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Q: Does the order of your Keepers on the table matter in Math Fluxx? If so, can I rearrange them at will?

…because of the way some Goals are worded, it seems like order matters. If order doesn’t matter then two of the Goals have the exact same win conditions.

A: Keeper arrangement on the table doesn’t matter in Math Fluxx any more than in any other Fluxx. You could also consider this answer to be equivalent to: sure, like any other Fluxx, you can rearrange your Keepers at will, any time you want.

It’s a little like the pyramids you capture in Volcano or Caldera. A monochrome tree is still a monochrome tree, and it doesn’t matter whether they’re actually stacked up into that formation as long as you have the pyramids that would make up the set described.

Yes, this means that the winning conditions for both 24 Hours and The Ultimate Answer are identical. “Number Four & Number Two” is functionally the same as “Number Two & Number Four” in the same way that “Milk & Cookies” is the same as “Cookies & Milk.”

In fact, some reviewers have complained that this makes Math Fluxx not really very different than other Fluxxes at it’s heart, and it’s only when invoking the mathematical victory rules that this version becomes novel in any way. We suppose that may be true, but we feel the mathematical victory rules make a pretty big difference!

Q: Can the Stop That! Surprise counter the “free action” provided by some Rules or Keepers?

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 Action cards specifically. Nor will Veto! which cancels Rules stop this type of free action.

More broadly worded Surprises might prevent some of these, however. For example, Skullduggery, It’s A Trap and You Can’t Take This Guy From Me are designed more broadly, so that they can prevent “any game action” which can include the results of Action cards, Free Actions from Rule and Free Actions from Keepers or Creepers. The first two can be acquired in the More Surprises pack.

There might be some confusion on 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, so we would rule that it’s no longer stoppable by the Stop That! Anti-Action Surprise.

Q: Do Keepers fighting in The Arena come from your hand, or from in play in front of you? What if there’s only one Keeper on the table at all?

A: The Keepers offered up for combat have to already be in play in front of someone. You do not have to offer up a Keeper from your hand into the Arena.

When in doubt, the general rule with things applying to Keepers is that the Keeper has to be in play in order to be able to “do things”. Usually that means using special powers, but in this case, being in play is what obligates a Keeper to fight in the Arena. Not being in play frees the Keeper from any such obligations.

If there are not enough combatants (there is only one Keeper in play) that entity simply wins by default. They stick their head in the Arena, see that there’s nobody there trying to kill them, breathe a sigh of relief, and get the heck out of there.

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: When the Camouflage Rule goes away, do camouflaged Keepers stay hidden?

A: When the Camouflage Rule is no longer in play, no-one is allowed to have any hidden cards. The default is that no Keepers in play are hidden, and only the presence of the Camouflage card gives you permission to hide something, so when that Rule goes away, the game goes back to the default of all Keepers showing.

Q: Can I pile up my Keepers in play in a stack, or do I have to lay them out so they are clearly displayed?

A: While it is not specified in the rules, the intention is that all Keepers and Creepers under your control should be visible to your opponents at all times unless there is some specific situation that lets you stack or hide them. In general, if a Keeper or Creeper is hidden under another card, it is as though it does not exist on the table, and a player may only stack Keepers/Creepers in certain very specific situations.

For example, in Martian Fluxx, you are allowed to hide your Pathetic Humans (Creepers) under your Abduction Chamber (Keeper). They are effectively “not showing on the table” and do not prevent you from winning (though you can release them at any time to meet a win condition).

There is a similar card in Pirate Fluxx that lets you hide your “booty” Keepers under your Treasure Map. They don’t count towards the Keeper limit, and this protects them from being Plundered, (a special Rule in Pirate Fluxx) but if someone uses Steal a Keeper to take your map, they also take the booty you’ve hidden under it.

In Cthulhu Fluxx, one may hide one Creeper under the Elder Sign card, which neutralizes it, much like the Abduction Chamber does for Pathetic Humans, but for only one Creeper.

There may be other cards which allow similar situations, but unless you have any of these special cards that allow you to hide a Keeper or Creeper in front of you, all your Keepers and Creepers need to be showing. If space is an issue, you can overlap them so the name stripe is showing, but you may not simply hide them from the other players.

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: Can someone with the Holographic Projector win if the two Keepers needed are owned by other players?

A: No, the Hologram can only be one Keeper at a time. It’s already a very powerful card – if it could be any TWO Keepers at once, it would be ridiculously overpowered. Now, it is possible, when combining certain Star Trek Fluxxen, for there to be TWO Hologram analogues in the game (Holodeck/Holosuite.) So, if a player has two, one of them could imitate one Keeper owned by another player, and the other could imitate a second Keeper owned by another player.

It is possible to win with one Holographic Projector even if you don’t have either of the required cards yourself only if the win conditions include a Creeper or Creepers which are attached to a single Keeper owned by another player. In that case, the Holographic Projector only needs to be one Keeper, but it also mimics the associated Creeper properties. A few examples of Goals for this type of win would include Imperial Destroyer, Evil Computer, Evil Brain Parasites, Robot Uprising, The Power Of Evil, and Malfunctioning Transporter.

See also: Can the Holodeck count as both itself AND someone else’s Keeper…

Q: Does the Surprise card It’s A Trap! prevent special Keeper powers or Rules that might allow someone to take your Keeper?

It doesn’t show a specific type of card that it counteracts, but the wording is “Cancel any single game action in which another player is stealing a Keeper you have on the table, and instead you steal one of their Keepers.”

A: In fact, special Keeper powers that let someone take one of your Keepers is exactly the kind of situation that It’s A Trap was designed to counter. The wording is deliberately not specific to a type of card so that It’s A Trap can prevent ANY situation in which some other player may be trying to take your Keeper, whether that originates from an Action card or not.

I have often deliberately put out tempting crew members when I had It’s A Trap hiding in my hand, in the hopes that the person with The Captain would try to steal them, and I’d get to Trap their Captain instead. Or put out the Energy Crystals to try to trap the Scientist, for example.

Also keep in mind that most things which you can use It’s A Trap! to counter also can trigger You Can’t Take This Guy From Me (in Firefly Fluxx).