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Q: Can the Surprise Stop That! (aka Belay That!) prevent someone from using the Action card that is currently part of the Let’s Keep Doing That Rule?

A: When the Action is chosen to go with Let’s Keep Doing That, it becomes what is essentially a Rule-that-gives-a Free Action, so the counter-Action Surprise* can not be used to stop it.

It CAN, however, be stopped by the Surprise called No Free Lunch! (found in the More Surprises pack) which counters the use of any Free Action. Depending on what the Action is, if it allows the moving or stealing of  Keepers, some other Surprises may also be viable, like Skullduggery, It’s a Trap!, or You Can’t Take This Guy From Me.

* Stop That, Avast! Halt!, Belay That!, The Stars Are Wrong.

Q: If someone stopped my play with a Surprise, and then I used Mystery Play, and drew a Surprise, can I use that to counter their Surprise?

A: No, the Surprise you draw via Mystery Play* cannot be used to stop the previous Canceling of your play. It’s far too late. Whatever card you played has been Canceled, and that’s that. With no Surprise available, you could not stop the Surprise, so you have moved on and taken your next game action: choosing to use Mystery Play.

Since choosing to use Mystery Play will always disrupt the immediacy required for a reactive Surprise play, any Surprise drawn via Mystery Play would have to be used for it’s in-turn function.

* Or any of its analogues below:
Mystery Play in Fluxx 5.0, SE, Remixx, Astronomy, SpongeBob, and Wonderland
Mythtery Play in Fantasy
Wormhole in Star, Star Trek TOS, TNG, and Voyager
Shiny! in Firefly
Allons-y/Geronimo! in Doctor Who
Spontaneous Reaction in Chemistry
Egads! in Batman
Unknown Variable in Math
THWIP! in Marvel
(the Infinity Gauntlet Keeper in Marvel has this as its special power as well)
Great Idea! in Stoner
Magic Spell in Fairy Tale
Magic Portal in Adventure Time
Magic Shoes in Oz (if you click your heels together three times)
Open The Door in Monster (if the Spooky Door is in play)
Open A Gift! in Holiday (if The Gift is in play)
Chemical X in Cartoon Network (if at least one Powerpuff Girl is in play)
Time Doorway in Regular Show (if the Time Machine is in play)

Q: Can a player who is Bound By Law still use Surprises out-of-turn to interrupt someone else’s turn before their Bound-By-Law turn?

A: After some consideration, checking the exact wording on the card, which doesn’t mention Surprises, and thinking about it thematically as well… Andy says YES, you can use Surprises when you are Bound By Law.

Thematically, being Bound By Law is like you’re in jail, and you have one sort of limited, partly-lost turn where you draw but don’t play, and can’t use Free Actions – but a Surprise is, by nature, surprising, and who’s to say you couldn’t pull off some audacious plan that upsets your opponents, even from jail!

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 I do something that allows me to steal or swap a Creeper, can someone play the Surprise Not My/Your Problem to prevent me from getting the Creeper?

…Someone used “Steal Something” to take a Creeper, which would have allowed them to win. Another player used the Surprise Not Your Problem which works when someone “Draws or Receives” a Creeper. The first player argued that they didn’t “receive it,” they “took” it. We argued that nobody ever “Receives” a card, by the wording on every card it is just placed or put in front of you. So if “Steal Something” takes a card from one player and places it in front of you, you have received that card.

A: You are correct: when we say “draw or receive” a card, we are referring to any & all game actions, which could result in you gaining the card. This includes stealing it as well as being given it by another player or a randomizing game action. So, yes, Not My/Your Problem can be played to stop a player from gaining a particular Creeper.

Q: When a player is allowed multiple plays on their turn, are there any guidelines for timing between plays?

A: TLDR: Officially, no… BUT, when playing in any of our games which include interrupt cards which cancel a previous play (Surprise, Memo From Your Future Self, Stop Time) it’s good practice to play a little slower if you happen to be executing multiple plays, so that your opponents have plenty of time to play one of these cards, should they so desire.

Deliberately playing super-fast, “shotgunning” as one fan put it, is just rude, and, rather than avoiding arguments about interrupts, actually ends up causing them. So if you have someone who insists upon playing that way, feel free to implement a requirement of a full one-hippopotamus silent count between card plays. We think those worried about their second-to-last winning play being foiled by an interrupt will find that others are not as psychic as they feared. Read on…

So here’s a typical Surprise situation, which can cause a bit of controversy:

I recently won when the rules called for Play 2. I played my first card, a Keeper, and then a moment later I played a Goal card that caused me to win. My opponent then showed me that he had the Surprise card in his hand that could have stopped me from playing the Keeper, and we had a brief discussion about whether I should have left him more time to consider playing it.

In my opponent’s defense, I didn’t leave him much time to play his Surprise card that would have allowed him to take my Keeper for himself. In my defense, he didn’t really have any reason to play the Surprise card and take the Keeper – until he saw that my next play was the winning Goal.

So… are there guidelines on timing between playing consecutive cards?

Slapping them down so quickly that no one has a chance to do anything doesn’t seem entirely fair – but it also doesn’t seem strategic after playing a card to wait and look around at other players to see if they have any game response before playing the next card.

(Related question: A player doesn’t have to “announce” or “report” their play out loud, right? They can just play their cards and if other players aren’t paying attention, that’s the fault of the other players? We all want to have good sportsmanship, but you know how games can sometimes get, in terms of either other players not paying attention, or in terms of being very competitive!)

Here’s our response:
While we don’t have any official guidelines about exact timing of card plays, We recommend a slight pause between a two-card play like this when the active player knows it’s going to make them win. It’s rarely the case that the person with the Keeper-stopper will intuitively know that the necessary Goal is coming… until it gets there (or vice-versa: if they had the Goal-stopper, and you’d decided to play the Keeper last, they couldn’t know you’d have the winning Keeper to play after the innocuous Goal), so playing slow is often to your advantage, as the player who’s about to win.

In fact, playing casually, even pretending you don’t know what you want to play next, can be a great move. Playing slowly enough to allow a possible Surprise doesn’t have to mean broadcasting your impending win. (For example, looking significantly around the table as if expecting a challenge). Of course, announcing your your play is in no way required, but could even be part of your nonchalant act, depending on how you do it. (“Hmm… Well, there’s this Small Moon… and… let’s see… That’s No Moon, for the win!”)

That said, one often doesn’t have the presence of mind to think about deliberately hesitating. In real life, you’re usually just taking your play, and winning, at regular game speed.

Here is where the question is really about what your opponent was thinking, and they have to be honest about it: did it only occur to them to play the Surprise after you’d played the winning Goal? If you’d just accidentally played the Goal first, and then the Keeper, their Keeper-canceling Surprise would have gone through and prevented your win. But just as they couldn’t know your next play would be the end of the game, you couldn’t know they had a Surprise. For all you knew, they had the Goal-stopping Surprise, and it’s just chance which order you chose to play those two cards in. It’s not as though you deliberately played in such a way as to deliberately thwart a Surprise on your first play.

The thing to point out here is that, had you stopped playing after the Keeper, would it even have occurred to them to use the Surprise? Probably not, if they’re being honest. It’s extremely rare that one’s opponent is prescient or observant enough to realize that this play might be your second-to-last. People rarely want to squander a Surprise on the off-chance that your next play will be the winning one*. In the kind of situation you describe, the Surprise-having player usually just shrugs, and says “Darn! I had [the Surprise that would have prevented your second-to-last play], and I could have stopped that play, but it’s too late now… Oh well. Let’s deal again…”

Because, in the end, if they didn’t get that Surprise in after the applicable card, that’s the way it goes, and that’s the official ruling if people get – ahem – unruly.

*I mean, imagine it. If they’d canceled your Keeper before you’d played the winning Goal, your best reaction is probably simply to shrug as if mildly confused by such a powerful play, apparently for nothing, and make them feel like they just wasted their Surprise on a random Keeper play… heh heh. You don’t have to let them know they totally blocked your win. Meanwhile… you don’t have to get upset about missing that chance… it’s just Fluxx, and victory is snatched away at all the time in the course of any given game – usually completely by accident. Or you can let them know their spidey-senses were working, or congratulate them on how observant they are. It’s up to you.

Now let’s return to that “shotgunning” player who’s deliberately playing quickly so that nobody can slip a Surprise in on that penultimate play… It is, as the fan above pointed out, not entirely fair, and, moreover, it invites the argument “But you didn’t leave me enough time to play my Surprise!” If, on the other hand they had played it slowly, as described above, their opponent has no excuse to challenge the win, on the claim that they “were going to play a Surprise.” The opponent had plenty of time, but in the vast majority of cases, they won’t play the Surprise, because they have no idea what’s coming next. That’s part of the beauty of Fluxx!

Q: Can someone play a Surprise in the middle of the execution of Random Tax?

… Player A played Random Tax. They went around to each player to take a random card from their hand. When Player A got to Player C, Player C played a surprise to cancel out Player A’s action. Is playing that surprise card allowed?

A: A player wishing to cancel an Action (like Random Tax) needs to do so right away after the Action is played, since it doesn’t protect only that one player, it cancels the entire Action. If that player was waiting to see what card got stolen from them, and only then decided “Oops! I should have canceled that Action!” it’s definitely too late. They needed to decide “Darn! I don’t want to lose a random card from my hand! I’ll cancel that with a Surprise.”

You see, once the receiving player has seen cards from other’s hands, it taints the game. Now, your group could decide that this effect is negligible, and let the Surprising player get away with it on a one-time basis (assuming they timed it that way because they thought that was the correct time to play it – but NOT if they were just waiting to see what card would be stolen; does that make sense?)

Of course if you let the Surprise go through, the person who played Random Tax would have to return all of the cards they took from people because it cancels the entire Action “as though it had never happened”. If it was a legitimate error on the part of the Surprise player, and they’ve been schooled, one should not cut any slack on a second offense, I’d say.

We often have the players being taxed mix up their own cards, pick one blind, and then hand it over to the person receiving the tax. This reduces the temptation to try to play a Surprise only after someone sees what card got picked. Because that’s really not okay.

Doing it the way you did still works, of course, but then we’d encourage players to mix up their hand and present it face down out towards the Taxing player, so that neither one sees what card is taken until it’s actually gone.

Q: If a Surprise is one of the cards allocated for Dreams & Omens, does the player use it’s in-turn effect or out-of-turn effect when the time comes to play it?

…Dreams & Omens creates a situation where one card has been allocated to each player, placed in front of that person, to be played “before starting their next turn.” Does that mean it’s not the player’s turn, and they must use the out-of-turn effect?

A: Although it says “before starting their next turn” it is, for all intents and purposes, that player’s turn as soon as they start “doing stuff”. The point is that this card must be played before the regular draw and play phases, and even before any available optional Free Actions.

Here’s a nifty chart we made which details the order of various events in a Fluxx turn.

Furthermore, if you read the out-of-turn instructions on the Surprises, you’ll see that they are in reaction to a specific game event (a specific card play, or an UnGoal being fulfilled) and without that event occurring, there isn’t really any logical way to execute the out-of-turn effect.

See also: Many cards state that you can do something “on your turn”. When does one’s turn officially begin and end…

Q: If I use an Action to take a Keeper out of the discard and play it, can that Keeper play be stopped and acquired by the counter-Keeper Surprise??

A: Yes. In these cases, since one is instructed to play the acquired Keeper, that acquisition can be intercepted with the counter-Keeper Surprise (That’s Mine!, Twist of Fate) which allows the intercepting player to gain the Keeper instead.

Decks that have Actions which let you pull a Keeper from the discard and play it are:
In Cthulhu Fluxx: Even Death May Die
In Fantasy Fluxx: Healing Spell

The following decks don’t natively have Surprises, but since Surprises could be added in, we list them here for completeness:
In Marvel Fluxx: We Thought You Were Dead!
In Olympus Fluxx: Charon Nixes Styx Tix
In Adventure Time Fluxx, Cartoon Network Fluxx, and Regular Show Fluxx: Toons Never Die

Q: If someone tries to steal the Batcave from me on their turn, and I use a Surprise to stop them, will my Surprise work?

A: The question here is, when your opponent played the Steal a Keeper Action, would they immediately gain possession of the Batcave, thereby protecting them from being Surprised? Or would the Surprise successfully prevent Steal a Keeper?

We would rule that the Surprise would work to prevent the Steal a Keeper Action, since, at the time the Action was played, your opponent did not yet have any protection. Assuming you played the Surprise quickly enough to stop the Action, i.e. before anything else happens (like another card being played), then the Surprise will be able to undo the Steal a Keeper Action. You’d better be playing that Surprise in a timely manner, though!

The issue here will arise if you think too long deciding whether to play that Surprise, because the Batcave may have already been moved to your opponent, and the longer it sits there, the longer it feels like it’s “theirs” and that it’s too late to undo the Action. Our official ruling on this is that, as long as the next game action has not occurred, your Surprise play should be sufficiently “surprising” to work.

Although we often talk about things being “instantaneous” in Fluxx, some things are “more instantaneous” than others. So, for example, a Surprise, when played for it’s out-of-turn function directly after a given card-play is so much “more instantaneous” that it retroactively cancels that previous card play.

It’s because it’s actually surprising the person it’s being played against. If the surprised player then counter-Surprises, by playing their own Surprise to cancel the immediately-previous Surprise, the counter-Surprise is always considered to be “even more surprising” as it were.

(If you have any doubt of this, just listen to a game where this happens, and you’ll hear the group exclaim louder and louder each time as each subsequent Surprise is played to counter a previous Surprise.) Another way to think of this is that the last Surprise played is effectively the “most surprising” and is therefore the “winning” effect.

See also: If multiple Surprises are canceled by each other, how do you figure out what happens in the end?

⟫⟫ The only exception to the rule of out-of-turn Surprises canceling the previous play is the playing of the actual Batcave itself.
See: Can I use That’s Mine to cancel the play of the Batcave?

Q: Is the third Surprise function (countering another Surprise) limited to in-turn or out-of-turn play?

A: You can use the counter-Surprise function at any time, either during someone else’s turn or your own. Here are some basic examples:

On your own turn:
Someone cancels one of your plays with a Surprise. You play a Surprise to counter their Surprise. Note: although it is your turn, this does not count as one of your Plays.

On someone else’s turn:
They play a Surprise for the in-turn function. You play a Suprise to counter it.

On someone else’s turn:
They play a card. You cancel it with the appropriate Surprise. They counter-Surprise you. You counter-Surprise them!

On someone else’s turn:
Player A plays a card. Player B cancels it with a Surprise. You decide to counter Player B’s Surprise, for whatever reason motivates you.
(In other words, if there is a Surprise/counter-Surprise “battle” going on between two other players, as described in the previous example, you can jump in at any time on either players “side”.)

Q: If someone plays Trade Hands with me, and I have some Surprises (other than Stop That, which could prevent the trade) can I use them up with no effect, just so I don’t have to give them to the other player?

A: No. Surprises can only be played for an out-of-turn effect when there is an effect to be had. You can’t just play a Surprise for no effect just to burn it.

When used for their in-turn effect, of course, they behave much the same way as Actions, and, as such, may or may not have an effect.

Q: Can a Surprise be used to cancel a Hand Limit on your own turn?

…Example:
Player A plays a Hand Limit
Player B and C discard down to the hand limit
Player A plays Veto to cancel the Hand Limit for themselves.

Is this allowed?

A: Well, it all depends how Player A was trying to play the Veto. Every Surprise has two different instructions on it. One for when you’re using it to interrupt someone else’s play, and one for if you play it out of your own hand as a regular card on your turn.

First case (the out-of-turn function):

If Player A was trying to use the out-of-turn function to cancel the play of their own card, that’s not allowed. It’s their turn, so they can only use the in-turn function. See also: Can one ever use the out-of-turn function of a Surprise on their own turn?

Note that even if it were another person playing out-of-turn to cancel the card (let’s call them Player D) the Surprise should be played immediately after the card one wants to cancel: in the case of a Hand Limit, that would ideally be before anyone has discarded anything.

Moreover, even if everyone decided to cut imaginary Player D some slack about the timing, and they did let Player D play the Veto after some people had discarded, canceling the Rule would “prevent it from ever taking effect” and everyone would get to take all their cards back as though the Hand Limit had never been played. Long story short: you can’t Veto a rule just for you. The Rule applies to everyone, so when you Veto it, it’s Vetoed for everyone.

Second case (the in-turn function):

If Player A still had a play left on their turn after playing the Hand Limit, they could simply play the Veto for its in-turn function. What it does in this case is let them “discard [their] choice of up to 2 New Rules currently in play”. The Rules discarded don’t even have to be ones that were recently played.

In this case, those rules are not being “canceled” without ever having taken effect, they’re just being discarded. The Rules were played, they took effect for as long as they were in play, and then they were discarded. So if Player A did that, they could simply trash the Hand Limit before their turn ends, thereby avoiding having to discard down at all. Of course, this uses up one of their plays for their turn.

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: Are there any Surprises that can stop an act of Plundering?

A: No, none of the regular four Surprises can stop you from being Plundered, though you could stop someone from playing the Plunder Rule initially with Avast! (Veto!) you couldn’t do anything about it once it’s been in play for a while. Note that Plunder analogues include City of Thieves (Fantasy Fluxx, Adventure Time Fluxx), Crime Happens (Batman Fluxx), and Acquisition (Star Trek: TNG Fluxx, DS9 Fluxx).

There is, however a pirate-themed promo card we produced called Skullduggery, which does exactly that: it can stop a Plunder.

See also: Can you use the Skullduggery promo…

Q: Does countering a Surprise on my turn count as one of my plays? Can I also use it for the in-turn function if I do this?

A: If you are the active player, counter-Surprising does not use up one of your total plays for the turn. By the same token, however, this means you cannot use the Surprise for it’s function which would use a play. To wit:

You can only use a Surprise to do one of three things:

1) use it on your turn as a play, for it’s in-turn function
OR
2) Use it to Surprise another player,
2a) on another player’s turn to cancel a play
OR
2b) on your turn to counter their interruption of your own play (“counter-Surprise”)

You cannot do more than one of those things.

So if you’re using it to counter-Surprise on your turn (2b), you can’t also use it as one of your plays for it’s “in-turn” function (1).

Q: If multiple Surprises are canceled by each other, how do you figure out what happens in the end?

Example:
Player A uses That’s Mine for its in-turn function to steal a Keeper from Player B
Player B uses It’s A Trap! to cancel the steal, and instead steal from Player A
Player A uses Canceled plans to cancel It’s A Trap, since Surprises can cancel Surprises.

Does the original steal go through? Player B argued that there was no steal in either direction, as both That’s Mine and It’s A Trap had been canceled by subsequent Surprises.

A: The short answer is that That’s Mine is carried out for it’s in-turn function for the Keeper steal.

The long answer:

  • That’s Mine is played in turn: Keeper is stolen
  • It’s A Trap is played out of turn by victim: That’s Mine is negated and the Keeper steal is reversed
  • Cancelled plans negates It’s a Trap, which had previously been reversing the Keeper steal and negating That’s Mine. This leaves That’s Mine un-negated to steal the Keeper as originally played

It’s not that cards just get put on the discard pile, covered and they’re gone. Think of each card as going into a “being played” area only into the discard pile when they are done being used, or when negated for good. There was sort of a little wrestling match out there in the “being played” area between all the Surprises, and It’s A Trap lost.

Here is a generic version of what a battle like this could look like. It can continue until you run out of Surprises. Keep in mind that it’s totally possible and allowed for some other player, for example, Player C, to jump in on either side, potentially confusing the toggle state of the original play. If things come to this, it may be very important to keep track of the original play being canceled, perhaps putting it in the middle and flipping it over to indicate which state it is in: effective, vs canceled.

  • A plays some card X.
  • B plays Surprise 1, canceling X.
  • A cancels surprise 1 with Surprise 2, so X is in effect again.
  • B cancels surprise 2 with Surprise 3, so Surprise 1 goes through, and X is canceled again.

and so forth. If there were more, it would look like this:

  • A cancels surprise 3 with Surprise 4, so Surprise 2 goes through, canceling Surprise 1, so X happens.
  • B cancels surprise 4 with Surprise 5, so Surprise 3 goes through, canceling Surprise 2, so Surprise 1 is in effect again, so X is canceled.

So far, the maximum number of Surprises in a version is 6, in Batman Fluxx, but here’s the page where we would update that info:
Complexity Factors for Fluxx editions

Q: Can I play a Surprise to cancel a win caused by using Wormhole?

A: It depends which Surprise you have, and when you play it.

If you have the promo No Free Lunch, found in the More Surprises pack, you can play it to prevent someone from utilizing Wormhole (or any of its analogues, see below). The trick is, you’d have to play No Free Lunch when they declare they’re using Wormhole, but before they reveal the card – you can’t wait to see whether it makes them win to declare you’re using No Free Lunch.

On the other hand the card that is drawn and played because of Wormhole is affected by any of the “standard” Surprises. So if the winning card played because of Wormhole was a Goal, then Canceled Plans would be able to prevent the win, since it cancels Goals. If the card played was a Keeper, you’d need to use the That’s Mine in order to stop the win.

Of course, you can’t cancel any of these if YOU are the one who is using Wormhole.
See Can one ever use the “out-of-turn” function of a Surprise during one’s own turn? (spoiler alert: no)

Analogues of Wormhole include (some with slight variations such as conditional requirements for use):
Magic Shoes in Oz Fluxx
Egads! in Batman Fluxx
Magic Portal in Adventure Time Fluxx
Shiny! in Firefly Fluxx

the following have a Wormhole analogue, but do not have Surprises naturally occurring in the deck (though they can be added if you pick up the More Surprises pack):
Mystery Play in Fluxx 5.0 and SE
Time Doorway in Regular Show Fluxx
Open The Door in Monster Fluxx
Chemical X in Cartoon Network Fluxx
Great Idea! in Stoner Fluxx

Q: Would a counter-Surprise cancel It’s A Trap in full, or just the reverse-steal function?

[Note that in Firefly Fluxx, the Surprise You Can’t Take This Guy From Me has a similarly retaliative function as It’s A Trap, though the punishment is different. All of the same issues might arise with that card as with It’s A Trap!]

Player 1 played Steal a Keeper. Player 2 played It’s A Trap, then Player 1 played Belay That.

Player 1 believes that Belay That cancels It’s a Trap as if those two cards never got played, so the original Steal A Keeper stands, and Player 1 gets to steal a keeper from Player 2.

Player 2 thinks that when Player 1 played Belay That it should have then stopped Player 2 from stealing a keeper from Player 1, but that’s it. It should have been a wash and nobody got to steal from anyone.

A: Player 1 is correct in this case. Here’s how that works:

Player 1 played Steal A Keeper (an Action) to steal Player 2’s Keeper

Player 2 played the It’s a Trap (a Surprise) to prevent the steal and steal a Keeper from Player 1 instead.

Player 1 then played Belay That (a Surprise) to use its Surprise-countering ability to counter It’s A Trap. In this case, Belay That is not countering an Action, it’s countering a Surprise. It counters the entire card as if it had not been played, not just the counter-steal part of It’s A Trap, so Player 1’s original Steal A Keeper goes through unimpeded.

In fact, Player 1 could have played ANY Surprise to counter It’s A Trap, not just Belay That. They could have played Canceled Plans, or Veto, or That’s Mine, since all Surprises counter other Surprises. In fact, if Player 2 had had a second Surprise of ANY type, they could have played it to counter Belay That, and their It’s A Trap would have gone through unimpeded.

Q: Can I use That’s Mine to cancel the play of the Batcave?

The Batcave reads “Other players cannot play Surprises during your turn.” Which comes first? The canceling of the play (so its special power never comes into effect) or the play itself (preventing the Surprise)?

A: So, the idea behind the Batcave is that if you have it, it’s as though you’re in it, and it’s fortress-like power of über-surveillance means that you cannot be Surprised. Since the out-of-turn function of Surprises is to literally surprise the player they’re affecting, the owner of the Batcave is immune from the in-game version of being literally being surprised: other people using Surprises against them on their turn.

Furthermore, (and perhaps most pertinent to this question) the Batcave is special, and it’s power is simply invoked faster than any Surprise that could normally be played for it’s “surprising” (i.e. out-of-turn) function. In this sense it is “even more instantaneous” than Surprises.

See also: If someone tries to steal the Batcave from me on their turn, and I use a Surprise to stop them, will my Surprise work?

Q: If I have the Time Traveler, and play the Time Portal and someone uses a Surprise to cancel it, what happens to the Time Portal card?

since the Time Portal normally gets to go back in your hand if you have the Time Traveler…

A: The Time Portal gets discarded. Since the Time Traveler doesn’t get to use the Time Portal at all, he can’t get it back again.

Also of note: The Time Portal causes your turn to end immediately, but if the Action gets canceled, then all portions of the Action get undone, so your turn also does not end early. It’s like the Surprise makes the Action disappear entirely.

Q: Can one ever use the out-of-turn function of a Surprise during one’s own turn?

A: If you use the Surprise card as one of your plays during your turn, then you must use the “during your turn” functions. The “out of turn” functions almost always cancel some other card play, and it is not allowed to cancel your own play with your own Surprise. Thematically, consider this: it’s hard to really call it a “surprise” if you’re doing it to yourself in this manner.

The only time when you might not use the “during your turn” on your turn is when you’re using a Surprise to counter a Surprise played by another player against you during your turn.

See Does countering a Surprise on my turn count as…

Q: Can I use a Surprise from my set-aside hand to cancel a Surprise played on one of my Draw 2 & Use Em, or Draw 3, Play 2 (or Fizzbin, or Goal Bonanza) cardplays?

Also, could I use a Surprise that was part of the subturn to cancel the attacking Surprise, and if so would that count as one of the plays?

Example:
Player #1 plays “Draw 3, Play 2 Of Them” and gets an Action, a Keeper, and a Surprise.
They play their Action and Player #2 plays Belay That [Avast, Stop That] to cancel it.
–> can Player #1 use the Surprise in their mini-hand to cancel that Surprise,
–> and if so do they still get to play their Keeper afterwards?

A: Yes, you can use a Surprise from your main hand, or from your sub-hand, to cancel another player’s Surprise during your Draw 3, Play 2 Action. Playing a Surprise to cancel a Surprise is a free action, so yes, you would get to play the third card if your second card is a Surprise that you use to counter a Surprise being used to stop your first card.

Using Goal Bonanza also results in the play of a “sub-hand” while the rest of your hand is put aside, and the same things would apply there as well. Yes, you can counter-Surprise from either your main hand or your sub-hand.

In the case of Fizzbin, you don’t have the option of using any of the cards in your temporary hand, you have to play them blind, in random order, so any Surprises that are in that temporary hand won’t be useful to you – but you can still use Surprises in your set-aside hand to counter Surprises played against cards played as part of your Fizzbin action.

Q: If a player uses Trade Hands, and their hand contains Stop That (which cancels actions) can the other player use it immediately upon receipt to cancel the Trade Hands?

In this scenario Player #1 has the Trade Hands and Stop That, and Player #2 is being forced to trade hands.

A: No. If the surprise were in Player #2’s hand, then Player#2 could use it to stop the Action, but if the surprise is in Player #1’s hand, then Player #2 does not have access to the card until after the Trade Hands Action has been resolved, by which time it’s too late to be stopped.

If you think about it too hard, you’ll realize it can ONLY work this way. If it worked the way you described there would be a paradoxical loop:

You used the Stop That you received in Trade Hands to stop Trade Hands, so you didn’t trade hands, so you didn’t have the Stop That, so you couldn’t use it, so you traded hands, but then you had the Stop That, and you used it to prevent the Trade Hands, but then you didn’t have it, didn’t use it, but then you traded and had it…

…and so forth to insanity.

Q: Can Canceled Plans prevent someone from winning the game? What about That’s Mine?

Player #1 contends that he won the game because the rules say that as soon as a goal is achieved the game is over and no other actions/cards can be played. Player #2 says that no, the Surprise card overrides the general rule and cancels the playing of the goal and therefore the game does not end. Which is true?

A: Yes. If the Canceled Plans card played is played immediately, it cancels the Goal and play continues to the next person. That is the intent of the card.

It works the same way for That’s Mine. If the winning play is a Keeper, That’s Mine can be used to cancel that play, preventing the win.

Again, Surprises are meant to be able to work this way… but you have to be using the correct Surprise for the type of play you’re canceling – and you must play your Surprise in a timely manner: say, within a few seconds of the player playing their card.

For more nuanced suggestions about how to resolve some tweaky timing issues, check
When a player is allowed multiple plays on their turn, are there any guidelines for timing between plays?”

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).

Q: Regarding Canceled Plans and Stop That, if you play them during your turn, it says “All other players must discard one Goal/Action, or a random card, from their hands.” Does that mean players get a choice?

Or must you discard a Goal/Action if you have one, and a random card only if you don’t?

A: Players get to choose. They may either look at their cards and select a Goal/Action to give up, or they may select a random card from their hand to give up. Of course, if they don’t have any Goals/Actions, they can only opt to lose a random card.

Note that random means RANDOM. They don’t get to decide which card they give up in this case. They can do this either by mixing their own hand face down, and pulling one out without looking, or they can have you pull one from their hand as they hold it up facing themselves.

Q: Can a Surprise card be played to stop a card played previously during someone’s turn?

Some examples:

Example 1: Player A plays a Keeper, and then plays a Goal card to win. Player B plays That’s Mine (the counter-Keeper Surprise) to cancel Player A’s Keeper card hoping to cancel the win. Conversely, maybe Player A played a Goal, then a Keeper, and Player B tried to use Canceled Plans (the counter-Goal Surprise).

Example 2: Player A played the That’s Mine as an in-turn card and stole the Computer from Player B. Then Player A set down a Keeper. Player B then played a Surprise card, claiming that the wording on the card says it may be used on the Surprise card just played.

Example 3: Player A played Draw 3 Play 2 Of Them, drew three cards, and one of them is a Goal that let them win, so they played it. Player B then played Stop That (the counter-Action Surprise) to try to cancel the playing of Draw 3 Play 2, hoping to cancel the win.

A: In all of these cases, Player A’s actions stand, as the Surprise has been played too late. The counteractive Surprise must be played IMMEDIATELY after the card you wish to counteract. It also doesn’t apply to “the most recently played card of the target type played this turn.” Once another card of any type has been played, or a subsequent resulting action taken, it becomes too late to retroactively stop a previous card play with a Surprise.

Don’t be that person needing to ask for a special exception to the rules, and make sure the new players you’re teaching understand: Surprises need to be used in a timely manner. Whenever you have one in your hand, acquaint yourself with its power right away so that you can make a snap decision about whether to use it, since, if you hesitate too long, your opportunity is likely to pass.

So are there ever exceptions? It depends how relaxed you want to play, and how everyone is getting along. If Player B was a less-than-experienced player, it’s highly likely that it just took them a little while to read their own Surprise card to realize that it could be used in that way. If the results of a rewind are relatively inconsequential, one might cut them some slack. If Player A somehow anticipated that Player B was going to counter their play, and took their next action with barely a blink then that’s a bit rude. But if there was a heated disagreement, please do fall back on the official ruling. The ONLY reason you might choose to ignore it is if you wish to cut Player B some slack for being a n00b, or if you want to call shenanigans on Player A’s playing style for some reason.

Remember: it’s never appropriate to see the consequences of a previous card play, and THEN realize that you wish you’d stopped it before something else happened as a result of that play. In example 1, Player B probably didn’t realize that the first play would result in the win until the second card was played. In example 3, Player B couldn’t know when Draw 3 Play 2 was played that it would result in a win. Too bad. No exceptions for those cases.

This is where careful ordering of your plays and a good poker face are important so as not to broadcast your intentions. And people say there’s no strategy in Fluxx…

Q: With That’s Mine (That Be Mine, Twist Of Fate) played out of turn, if someone is receiving a card via an Action, can I use That’s Mine to intercept it, and get that Keeper myself?

…For example, if they’re using Steal A Keeper, or Exchange Keepers, can I get the Keeper they’re acquiring?
Or if they’re Plundering a Keeper, can I take the Keeper they’re Plundering?
Or if someone plays Mix It All Up, or Share the Wealth, can I get a Keeper that’s being dealt out to someone else?

A: No, No, and No. You can only use the out-of-turn* function of That’s Mine when someone else is putting a Keeper into play in a situation where it was previously NOT in play. You can’t use it to intercept a Keeper being allocated, traded, stolen, or acquired in any other way.

In most cases it’s an Action, or possibly a Free Action, for which there are Surprises you could use – but they wouldn’t gain you the Keeper which is in transit. They would only stop the Action or Free Action from happening, preventing the Keeper from changing hands in the first place.

There are, however, some situations besides normal playing of a Keeper from someone’s hand, where wording on another card does actually include the word “play” in the way a Keeper is acquired. See this FAQ about cards played via the Free Action Wormhole (AKA Mystery Play). Or this FAQ about Actions which allow you to take a Keeper out of the discard pile and play it.

* Of course you could use your That’s Mine card on your next turn, for it’s in-turn function which is essentially the same as Steal a Keeper, so you’re really not in a bad place, even if you couldn’t get that Keeper in the middle of the results of an Action.

Q: If someone cancels one of my plays with a Surprise, do I get the card back, and still have that play to use?

… or does the card that was canceled go in the trash (or to my opponent in the case of That’s Mine), and my attempt has used up one of my plays?

See this answer in a video!
Little Answers

A: No, it’s that second thing you said: the card that got canceled goes away, and that play has been squandered. On the other hand, your opponent had to give up a card from their hand as well, so it’s not as though it’s without sacrifice on their part too.