Fluxx Star Trek: TNG Fluxx |
Batcomputer Computer promo |
BMO | Data | |
| increase Play/Draw | required | required | – | optional |
| increase Limits | optional | required | optional | – |
Q: Does the Cute Fuzzy Alien Creature count towards a Keeper Limit? If so, is it passed before or after one complies with the limit?
A: Yes, the Cute Fuzzy Alien (CFA) absolutely counts towards the Keeper Limit. The player whose turn is ending can decide whether to pass the creature and then comply with the Keeper limit, or comply with the Keeper limit and then pass the fuzzy creature. The next player may decide to do it differently if they want.
So, when the CFA is discarded, it goes onto the top of the draw pile instead of the discard pile. This has the possibility of causing some loopy-type action, but it’s not that difficult to disrupt unless you have really stubborn players.
See We think there’s an infinite loop with the Cute Fuzzy Alien…
Q: Can Skullduggery be used to stop a Keeper Limit being played as that could cause Keepers to “change ownership”?
A: No.
Q: Is it possible to win with 5 Keepers if there is a Keeper Limit in place? (Or 10 Cards in Hand with a Hand Limit?)
A: Yes. Because the Keeper and Hand Limits only apply to you when it’s NOT your turn, they are suspended (for you) DURING your turn. You can draw cards way up above the hand limit, and play Keepers to the table beyond the keeper limit, possibly meeting those Goals during your turn. Of course, if you don’t meet the Goal and win, you’ll have to discard down at the end of your turn.