A: Unless it is specified that an appropriated card goes into your hand, you should assume it goes in front of you, just as you should assume the only valid targets of theft are cards in play unless otherwise stated. In general, a card will maintain its in- or out-of-play status even if it changes ownership: if it starts in play in front of someone else, it it stays in play in front of you. Exceptions (like Zap a Card, or Use What You Take) state the origin and destination of the card.

Thus all stealing of Keepers, whether via an Action (like Steal a Keeper) or Free Action Rule (like Plunder), or Keeper Power (like various Captains in several versions) involves taking a Keeper from in front of someone else and putting it in front of you.

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A: No, using any special powers or abilities listed on Keepers or Creepers does not use up one of your plays for your turn.

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A: To recap, the Action Rotate Hands says: All players pass their hands to the player next to them. You decide which direction.

We would say that to ROTATE hands, the movement should be in a circle around the table. We understand that there are some games where “across the table” is one of the directions one can pass cards, but, because it would only work with an even number of players, that makes the instructions more complicated for us to describe on the rule sheet.

It’s a fine house rule, however! Of course the thing about house rules is that you have to make them clear BEFORE the game starts. In other words if everyone agrees beforehand that “across” is a valid direction, go for it! It’s totally fine with us if it’s fine with all the players. It sounds like a fun option to add!

But, in the middle of the game, you can’t suddenly claim that you want everyone to pass “across” for Rotate Hands. You have to have previously agreed that that’s a valid option, since it’s not the default intention of the card. It’s not a problem to pass across, but you have to make sure everyone knows and agrees to that option before the game, and not in the middle of it.

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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)

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… The wording “final play” makes it seem as if there’s more than one play needed….

A: If you have only one Play (or only one card to play, even if the rules allow more) then that one card would be both your first and your final play. So yes, there IS a final play, even if you’d only be playing one card.

So, in order to use Get On With It, you’d have to do it before your final play, i.e. before your ONLY play. You’d just not take your Play for that turn, and do Get On With It instead.

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A: “On your turn” means every time your turn comes around (assuming favorable conditions apply).

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A: This is VERY good question, which we are surprised hasn’t come up before! We had to sit down and really contemplate the situation to make a ruling on this.

To recap, the Play All But 1 (New Rule) says “If you started with no cards in your hand and only drew 1, draw an extra card.” And, as we all know, when you play a card that increases the Draw amount, you get to draw the difference to increase your total cards drawn to the current New Rule in play.

The way Andy framed the question is “Is the extra card one draws like a ‘salary advance’ on your regular draw allotment , or is it more like a ‘bonus’ on top of your regular draw?” After some thought we felt that what the Play All But 1 card is doing is more like a temporary modification of the Basic Draw rule, and, as such, would make the extra card part of your total Draw allowance for your turn.

So, in the example presented in the question above, where (after having started with no cards, and Drawing 2) you have played Draw 4, you would draw only 2 additional cards (and continue to Play until you have only 1 card left in your hand).

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A: No. In order to use the powers of a Keeper or Creeper in play, it must be in your possession. “You/your” in this case refers to the owner of the card only.

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A: No, you don’t HAVE to use it immediately. You MAY use it immediately if you want to, however.

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A: Keeper powers do not usually destroy or take the Keeper out of play to use them – unless they specifically say they do.

A couple say you’ll have to pick the Keeper up and put it back in your hand when you use its power, and one or two say to insert the Keeper into the middle of the draw pile. Only a couple will cause destruction of the Keeper being used. In any case those requirements will all be specified on the Keeper in question.

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…Double Agenda says “A second Goal can now be played…” The person I was playing with thought this meant they automatically got to put a second Goal down as part of the Double Agenda play.

A: Double Agenda allows there to be two Goals at the same time, but playing a second Goal (or even first if you’re really early in the game!) still uses up one of your plays for your turn.

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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.

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A: Yes, we missed a number of things while checking the proofs on that print-run, unfortunately. I usually joke that we were under a Mummy’s Curse (and it wasn’t even a real mummy!) Some of the things were bad enough that we actually had some loose replacement cards printed up, which we can send you for free, either by including them on an order, or sending them to you from an email inquiry.

Known issues:
Goal: That’s No Mummy (That’s Just a Guy Wearing Cloth Strips!)
The Goal correctly shows the required Keepers as being The Mummy and The Teenage Detectives, but the text below calls for The Mummy & The Tombstone.

Action: Monster Mash
The side stripe erroneously names the card Shuffle Hands (and, furthermore, it’s actually a Shuffle-Keepers kind of card).

These two cards can be purchased at our webstore. If errata replacement cards are the only thing you’re getting, we will remove shipping and send them to you for free (or you can add them to your order with other items). You can also just email customer-support@looneylabs.com, and request them. (Please include your address.)

A third error was deemed too minor to create an errata card for:

There’s a Keeper named The Wolfman, but Goal/s involving it may name it The Werewolf. Please simply consider these two terms to be equivalent wherever you see them.

Here’s a link to the card list for Monster Fluxx if you’d like to check your deck

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A: The card Play All But 1 says: Play all but 1 of your cards. If you started with no cards in your hand and only drew 1, draw an extra card.

So, the player in question, starting with zero cards, must play the card they draw. If that card turns out to be Play All But 1, then, as per the directions on that card, since they “started with no cards in [their] hand and only drew 1,” then they need to draw an extra card. Since the current Rule is Play All But 1, they are left with 1 card in their hand, and their turn is over.

*Note that in some earlier printings, the last instance of the number 1 is written out as “one,” but, to avoid conflicts with Inflation, it should actually be a numeral as written here.

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…Since these cards are all played as part of a single play, would the player get to finish playing them out, or would their turn just stop? And if it just stopped, what would happen to any unplayed cards? We’ve been letting the player keep them.

A: The clear answer is that if you decide to play one of these turn-ending Actions, your turn would end immediately, and you would not get to continue playing cards from your temporary mini-hand (in other words, no, you would not get to finish playing D3P2/D2UE.

Of course, in the case of Fizzbin, you don’t get a choice as to the order of cards played, but that card most closely resembles D3P2/D2UE, since you set your main hand aside, and are working from a temporary hand of extra cards to execute the Fizzbin.

Using the optional Free Action Rule Goal Bonanza also creates a sub-hand with your main hand set aside. While it’s not in any decks with turn-ending Actions, it’s in the More Packs, which could be added to any deck, including those with turn-ending Actions.

However, there is NO way that any remaining cards would go back into your set-aside hand. They are never intended to go into your actual hand at all, as indicated by the requirement to set your hand aside. Any cards left unplayed when you played the turn-ending card are discarded. If you wanted to play them, you should have done it before the turn-ending card.

Brain Transference: Discard remaining cards in your temporary hand and trade places with the player of your choice. Turn ends.
Time Portal: Choose a card as described and add to your set-aside hand. Discard remaining cards in your temporary hand. Turn ends.
What Do You Want: If you choose to take a Keeper or Goal out of the discard, it goes into your set aside hand. Discard remaining cards in your temporary hand. Turn ends.
I’ll Be In My Bunk or I’ll Be Right Back: This card does not specifically say that your turn ends immediately, but you certainly can’t continue your turn if you “Excuse yourself from the game and leave the room for a few minutes.” Discard any cards remaining in your temporary hand. Leave the room.

Swap Plays For Draws and Get On With It, while they do involve having your turn end immediately, are New Rules, not Actions, so, as you can see from this answer, things would work a bit differently:
See: Can you Get On With It or Swap Plays For Draws with your cards from an Action like Draw 3 Play 2?

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…I had one card in my hand, with Play 4 in effect. I played my card, an Action card which was then discarded. I wanted to claim to able to get 3 new cards because “Get On With It” which was on the table says I could since I had discarded my hand and had 4 – 1 = 3 plays left.

A: In order to take the option to Get On With It, you must be sacrificing (at least) one of your Plays, and you must be discarding a hand of at least one card.

The most obvious issue is that, at the point when you wanted to Get On With It, you didn’t discard your hand. You played an Action, and now your hand is empty. You have to have something to discard in order to discard something. Your hand has to exist in order to be discarded.

The second issue is almost a side effect. We would not consider you to “have plays left” if you have no cards to play. In this case your first play WAS your final play, so you can’t take this option because it’s not before your final play. In order to have a final play, you have to have a card to play.

The whole thing follows logically, since the card/s you could have played – but didn’t – will be remaining in your hand, and therefore among the cards you’re throwing away.

See also: Is Swap Plays For Draws limited by the number of cards you have in your hand?

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…It seems like it wouldn’t really matter.

A: Actually, this is mostly unnecessary. There used to be a rule where one could take things out of the top three cards, but that card has been replaced in all current versions with this one, which is more liberal. That said, there is a promo card which allows you to take the bottom card off the discard pile, so it would matter if you were playing with the promo card Composting. Hmm.

In Nature/EcoFluxx, the Action Scavenger lets you look down through the discard pile and play the first Keeper you find. Anyhow, you could look at the other cards in your deck, and see if this is going to matter for the version you’re playing with. It’s a matter of logic.

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A: No. The instructions on Get On With It (or Swap Plays for Draws) only temporarily override the instructions on Play All and only on the turn of the player using it. Since choosing to use one of these is optional, simply putting either of them into play doesn’t contradict Play All, so you wouldn’t discard Play All just because you played one of them (nor vice versa!)

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A: It’s true, the Creeper card does say “immediately draw another card to replace it” but this doesn’t mean you replace the Creeper on the table, discarding it. This means “replace the Creeper in the number of cards you drew.” If you needed to draw 3 cards, and you drew them and one of them was a Creeper, you play the Creeper and draw another card, because that Creeper doesn’t count as one of the 3 cards you needed to draw (neither does it count against the number of cards you get to Play on your turn), so you have only drawn 2 cards, so you still need to draw a third.

You’re not replacing the Creeper from it’s place “in play” (i.e. on the table). You’re just replacing the card “lost” as part of your draw count because it was a Creeper. The idea is that Creepers go into play automatically, whether you want them to or not. They’re usually a problem for you, and you have to work to get rid of them (though sometimes you need them for Goals, otherwise, they hinder you).

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A: Cards (Actions) that end your turn immediately if you play them:

Brain Transference: Star Fluxx
Clean Cup!: Wonderland Fluxx
Time Portal: Star Fluxx, Doctor Who Fluxx, TNG Fluxx, Voyager Fluxx,
What Do You Want?: Star Fluxx, Oz Fluxx, Doctor Who Fluxx
I’ll Be In My Bunk: Firefly Fluxx
I’ll Be Right Back: Fluxx Remixx
(These last two cards don’t specifically say that your turn ends immediately, but you certainly can’t continue your turn if you “Excuse yourself from the game and leave the room for a few minutes.”)

Cards (Rules) that end your turn immediately if/when you execute them, but not when you play them:

Swap Plays for Draws
Get On With it
Play All +1 (not optional, but see below)

Free Action Rules are optional, so you could choose not to use one that will end your turn immediately. While Play All +1 is not optional, you have some options about when you choose to take that final +1.

Other questions pertaining to cards which cause your turn to end immediately:

Interaction with Play All
Interaction with Hand Limits
Using immediate turn-end Actions with compound Actions like Draw 3 Play 2, etc
Using immediate turn-end New Rules with compound Actions like Draw 3 Play 2, etc
Interaction with Play All +1

Also see:

Order of events in a Fluxx turn

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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.

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A: Whoever caused it to go away gets to choose which Goal stays in play, and which gets trashed.

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A: We’d say definitely yes, but the only caveat is that you have to remember to treat that one Keeper as if it were a Creeper (with FIVE zombies on it!) Since there will be so many Zombie Creepers in the mixed deck, you could just decide to take out the Zombies Keeper when you mix the decks. There would still be plenty of chances to fulfill any Zombie related Goals from Monster Fluxx, and then you wouldn’t have to remember to treat that one Keeper as a Creeper.

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A: There are many analogues to Wormhole (the first one we made) or Mystery Play (the most generic one). Some may require a token action (click your heels together to use Magic Shoes in Oz Fluxx, for example) or condition (if a certain card is in play) to activate them but they are essentially all the same kind of card.

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)

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A: The wording on Let’s Simplify is as clear as we could make it. If we had said that you may discard up to half of the New Rules in play, and there were an odd number (for example, five of them) you wouldn’t know whether you should round up or down. But we tell you that you should ROUND UP when figuring out what “half” is, so in this example, you know you can discard up to three.

Of course, you may discard up to half – you don’t have to discard three; you could choose to discard just one or two, or even zero if you want. Those numbers are all less than “half (rounded up) of five”.

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A: You could certainly put either of these New Rules (Get On With It, or Swap Plays For Draws) into play as part of an Action like Draw 3 Play 2 of them (D3P2) or Draw 2 and Use Em (D2UE), or Fizzbin (or your cards drawn via the Rule Goal Bonanza) but you could not utilize their functions while in the middle of executing one of these cards. While all four of these Actions/Free Actions do give you a sort of temporary hand, you can’t substitute it for your real hand to “discard and draw back up to 3”, for example.

You would either need to invoke Get On With It! before the Free/Action with the temporary hand is played or after. The Playing of D3P2/D2UE/Fizzbin/Goal Bonanza, and all actions as a result of it are considered 1 “Play”.

See also: What happens if I play an Action that causes my turn to end immediately in the middle of Draw 3 Play 2 or Draw 2 & Use Em (or Fizzbin, or Goal Bonanza)?

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A: When you play an Action or use a New Rule card says “your turn ends immediately” it means it’s specifically overriding any Play rule that might otherwise require you to keep playing cards on this turn. You also end any option you may have to use Keeper powers or “Free Action” Rules. If it says “your turn ends immediately” then your turn ends immediately – so make sure you’re all done with stuff before you play/use one of these cards!

See: Q: What cards have effects that include ending my turn immediately if I play/use them?

Also see: Would putting either of these two into play cause Play All to be discarded?

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If I qualify for drawing three cards because of the No-Hand Bonus, and the Draw rule is five, do I draw a total of five cards or eight?

A: The No-Hand Bonus states: “Draw a new hand of 3 cards BEFORE observing the current draw rule” (emphasis added). Your drawing 3 cards is considered a “pre-turn action”: these cards essentially make up a “new hand” which simulates you having had a hand BEFORE starting your turn. Then you observe the current draw rule, which says draw 5 cards.

So you draw a total of eight cards in this case.

Secondary Q: So if I increase the Draw rule from Draw 2 to Draw 4 on my turn, do I still get to draw an extra 2 cards? One of my opponents argued that I had already drawn 5 for the Bonus plus the Draw 2, so I couldn’t draw more when I increased the Draw rule.

A: Since the cards drawn for the No-Hand bonus are separate from those drawn because of the Draw rule in play, and don’t count towards the number of cards drawn for your turn, YES, you get to draw two more cards when you increase the Draw from 2 to 4.

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A: No. Hand and Keeper Limits apply to you when it’s not your turn, so you would observe them as soon as your turn ends.

See also: Q: What cards have effects that include ending my turn immediately if I play/use them?

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Do I have to set my hand aside so that card doesn’t mix with it, and play that card exactly, or does this just add to my total play, so I can add the extra card to my hand, and play whatever cards I want, increasing the number of plays I have?

A: “Draw and Play 1 extra card per turn” just increases your total draws and total plays for the turn by 1, so whatever card you draw that is “extra” just gets added to your hand like all the other cards you drew, and you can play whatever cards you want from your hand up to the play quantity plus 1.

Unless the card says you have to set aside your hand, you don’t, and you’re not required to play the specific card you drew card unless the option you’re invoking specifies that.

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Does it count as one of your plays for your turn to do this thing?

A: No. That’s the whole point of it being “free”. It does not use one of your plays. Depending on the game we’re talking about (there are cards like this in Chrononauts and Back To The Future, in addition to many in Fluxx editions), you might only be getting one play per turn, and whatever this thing does won’t use up your play for the turn.

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Or can it replace the single Goal in play, leaving a spot empty?

See this answer in a video!
Little Answers

A: If there is an empty slot for a Goal because of Double Agenda, the next Goal played must fill that spot, and not replace the single Goal already in play.

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The Computer promo card, or Batcomputer in Batman Fluxx, for example, increases both your Play and your Draw by 1. So does the Rich Bonus. Play 1 extra doesn’t affect Play All, so why would it affect Play All But 1?

A: Play All But 1 isn’t the same as Play All: when you Play All But 1, you do have 1 card remaining, so when you are then required to play +1 cards, you do have one left to play, so you must play it.

You need to take Play All But 1 as a unit into consideration: you can’t just break out the Play All, and apply the effects of the Computer, and then apply the …But 1 part.

Note that since the effects of the Computer are not optional, you have to do it, whether you like it or not. Other similar effects may be optional, so always check on that. It’s pretty easy to see whether something says you “may” do it, or if it just happens.

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Do I get to decide who gets what? Do I get to decide how many to deal to each player? Do the recipients put them in their hands or on the table in front of them? Are they face up or face down? When I’m dealing them out, who do I start with?

A: First of all, only for Everybody Gets 1 (or Dreams & Omens) does the active player get to look at and decide who gets what. That’s a very different situation that the ones we’re talking about here. This question focuses on random (fairly even) redistribution along the lines of Share The Wealth.

The cards in question are shuffled or otherwise randomized so that the dealer does not know what’s being given out. They are then dealt out evenly, going around the circle clockwise, one card to each player in turn, continuing until the cards are all gone. Dealing starts with either the active player or the player to their left, with the intention of providing any possible benefit to the active player.

• So if it’s for Keepers, or a mixture of Keepers and Creepers, the active player should get the first card, because this is felt to be to their advantage, so they won’t get shorted if the number doesn’t deal out evenly. However, we would consider it an officially sanctioned house-rule if your group wanted to give the active player the option of starting with the player to their left instead of themselves. There could be reasons…

• For redistribution of Creepers-only, the card will usually say to start with the player to the left of the active player, because Creepers are generally considered a disadvantage, and this would mean that if anyone was going to receive fewer, it would always be the active player. However, as with other redistribution cards, your group may choose to let the active player decide whether they want to start with themselves or the person on their left. Again, we can think of reasons why someone might want to start distributing Creepers to themselves first.

Once dealt, all cards will be put into play immediately, so it’s OK to deal them out face up, but it’s sometimes better to deal them out face down, then have everybody reveal what they got all at once. As mentioned above, re/distributing by dealing will cause all players to end up with roughly equal numbers of cards. So if there are large discrepancies in the number of cards players had in play, this will even them out: players with a lot more than other players will end up with fewer than they had, and players with few or zero cards in play may end up with more. That’s the way it goes.

Here’s a list of redistributing cards, and their types:

Scramble Keepers, which is only in early versions of “Basic” Fluxx (1.0-3.x) is the only Action which is different. While you still shuffle up the Keepers and hand them back randomly and they go back into play, you don’t deal them out evenly, but instead give each player the same number of Keepers they had before. When we came up with Share The Wealth, we felt it was far superior, as we liked the way it leveled the playing field, keeping the game more competitive, to maximize player engagement.

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The card reads, in part “You decide who gets what.” My brother thinks I should hand them out without looking at them, but I think I get to look at them so that I know what they all got, but they only know what they each got.

A: As you have surmised, there is indeed no meaning to the phrase “you decide who gets what” unless you get to look at all the cards before you hand them out (yes, the intention is that you hand them out face down so that each person only knows what they themselves got).

Many people’s first instinct upon seeing someone else play this card is to simply reach forward and draw from the deck themselves, as if it were indeed intended to be random, but most, upon a careful reading of the card, come to the correct conclusion.

Since we have plenty of room on this card, we started implementing clearer text on this card in 2016:
“You look at the cards and decide who gets what, dealing them out face down to each player.”

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My friends think you can add it to you hand, and play some other card from their hand.

A: You are correct, your friends are incorrect. You pull the top card off the deck, and immediately play that card. You do not get to add it to your hand, or play any other card from your hand.

Also see: What are all the different cards in different versions where you get to draw the top card and play it immediately?

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