A: It’s a bit tricky, but, yes, you can Zap a New Rule. This is one of those rare times in Solo Fluxx when a New Rule becomes part of your hand. You can choose to replay it as one of your Plays any time later. If it ends up being discarded, it goes back into the Rules discard pile.
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Q: Can I use Zap A Card to pick up my own Creeper briefly off the table long enough for me to claim victory?
A: No. A Creeper can never be in a hand, so when Zapped, it just goes directly in front of the person who Zapped it, so you wouldn’t be able to use this to relieve yourself of a Creeper long enough to win. It would move from in front of you, to in front of you.
Q: Some cards say things about “when discarded”. If I use Zap A Card, the card isn’t discarded, it’s just no longer in play. Isn’t that the same thing in this case?
A: Yes, removing a card from play with Zap A Card would have the same effect as discarding it… unless it’s a Creeper, in which case it cannot be held in one’s hand, and would effectively just be moved from in play in front of one player, to in play in front of the player who Zapped it.
Q: Can I use It’s A Trap, I Have a Sword, or Skullduggery if someone uses Zap A Card to take one of my Keepers into their hand?
A: Quick answer: Yes.
Obviously, the more generic Belay That/Stop That (counter Action) would work, but the question here is about whether Zapping could trigger the Trap/Sword/Skullduggery. The card It’s A Trap! is intended to counter Keeper “stealing” in all general senses to include more than just the specific Action Steal A Keeper. It was originally conceived to counter Keepers with special stealing abilities, like The Captain in various Fluxxen, but it also works if someone is invoking Plunder (AKA City of Thieves, AKA Crime Happens, AKA Get Over Here) to steal one of your Keepers.
So, since Zap A Card essentially lets someone steal one of your Keepers, we would answer yes: you can use It’s A Trap or any of it’s siblings (I Have a Sword, Skullduggery) in response to someone Zapping one of your Keepers into their hand. Of course, in the case of the Trap, specifically, if they don’t have any Keepers in play themselves, you won’t get anything back, but you will still squander their Zap A Card, and prevent your Keeper from being taken.
Note that You Can’t Take This Guy From Me (Firefly Fluxx) has the same trigger, and can be invoked by all the same situations. Although there is no Zap A Card in Firefly Fluxx, there is a Plunder card, and Zap A Card is available as a promo, so it could be added to any deck.
Q: What happens if I Zap a Creeper attached to a Keeper? Or Zap a Keeper with a Creeper attached?
A: The Creeper and Keeper stay attached together until something separates them. So they would go to you, and attempt to go into your hand, which would separate them, since a Creeper cannot be held in your hand. So you’d end up with the Keeper in your hand, and the Creeper on the table in front of you, which will immediately attach to a Keeper, if possible (some can attach to any Keeper, some only to certain types.)
Q: When I use Zap A Card on a Creeper, do I get to put it in my hand, then play it and draw to replace it?
A: Not quite. If you Zap a Creeper, you would simply then place it in front of you. You don’t get to draw anything.
The reason the Creeper card includes the words “then draw to replace” is that if you draw a Creeper, it goes down in front of you, and that doesn’t count as one of your draws (or one of your plays) so you still have a draw left, which you get to execute. Or if you were dealt a Creeper at the beginning of the game, it needs to go down in front of you, and you need to replace the card missing from your initial hand, since you should not start the game with a smaller hand than everyone else.
If you gain a Creeper any other way, you just gain it. It cannot ever really go into your hand, so it goes directly into play. If you choose to Zap a Creeper, you just get that Creeper. The reason is that Zap isn’t meant to give you an extra card in your hand so much as it is meant to give you whatever card you Zapped. So it’s not like you somehow missed out on the card Zap was intended to give you, such that you need to draw to “replace” anything.
Q: When using the Fluxx card Zap A Card as the repeating action with the Rule Let’s Keep Doing that, what happens if you zap Zap A Card?
…and what about Smite a Card from Olympus Fluxx?
A: The answer is that when you pick an Action card to go onto Let’s Keep Doing that, it’s like they become grafted together, so you can’t do anything to one without affecting the other. In this case the Action is really just a reminder, sort of a “shadow card” that indicates the current power of Let’s Keep Doing that, which is the Rule which is actually in play, and the Action is not considered to really be “in play”.
So we would rule that you can’t actually zap Zap A Card, you could only zap Let’s Keep Doing That. When you zap Let’s Keep Doing That, the applicable Action would go in the discard pile, and, as per the Zap A Card instructions, the Rule would go into your hand.
With Smite a Card, the only difference is that BOTH cards would end up in the discard pile: trying to smite Smite a Card itself would end up smiting Let’s Keep Doing that, and it would go in the trash.
Q: When using Zap A Card in Fluxx, can I take cards out of the discard pile?
A: No. The card says you can take any card “in play” on the table. That includes: the current Goal, any current Rule (not the Basic Rules, of course), or any Keeper or Creeper in front of any player. Note, of course, that Creepers cannot be held in your hand, so they go back into play in front of you if you steal them from someone else, instead of going into your hand.
Q: When playing Zap A Card or Move a Card in Aquarius or Seven Dragons, do the remaining cards need to be still touching?
A: Creating separated groups of cards via Zap or Move is not specifically disallowed, as long as you can tell the grid relationship of the gap created, so you know where to place any connecting cards.
Since the groups might later be reconnected, it needs to be clear where they are with respect to future cards that might reconnect them to the larger layout. Theoretically, if you wanted to create a “board” that showed your grid to the corners of the table, you could create gaps of any distance.
Most people aren’t going to create a grid “board” to play on, however. A general guideline would be, assuming you can keep your cards relatively tidy on the table, we recommend leaving a gap of no more than one card between groups. That said, if you think your gaming group can keep things straight, you could leave a bigger gap if you want to.
Keep in mind that when you replay a card into the gap, as with any play to the table, it only needs to connect panels on one side. There is no requirement that you form a valid elemental connection on more than one side.
Q: When Zapping A Card in Aquarius, are you allowed to create an “island”: an isolated card not attached to the rest?
A: It is fine to create an “island.” Furthermore, when playing a card reconnecting the island to the rest of the cards, the card you play still only has to have a match on one side, just as usual (so it can connect to the “island,” or the “mainland,” and is not required to match both). Of course, connecting more than one way may still have its advantages, it’s just not required.
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?