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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: Attaching Creepers say “both cards stay together until discarded.” Are there exceptions to this rule?

A: While one of the most obvious ways to get rid of a Creeper attached to one of your Keepers is to destroy them both (or move them both), there ARE ways that you can destroy the Creeper while still retaining the Keeper. The key things here are 1) explicit wording, and 2) thematic appropriateness.

In Star Fluxx*, the exceptions are the Doctor, who can cure Brain Parasites, and the Engineer*, who can fix a Malfunction. In both cases they detach the Creeper, and the Keeper is left, good as new. Creeper Reassignment also specifically states that you detach the Creeper to move it. In Cthulhu Fluxx, the Dreamer states that he can detach Nightmares and discard it. Meanwhile the Sanitarium logically can cure an afflicted Keeper of Nightmares or Insanity. In Anatomy Fluxx, special actions allow you to “cure” yourself.

Some examples where the Creepers DO stay attached would be, in Star Fluxx, the weapons Laser Sword and Laser Pistol, which, again, quite logically, destroy the Keeper in order to destroy the attached Creeper. And while the Phaser in Star Trek or TNG Fluxx targets just the Creeper, it doesn’t say anything about detaching the Keeper either, so if you use it to get rid of an attached Creeper, the Keeper it’s attached to will also be destroyed. The Teleporter will move a Keeper… and its attached Creeper. If a Keeper or Creeper goes into the trash, then it’s attached card goes along.

In Cthulhu Fluxx, The Feds are pretty much the equivalent, though they also destroy themselves in the process. The Necronomicon lets you move any Creeper… and says nothing about detaching it, so you’d have to move any attendant Keeper (and extra Creepers if more than one is attached).

Trash Something is the generic Action version of what the weapons allow you to do. You could trash a Keeper, and it’s Creeper will go along, or you could trash a Creeper, and it’s attached Keeper would go along. There’s no logical reason or explicit wording that lets you detach connected Creeper-Keeper combos for this Action.

*In various Star Trek Fluxxen, there are specific Engineer analogues: Scotty, Geordi, O’Brien that work the same way with respect to Malfunction.

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: 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: If you play Trash Something (or Trash a Keeper), can you choose not to trash something?

…For example, if you’re the only one with Keepers, or the only thing on the table is your opponent’s Creeper…can you choose to do nothing?

A: No, you cannot trash nothing. If you play Trash Something and there’s something available to trash, you must trash it, even if it’s your opponent’s Creeper. Likewise, if you play Trash a Keeper, and you’re the only one with Keepers, you must trash one of your own.