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: Quite a few! For those who don’t know what Board Game Arena is, it’s an online platform where one can play our games remotely against other people, either friends or strangers.

All our games are available without the Premium paid membership. Games have to be specially coded and go through an alpha and beta testing phase to get up on BGA, so our whole line isn’t there, but we currently have the following:

Just Desserts
Fluxx 5.0
Star Fluxx
Homeworlds
Get the MacGuffin

(Also, here is someone’s fun list of all of the free games available on BGA, ranked by number of plays.)

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A: When someone counters your Play with a Surprise, no, you do not get to choose a different card to play. That play was canceled.

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A: Yes, the unattached Creeper will instantly attach to its newly-found victim, and, after that happens, you discard a Keeper to bring you back down to the Limit. This means you can choose to discard the afflicted Keeper, thus ridding yourself of the Creeper. If, however, for some reason you wish to keep the Creeper, you can choose to discard a non-afflicted Keeper instead.

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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: Well you can… just not until your next turn.

When a player chooses to take either of these Free Actions, the effect is simultaneous with their turn ending immediately. Most notably, this means that if you draw any Creepers with your draws from Swap Plays or Get On With It, you’re stuck with them until your next turn, even if there are conditions which allow you to trash or give them away on your turn. Your turn ended immediately with the draw, so that window is over.

For more info on when you can do what during a Fluxx turn, see the link at the bottom of the right sidebar: Order of Events in a Fluxx Turn

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A: So the process starts with the initial “All players draw 1 card from the deck.” So, if you draw a Creeper for the first card, you have to play it immediately, and redraw until you get a non-Creeper. It’s possible that you might end up getting multiple Creepers this way, but eventually you will draw 1 non-Creeper, and add it to your hand.

Once you have managed to draw a non-Creeper, assess how many Creepers you have in play. Now, you need/get to draw a total of 2 x #Creepers you have. That total includes the first card you drew.

So you continue to draw until you have gotten the correct number of non-Creepers and added them to your hand. If this draw process ends up adding yet more Creepers to your array, then you may have to adjust your total as you go.

I find that talking through the process helps me keep track:

“One… oops, a Creeper! One… there we go, a non-Creeper. But now I have one Creeper, and I need to draw a total of two cards, so that’s one more… dang! Another Creeper! Okay, now I have TWO Creepers, and I need to draw a total of FOUR cards, so that’s THREE more. Okay… two, three, four. Whew! Okay, done!

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A: Yes, you must finish drawing the rest of your cards for your turn – you might draw another Creeper which would prevent your win. You must accept any and ALL Creepers acquired during your initial Draw phase before assessing win conditions.

Consider the initial Draw phase to be all one simultaneous thing. Think of it this way: not everyone draws one… card… at… a… time. Some grab the total number for the Draw, add them to their hand, then deal with Creepers at that time, putting them immediately into play, and drawing to replace. Differences in draw style should not affect the outcome of the game.

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…Consider this situation: Player A has the Scientist, and plays the Goal My Time Machine Works! (Scientist + Time Traveler). Player B has the Holographic Projector and the Time Traveler. The Holographic Projector can “be” the Scientist, but only during the active turn of its owner, and, since it is Player A’s turn, the Holographic Projector is not working for Player B.

Now, however, Player A plays Brain Transference, and switches positions with Player B. Brain Transference says that it causes your turn to “end immediately.” Does Player A win as soon as they switch positions, since they are the active player, and now have a working Holographic Projector + the Scientist? Or has their turn ended already due to executing the Brain Transference?…

(Note this type of situation can also occur playing with Star Trek TOS + TNG Fluxx, because of the Holodeck and Brain Transference, though, of course, this would not be the Goal in question.)

A: This was an extremely tricky situation, and Andy initially agreed with my (Alison’s) original take that the Brain Transference would be simultaneous with the Holographic Projector turning off, meaning Player A would not win.

However, after reconsidering exactly when Goal conditions should be checked regarding the interaction of these two cards, at the prompting of fan and BGA programmer Iwan Tomlow, Andy noted that Brain Transference explicitly states that “You take over that other player’s entire position in the game, as if you were in that position all along,” [emphasis added] which means that you should consider the win conditions of your new spot “as if you’d been there all along” before your turn ends immediately due to the Brain Transference.

So you “wake up from your brain transference surgery” look down at your Keepers, including the active Holographic Projector and exclaim, “Wow, how did I not notice I’m totally winning!?”

Also check out the Order of Events in a Fluxx Turn

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A: First, note that Ensign Smith is the Star Trek: Original Series Fluxx, version of the Expendable Crewman, and Tasha Yar is the Star Trek: TNG Fluxx equivalent. They all work the same in terms of having the “power” of impulsive self-detrimental tendencies.

Also note that Star Fluxx has the Laser Pistol, while the Star Trek Fluxxen have the Phaser, and that they work ever so slightly differently. The Laser Pistol can only target a Keeper if afflicted by an Attaching Creeper, and the Phaser can only target a Creeper, so you can only target the Expendable Crewman (or analogue) directly if they have a Creeper attached to them.

However… since the Expendable Crewman is known to jump in the way of a laser beam endangering any other Keeper, you could pursue an insidious plan whereby you target some Creeper-attached-to-a-different-Keeper belonging to the player who has the Expendable Crewman. The Expendable Crewman will then leap into the fray to protect the other Keeper which has a Creeper attached, unwittingly becoming the victim themselves.

While the Phaser can target Creepers that don’t attach, note that no Expendable Crewman worth their salt would take action to protect a stand-alone Creeper, so you’ll still be limited to attacking Keeper-Creeper combos if you’re trying to dispose of an Expendable Crewman or analogue.

So, while you can’t necessarily target the Expendable Crewman (or analogues) outright, it’s absolutely still possible to do it on purpose within these parameters.

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A: If your Transporter is Malfunctioning, no, it will not get you all the Crew in play. You will get the same effect from Beam Us Up as if you had no Transporter.

(Note that in Star Fluxx, it’s called a Teleporter, and the Keepers which are Beamed Up are Beings, not Crew, but this question could still arise if Beam Us Up is played with a Malfunctioning Teleporter)

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A: Yes. In Star Fluxx, you could have an Evil Malfunctioning Robot. In Cthulhu Fluxx, you could have a Metamorphosing Poet who is plagued by Nightmares.

The only exception to this is in Anatomy Fluxx, where, the way the Creepers are written, you can only attach them to a Keeper which is not already afflicted, so any given Keeper can only be attached to one Creeper. On the other hand, in Anatomy Fluxx you also have the only case where you can have multiple Keepers attached to one Creeper.
If the Rule It’s Spreading! is in play, then, every time your turn comes around, you must attach an additional Keeper (if you have any unattached in play).

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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: Although the attachment of attaching Creepers is almost instantaneous (happening even before something like the Elder Sign or Necronomicon can protect itself from the Creeper) the intent of Surprises is to nullify the targeted card play as if it hadn’t happened, or, in the case of the Keeper-nullifier, as though you had played the Keeper directly to yourself instead of your opponent playing it to themselves.

“Out of Turn: When another player plays a Keeper, it goes in front of you instead of them…”

So, in this case, it’s as though the Keeper being hijacked would technically not hit the table in front of your opponent at all, and therefore it is not possible for any of their Creepers to attach (or be covered, in the case of the Elder Sign).

TLDR: If you Surprise a Keeper-play of someone with a Creeper that could accompany the Keeper, you are not forced to take the Creeper. You just get the Keeper.

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

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…While playing Pandora’s Box and going through the Draw Pile to find 3 new rules, a friend of mine drew the Cute Fuzzy Alien Creature which says that when discarded it should be placed on top of the Draw Pile, but this creates a loop. The player will have to constantly draw the Cute Fuzzy Alien Creature to then discard it, place again on top of the draw pile, draw it, and discard it again in a loop.

A: The Cute Fuzzy Alien only needs to be placed on the top of the draw pile if it is being discarded from play. (This is explicitly stated on later printings, actually.) This is because that effect is a special power of the Cute Fuzzy Alien (CFA), and, as such, only ever happens if the Keeper goes into play. Since Pandora’s Box does not put any Keepers drawn into play, the CFA would simply go into the discard pile with the other non-Rule cards passed over in that process.

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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: The Keeper being copied is in no danger from the Holographic Projector, so the Expendable Crewman’s power is not triggered. Yes, the Holographic Projector says that it’s as though the Keeper is in another player’s possession… but it’s not, really. It’s kind of like stealing… but it isn’t. The Keeper will never actually change hands or be destroyed, which are the things that trigger the Expendable Crewman.

Likewise, attaching a Creeper to a Keeper does not actually cause it to be destroyed or change ownership either, so no Crewman intervention. The Expendable Crewman’s power is not a blanket protection against EVERYTHING…

Note that Ensign Smith is the Star Trek: Original Series Fluxx, version of the Expendable Crewman, and Tasha Yar is the Star Trek: TNG Fluxx equivalent.

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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.

(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!

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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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A: To review, if someone plays the Action Beam Us Up, if a player has the Teleporter in play the person with the Teleporter takes ALL Being Keepers into their hand. Since this is someone else taking your Keepers, you can counter that Action with It’s a Trap. This would cancel the playing of Beam Us Up (saving everyone’s Keepers).

It’s pretty clear what’s going on when the person playing Beam Us Up is the person who has the Teleporter: they’ve triggered the action, and they’re the one stealing your Keepers. It’s a Trap takes one of their Keepers. But what if the person who played Beam Us Up is NOT the person who has the Teleporter? It could happen! Maybe they were forced to play it because of Play All, or they didn’t have any being Keepers to lose, so they didn’t care. In that case, who do you get to steal from when you play It’s a Trap?

After some deliberation, Andy and I played it out, looked at the exact wording on all of the cards involved, and ruled that It’s a Trap targets the person who is stealing your Keepers, i.e. the person who is receiving them, regardless of whether they triggered the action or not. So you’d steal a Keeper from the person with the Teleporter.

This more complicated scenario looks like this:

Player A has the Teleporter in play
Player B plays Beam Us Up
Player C, who has Keepers which would be taken by A in this scenario, plays the Surprise It’s a Trap out of turn to cancel B’s Action Beam Us Up, and steal a Keeper from Player A, the person with the Teleporter.

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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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…We had the Basic Rules in play, and I had the Computer, so I would be drawing 2 on my turn. If the first card I draw is the Creeper Malfunction, does it immediately attach to the Computer, thus eliminating my extra draw? What if it’s the second card I drew, do I NOT get to draw to replace the Creeper?

A: Not everyone draws their cards one… by… one… in fact, the draw phase should be considered one simultaneous acquisition of your Draw allotment at that time. So you should draw 2 cards. Then, seeing that you have Malfunction, you should put it down and, yes, redraw, as you need to complete the draw phase in its entirety as defined at the time you started it. Then and only then do you have to worry about exactly what your Malfunction is going to attach to.

In short:
According to the game-state when you started your draw phase, your Draw allotment (the Draw rule for you) is 2 cards.
So you draw 2 cards, and if there’s a Creeper among those, you put it down on the table and redraw until you have drawn 2 non-Creepers.
Then you attach the Creeper if applicable.

Now… later in your turn, if you increase the Draw rule, you’ll have to take a look at your current Draw allotment for your turn, which no longer includes a mathematical increase to your draw. So if you go from Basic Rules (Draw 1) to Draw 2, you’ll take a look at how many cards you drew for your turn, and conclude that you’ve already drawn 2, so you don’t get to draw for the increase.

The situation is similar to this: It’s just as though the Draw rule (for you) at the beginning of your turn is Draw 2, so you get to do that. Then Malfunction effectively reduces the Draw rule (for you) down to 1. Well, you’re not required to “undraw” that extra card you took, but if the Draw rule then increases back to 2… well, you’ve already drawn 2 on your turn, so you don’t get to draw extra. (Or if you increase to Draw 3, then you’d only get to draw 1 more, since you already drew 2 on your turn.)

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A: The Holographic Projection / Hologram card clearly says you can WIN with Keepers owned by other players. This means it’s power works with respect to the win conditions only. There’s nothing there about it being able to mimic the special powers of those other Keepers. I can’t use a hologram of your Doctor to cure my crewperson of Brain Parasites.

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A: Some versions of the rules deal with this explicitly, and some don’t, so we’re answering this here in the FAQ, just in case there is any confusion.

Creepers may not be held in your hand, so if you get a Creeper as part of your dealt hand, you put it on the table in front of you (play it pre-game, essentially) and draw to replace. If it’s another Creeper, continue until you have a starting hand containing zero Creepers.

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A: No, once you’ve attached an Attaching Creeper, it stays with that one unless something happens to separate them (discarding both, mixing up all Keepers & Creepers, or some card which specifically states that you can detach a Creeper). Sorry!

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… – For example: The Spock’s Beard Goal requires Spock and the Mirror Universe. If I had Spock, but the Mirror Universe is attached to Uhura, do I still win? Or does it have to be attached to Spock in order to win with that goal?

A: No, the Creeper does not have to be attached to the Keeper it goes with for the Goal.

This is sort of the corollary to this question: If my Attaching Creepers are not attached to the Keepers I need to win…

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A: Yup. The same would apply if you have the Batcomputer, or BMO which allow you to exceed the current limits by 1 (or “one” depending on how the card is worded).

The Computer exists both as a regular card in Star Fluxx, and as a promo card available to put in any Fluxx version (though they’re worded ever so slightly differently).

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…For instance, if player A has Scientist, Engineer, and Hologram and player B has Expendable Crewman, Captain, and Doctor and player A plays the goal “Landing Party” on his turn (neither player has any Creepers), does player A instantly win because the Hologram says to meet the goal as though they had “Expendable Crewman” and not player B, or would neither player win because both players met the winning condition (until player A’s turn ends, at which point player B would still meet the conditions and player A would not, resulting in a win for player B)? The former seems to fit from a literal reading of the card, but it does not make sense that a holographic projection would keep something from someone else.

Although I agree, it seems counter-intuitive, logically, we rule a strict reading of the card (i.e. the first scenario is correct). Andy said, essentially:

So if you have the holographic projector, it’s like the hologram is SO REALISTIC that nobody can effectively tell the difference, so that, while you may have THOUGHT you had the real thing, suddenly you might discover that you’ve been tricked and they’re projecting the hologram to you, and they have the real one.” In actuality, the wording is deliberately written specifically to avoid the awkwardness of the sort of temporary tie discussed.

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…One player would have been winning on their turn due to the Holographic Projector imitating another Keeper, except that they also had a Keeper-With-Attached-Creeper. At the end of their turn, the Keeper Limit compelled them to discard a Keeper, and they discarded the one with the Creeper, so they were no longer prevented from winning… but was it no longer their turn, so the Holographic Projector was no longer imitating the other required Keeper?

A: In this case those two things are considered to happen simultaneously: the discard of the Creeper (via the Keeper Limit) and the “turning off” of the Holographic Projector. Execute both things, and THEN evaluate whether anyone is meeting the win conditions. That player essentially goes instantaneously from not-winning because of the Creeper, to not-winning because their Hologram isn’t working. A sad story for them.

For more details, see this Order of Events in a Fluxx Turn

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A: The Cute Fuzzy Alien/Weyoun were meant to only be re-occurring when being discarded from play. Cards in hand are considered to be somewhat “less real” than cards in play, in that most cards do not invoke any of their powers – or restrictions – until or unless they are in play. That said, on subsequent printings we will be updating this card to specify this.

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…We were playing a two player game, and I drew Creeper Reassignment on my turn. We were at hand limit zero, and draw 1, play 1, so I had to play it. I had no Creepers, and my opponent had one. Creeper Reassignment reads:

How do I interpret “other” in this case? Do I move it to another player other than me; therefore I give it back to the player who had the card? Or a player other than the player who had the keeper; therefore, I must take the Creeper?

A: This is a tricky one. I had to consult Andy himself, and he admitted that it was tricky too. He acknowledged that according to the wording, you’d be forced to take it if “other” meant “other than the person you took it from” and you’d be barred from taking it yourself (you might want it for a Goal) if “other” meant “other than yourself.”

However, he says his intent was always that you should be able to take it yourself if you want it, but being forced to take it yourself if you don’t want it sucks, and wasn’t really the intent either. We have tweaked the wording on this card, but if you have an older edition, consider it to read as follows:

“Take any one Creeper currently in play and move it to be in front of any player. If it’s currently attached to a Keeper, detach it before moving the Creeper. You must attach it to an appropriate Keeper (if possible) after moving it.”

So you can move the Creeper anywhere you want, including “moving” it to be in front of the person it’s already in front of, i.e. not moving it.

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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.

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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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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.

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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).

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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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One player played the Brain Transference card, which states “your turn ends immediately.” At this time, the ‘Hand Limit 2’ New Rule was in effect. The player who played the Brain Transference card had more than 2 cards in his hand at the time the transference card was played.

Does this player discard down to the 2 card hand limit before switching places, or does the other player pick up the hand with more than 2 cards?

A: The two players would switch places, and the new player would get the large hand. Keep in mind, however, if it is their turn next, they don’t get to roll into their next turn with a giant hand. That giant hand is from a turn which is over, and whoever has it must discard down to the Hand Limit before starting their next turn.

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A: No, it cannot copy Creepers standing by themselves.

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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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In Star Fluxx the Evil Creeper can be attached to any Keeper, including the Laser Sword, right? And the Evil Creeper doesn’t impair the Keeper it’s attached to… so if I have an Evil Laser Sword in front of me on the table can I use it to destroy itself?

The card says “You can discard any Keeper in front of you if it has a Creeper attached to it” which technically doesn’t exclude this case – but it doesn’t really make sense. How to resolve that?

A: Wow, you’re right. The wording doesn’t specifically exclude the Laser Sword being able to destroy itself, and yet that’s pretty illogical. It looks like we should have worded it:

“You can discard any other Keeper in front of you that has a Creeper attached to it.”
(emphasis added)
Or for the Laser Pistol “You can discard any Keeper in front of any player that has a Creeper attached to it (except the Pistol itself).”

We’ll probably want to tweak that wording on future print runs. For now, please go ahead and use the the logical interpretation that it can’t destroy itself. The Laser Pistol should be similarly limited to specify that it cannot destroy itself.

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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: Not so much. From the person who has the Expendable Crewman, they’d first have to take the Expendable Crewman, clearly, but since they get ALL Beings, they don’t stop there — they take any other Beings that person has in play as well. So really, the Expendable Crewman can only protect you when a single card is being taken. It provides a buffer… but that buffer is only one card deep, as it were.

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…It says the card played does not count as a Draw or Play, so does it still end your turn?

A: Yes, while that card you draw from Wormhole (or any of its analogues) doesn’t count against the Draw or Play count as shown on the rule cards, it’s still part of your turn, and the card still counts as being fully played. Whatever it says happens, happens. That’s the risk you take, pulling a card out of the Wormhole! Keep in mind that the turn-ending effect of New Rules is optional, so simply playing them does not end your turn.

Also remember you can take the Wormhole option at ANY time during your turn: before your Draws and Plays, in the middle of your Draws, in the middle of your Plays, or after both, if you like. That’s the only control you get to exert: WHEN and WHETHER you decide to play a card from the Wormhole.

Analogues of Wormhole (which is in Star Fluxx) include (some with slight variations such as conditional requirements for use):
Magic Shoes in Oz Fluxx
Shiny! in Firefly Fluxx

There are many other Wormhole analogues in other versions, but those versions don’t also include turn-ending Actions.

See also: Q: What cards have effects that include ending my turn immediately if I play/use them?
See also: Q: 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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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: Unlike some cards which declare that they do something “When the Goal changes” which would be simultaneous with the Goal play, simply taking your last play does not instantaneously end your turn. So there’s plenty of time for the Goal to take effect, and for you to win. In effect, you win ON your turn, so your turn doesn’t “end”… the game itself ends, with you as the winner.

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A: We’re very careful not to include cards that don’t play well together in a deck. So, for most decks with Creepers, we use Mix It All Up (or one of its analogues, like Crawling Chaos) instead of Share The Wealth. Star Fluxx doesn’t have either card (Share The Wealth OR Mix It All Up). The only deck with Creepers that has Share The Wealth is Pirate Fluxx, which does not have attaching Creepers, and Crawling Chaos (in Cthulhu Fluxx), which includes Creepers but specifically says that you do detach Creepers to mix them up, so that should be clear.

Mix It All Up is clear in its wording that it will detach Attaching Creepers, in that it says to gather them all, and when redistributed “Creepers that attach are attached to a new Keeper…” We don’t want a “memory condition” to exist where you have to remember what a Creeper was attached to when you mix them all together.

If you’re encountering Share the Wealth with Attaching Creepers, it would only be if you were mixing decks, in which case, please treat it as if it were a Mix It All Up card: detach all Creepers, and mix them all in with the Keepers to deal out. If you’re just playing Pirate Fluxx, it should not be an issue to play Share The Wealth as written, i.e. not including Creepers.

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See this question in a video!
Our Friend The Expendable Crewman, Part 1

A: It depends. Were you the one who played the Sonic Sledgehammer, or was it an opponent? The Expendable Crewman’s power only triggers when someone else is taking or eliminating one of your Keepers. If you’re the one choosing a Keeper to get rid of (even just from a Keeper Limit) you’re not required to get rid of him.

Remember, it’s the person playing the Sonic Sledgehammer who gets to decide what Keeper everyone discards, including themselves. So if they are the one with the Expendable Crewman, they’re not required to discard that Keeper; they can get rid of whatever they want. However, if it’s someone else who has the hapless red-shirt, they have to choose for that player to discard the Expendable Crewman, even if there’s something else they’d rather that player lose.

To sum up, thematically: Your Expendable Crewman is only reckless when you’re under attack, otherwise, he’ll reliably go (or stay) where you want him to.

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A: You cannot teleport the Teleport Chamber itself. We should probably word the card just a tad bit clearer to specify any other Keeper.

Note that the Transporter in Star Trek Fluxxen has a different function than the Teleporter in Star Fluxx, however. Rather than moving a Keeper from one player to another on the table, it takes any Keeper on the table up into the hand of the player who has the Transporter. Again, you can’t use the Transporter to transport itself up to your hand. We’re not sure why you’d want to, but we thought we’d answer that just in case.

Now, if you’re mixing more than one Star Trek deck, there will be many Transporters in the deck, and it’s quite possible that someone might want to use one Transporter to suck up another Transporter to their hand to take it away from someone else. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to rule that out on the basis that it would definitely cause some sort of terrible Transporter-related disaster, probably involving stray tachyons or chroniton particles.

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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.

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…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.

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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.

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…Most of the players didn’t have a hand, so they discarded one of their cards in play. Meanwhile, I had a hand of one card that I didn’t want to lose, so I discarded a card of mine in play as well. Can we do that?

A: Unless a card specifies that you discard a Keeper (or Creeper) from in play the default is from your hand.

What should have happened is that, for players with no cards in hand, nothing happens – they have nothing to discard. It’s quite common for a card to be played that simply has no effect at that specific time… and of course, you, with one card in your hand, were actually required to discard that card. Sorry.

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I was just reading the FAQ on Star Fluxx as it is one of my favorite games. In reference to this question, if I understand this correctly, it is an option to discard the Cute Fuzzy Alien (CFA) to comply with the Keeper Limit, or pass it on before complying. If you discard it to comply, it then goes on top of the draw pile. But if the next player is in an identical situation he can do the same (discard it to comply with the Keeper Limit, thus putting it on the draw pile)? If the rule is draw one, this keeps on happening until someone decides not to discard fuzzy or just passes it along? Is this correct?

A: So the answer is yes, mostly. In order for it to be a truly limiting loop, everyone would also have to be at zero cards in hand, so that they are forced to play the one card they draw. Otherwise, they could draw the CFA, and decide not to play it (after all, it’s not a Creeper!) or they’d have the possibility of other card plays in addition to the CFA, which could possibly break the cycle in any number of ways, like changing or getting rid of the Keeper Limit, increasing the Draw or Play rules, or even changing the Goal (there are some Goals which the CFA could make someone win!)

Also note that in this case there is very little difference between deciding to discard it, and deciding to pass it. If the next player is at already at the Keeper Limit, they have to comply before drawing anyhow, so if they don’t sacrifice some other Keeper, they’ll just end up drawing the CFA themselves anyhow. At least if you pass instead of discarding it, it’s up to them whether they want to sacrifice some other Keeper so that they aren’t forced to draw the CFA again.

Aside from that, yes, you are correct, it will continue if everybody is really stubborn and chooses not to break the cycle. And yes, the two ways one might break the cycle would be:

a) To pass before complying with the Keeper Limit instead of discarding the CFA to comply, which would allow the next person to choose to discard a different Keeper instead.
or
b) By choosing to discard some other Keeper oneself, only reaping the benefits of that choice indirectly in that it keeps the game going.

Note that Weyoun in Star Trek: DS9 Fluxx also goes on the draw pile when discarded from play… except that, unlike the CFA, he does not automatically move around the table, so you don’t have an option to pass vs. discard, your only option is b) to discard him, or not to discard him (that is the question!) Discarding him ends up causing him to be passed along in the Draw to the next player. Not discarding him would not end up passing him along.

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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

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A: No. It’s a Trap prevents stealing of Keepers, not trashing of Keepers.

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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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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

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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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[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 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.

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A: No. (If that were the case, the card would say so.)

Thematically, it actually works quite well, sometimes BETTER if the Keeper is Evil. I think if you were using the Dark Side of the Unseen Force you’d be even more likely to mess with people’s heads. If you were a Bad Guy Space Captain it would totally be in character for you to shanghai other people’s Crew Members. And just because you’re an Evil Engineer doesn’t mean you can’t fix that Malfunctioning Robot – I mean, it might be your Killer Death Robot! You could be an Evil Doctor seeking to eradicate the peaceful Brain Parasite species. See, it totally works.

Evil also occurs in Fantasy Fluxx, where it is the only Attaching Creeper. Again, there’s no reason why it should cause anything to not work. The Magic Wand still turns any non-magical being into a Spellcaster, whether Evil is attached to the Person or the Wand, it makes no difference. There really aren’t any thematic reasons it should impair the Keeper either: there are plenty of Evil Spellcasters in the literature, evil Magic Rings (the most famous one does, in fact, turn one invisible, no less!) Evil Dragons, Evil Pirates, and so forth. Sadly, Evil is versatile, and seems to “work” with everything…

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A: No. Brain Parasites don’t inhibit their host Keeper’s power, but in the case of the Doctor, he cannot treat himself. As the card says, he can only discard Brain Parasites if attached to one of your other cards.” Of course, if you have the promo card The Android Doctor, then he can cure the Doctor of Brain Parasites, and vice versa (the Doctor could cure the Robo-Doc). Like the Doctor himself, however, the Robo-Doc can’t cure himself either.

Here’s the full thematic explanation of why Brain Parasites don’t inhibit Keepers’ abilities, but they DO keep the Doctor from healing himself:

The reason is not due to the fact that he’s lost his curative powers. If you have Brain Parasites, then your every action will be subject to the whims of these aliens who have invaded your head. The Brain Parasites might WANT the Engineer to repair that computer. They might WANT the Captain to steal the Scientist. After all, they don’t want to do stuff that’s bad for their host, right?

But it simply doesn’t make sense for them to ever allow the Doctor to use his curative powers to evict themselves from his own cozy cranium. In fact, if there were multiple Brain Parasite Creepers in the game, the Brain Parasites would, logically, bar the Doc from curing anyone of Brain Parasites (which would effectively nullify the Doctor, since in this game that’s apparently the only curable disease in known space.)

PS: The real question in my mind is why the Brain Parasites don’t nullify the powers of The Expendable Crewman, since his “power” is that he frequently gets himself kidnapped or killed. Kidnapped is fine… I can totally imagine a scenario where the Brain Parasite might want it’s host to get stolen and taken to another ship (“Oh goody, we shall spread to a whole new crew!”). But one of the possible (though perhaps drastic) ways to get rid of an attaching Creeper is to destroy the host Keeper, and the Expendable Crewman’s power is to somehow step into the line of fire, even when he’s not the intended target. Maybe the “power” of the Expendable Crewman is just so strong that even having his mind controlled by an alien being can’t keep him from being a hot-headed klutz.

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A: The Keeper and Creeper would get sucked up into that person’s hand… but a Creeper can never be in your hand, so the Creeper is then immediately played back to the table by that player. It would either then reattach to some other Keeper if possible, or hang around for as long as it takes for a new Keeper of the right type to show up to attach to.

Once you understand what’s happening with Beam Us Up in the normal case, you can figure out what will happen if someone has the Teleporter or Transporter in play. The Creeper won’t be left behind with the original owner, it is attached to the Keeper which is Beamed up, and when taken up into that person’s hand it’s then “spat out” in front of that player… not the person the Crew Member was taken from.

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A: Yes.

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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).

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Say I have a Robot with Evil attached to it. If my girlfriend plays the Holographic Projection and then the Robot Uprising Goal, does she win?

A: Yes. Your girlfriend wins.

Think of an attached Creeper as being simply an aspect of its host Keeper, something that transforms the whole rather than just riding on top. The Holographic Projection copies the whole thing, and if that’s all you need for victory, you win. On the other hand, if you need just the Keeper, but it has a Creeper attached, then suddenly you also have the Creeper, which will probably prevent your win.

If all you needed was the Creeper from the Hologram, and you have the other half of the Goal yourself, you could also win. For example, if she had the Starship, and you had the Robot with Evil attached, she could Hologram the Evil Robot, and win with the Goal Imperial Destroyer (Evil and the Starship).

Note, however, that if you need the Keeper to win, but not the Creeper, if you Holographically imitate the Keeper, you’ll also “acquire” the Creeper, which will prevent your win if it’s not the exact Creeper needed for the Goal.

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I must admit it seemed illogical to me (Alison), but Andy and I recently debated this again. The wording on the card says that if you have the Holographic Projection in front of you, it’s as though you have the imitated Keeper were in front of you AND NOT them (emphasis added). So you have it INSTEAD of them.

When I protested to Andy that you having a holographic projection of something that I have shouldn’t negate my having the actual thing, he argued that he’d prefer to stick with the original wording, as it is actually clearer in terms of gameplay (as opposed to calling it a tie, in which case you’d have to keep playing until a clear winner emerges, which, by the way, is the rule for any situation in Fluxx where there appear to be dual winners. Except for the APTWE. Of course).

Moreover, Andy had this logical workaround: the holographic projector is SO GOOD that if you have a holographic projection of something duplicating it, it’s as though you’ve swapped with the other person, and they suddenly realize they don’t have the original/s any more at all:

“OMG! How long has this doctor been a hologram???”

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A: Yes, the Cute Fuzzy Alien (CFA) absolutely counts towards the Keeper Limit. The player whose turn is ending can decide whether to pass the creature and then comply with the Keeper limit, or comply with the Keeper limit and then pass the fuzzy creature. The next player may decide to do it differently if they want.

So, when the CFA is discarded, it goes onto the top of the draw pile instead of the discard pile. This has the possibility of causing some loopy-type action, but it’s not that difficult to disrupt unless you have really stubborn players.

See We think there’s an infinite loop with the Cute Fuzzy Alien…

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A: Well, it depends which version of The Computer you’re using. The bottom line is: check the language. Where it says “may” or “can” it means you don’t have to if you don’t want to. If it just says certain parameters are increased… they’re just increased, no choice about it.

For all versions of The Computer, the increase in Draw and Play quantity is required, which interacts with Play All But 1 to make it Play All – no choice for you. For the versions in Star Fluxx and both Star Trek Fluxxes, the Limit increase is optional, but for the promo card version and the Batcomputer, the owner must use the increased limits.

Note that BMO (Adventure Time Fluxx) has the power of optionally increasing Limits by 1, and Data (Star Trek: TNG Fluxx) has the power of optionally increasing Play by 1.

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For example, in Star Fluxx, can you get the Captain and immediately use him to take the Scientist. Can you then immediately use the Scientist’s special power to steal, say, the Energy Crystals?

In the Back to the Future Card Game, can you play the Dust Jacket, and immediately use it to steal the Almanac?

A: Yes, you can chain Keeper/Item stealing-powers like this. It is a thing that can happen. While some feel this is overpowered, we don’t feel that it breaks the game, though. Not all of the cards are always out at the same time, and, of course, sometimes you might get screwed over mid-chain by the Surprise It’s A Trap (in Star Fluxx), or You Can’t Take This Guy From Me (in Firefly Fluxx). In the Back to the Future Card Game, of course, there’s only one Item that lets you steal another in this way.

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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…

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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?

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A: Yes.

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A: If you are using the Teleporter in Star Fluxx, then yes. Whatever Creeper or Creepers are attached to the Keeper teleported will move as well. That’s one of the ways you can get rid of Creepers in front of you: to teleport the Keeper they’re attached to to some other player.

Note that the Transporter in Star Trek Fluxxen has a different function, however. Rather than moving a Keeper from one player to another on the table, it takes any Keeper on the table up into the hand of the player who has the Transporter. In those cases, it’s more like a repeatable, personal Beam-Us-Up-with-Transporter. In those cases, think of it this way: both cards get sucked up into the hand of the person with the Transporter, and then the Creeper, which can’t be held in your hand, goes back onto the table in front of the person who took the Keeper.

See also What happens if Beam Us Up is played with the Teleporter/Transporter in play, and someone has a being/crew member with a Creeper attached to it on the table?

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Distress Call states that “All players draw 1 card from the deck,” and then that “Anyone with a Creeper then draws additional cards until they have drawn 2 cards for each Creeper they possess.” Is the first card drawn by this action included in the cards drawn for Creepers? That is, if I have one Creeper, do I draw 2 total cards or 3 (one from the first part and two from the second)?

A: The first card you draw is included in the total of cards you draw if you have Creepers. So if you have 1 Creeper, you draw a total of 2 cards.

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A: Yes. The Cute Fuzzy Alien (CFA) moves after a Brain Transference.

But where does it move to? If the person (let’s call them Player A) who had the CFA played Brain Transference, and moved to their left (to the position which would normally come after their previous position) does the CFA go to Player A in their new spot, even though their turn would be skipped, or to the next player who has a turn, which would be the person after Player A’s new location?

The CFA would move to the next spot at the table, even though, in this case, that’s still Player A, and it’s not their turn because they just took a turn that ended with them moving to that spot. The CFA would just stay with player A until their turn came around again, and then start moving when that turn ended.

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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.

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To elaborate: The Captain can steal “Doctor, Engineer, Scientist, or Expendable Crewman.” The Expendable Crewman’s card states that any time a player takes away one of your Keepers, “they MUST take this one instead.” So, does the Captain have a choice or MUST the Captain take the Expendable Crewman first?

A: Well, The Captain can steal any of those cards, but they might not all be owned by the same player. You are only forced to take the Expendable Crewman if the person you are stealing from has that card.

So if Player A has the Captain,
and Player B has the Doctor,
and Player C has the Engineer and the Expendable Crewman

…then player A can take the Doctor from player B, but they cannot take the Engineer from C – they must take the Expendable Crewman instead.

Of course, if Player A takes the Expendable Crewman on their first try, then on their NEXT turn, they can take the Engineer if they want (assuming they still have The Captain).

Note that in Star Trek Fluxx, Ensign Smith functions as the Expendable Crewman, while in TNG Fluxx, Tasha Yar has that special ability.

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[In Star Trek Fluxx, Ensign Smith has the same function as the Expendable Crewman, and in Star Trek: TNG Fluxx, it’s Tasha Yar]

A: It all depends on who has the Expendable Crewman, and who played Exchange Keepers.

See this question in a video!
Our Friend The Expendable Crewman, Part 1

If the player who has the Expendable Crewman is the one who plays Exchange Keepers, they can choose to trade whatever they want. It’s only when someone else is taking a Keeper away from you that they must take/destroy the Expendable Crewman.

If, on the other hand, your opponent has the Expendable Crewman, and you play Exchange Keepers, you’ll be getting that dork in the red shirt, no matter what you’re actually coveting in your opponent’s collection.

Think of it this way: he readily obeys his own captain’s orders, but he always seems to leap forward at the last minute when a hostile force demands hostages!

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A: Yes. In Star Fluxx, the use of the word “beings” in that card’s instructions indicates only those cards with the Living Being icon (the brain). In either of the Star Trek Fluxxen, the use of the phrase “Crew Members” indicates cards with the Crew Member icon (the starfleet badge). In Star Trek: DS9 Fluxx, this is extended to also include Keepers with the “Visitor / Other Personnel” icon.

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A: After some discussion, we decided that Exchanging Keepers or Mixing Up everyone’s Keepers does not count as “Stealing” a Keeper.

Think of it this way: you cannot then reverse the action against your opponent. What would that mean? “…and instead you [Exchange] one of their Keepers”? “…and instead you [Mix Up] one of their Keepers”? Those doesn’t really make sense. So we concluded that Exchange or Mix It All Up are unstopped by It’s a Trap!

However, You Can’t Take This Guy From Me (YCTTGFM) (from Firefly Fluxx), which has the same “trigger” does not have this “reversibility” issue. The reason why It’s a Trap can’t be used is that part of it’s consequences is to strike back in the same way, but YCTTGFM has a different penalty which does not use reflective language like It’s a Trap, so it can absolutely be triggered by Exchange Keepers. See: What things can trigger YCTTGFM?

What It’s A Trap! was designed to protect you against, in addition to Steal a Keeper, is any of those annoying other Keepers, like the Captain and the Scientist (who can steal certain Keepers at will. One of my favorite things is to put out a juicy Crew Member and wait for the person with the Captain to try to take it, at which point, instead… It’s A Trap! and I get to steal their Captain instead!

In Batman Fluxx, it was included for highly thematic reasons: Batman was always getting trapped by villains (at least in the live-action version). Also, Batman Fluxx includes a version of Plunder, called Crime Happens, which would be exactly the kind of thing which It’s a Trap! might also protect you from.

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Scenario: Play All is in effect.
Someone has the Time Traveler.
They acquire a Time Portal.

From what I can tell this causes an infinite loop: they play the Portal, they rummage for what they want, play it, and the Portal returns to their hand. Since they’re in Play All, they play the Portal, they rummage for what they want, play it, and the Portal returns to their hand, and so on.

A: This doesn’t break the game because of something very important about the Time Portal: using it ends your turn immediately, so no infinite loop.

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A: The Holographic Projector duplicates any one Keeper on the table, complete with any modifying Creeper effects, so it’s as if that Keeper were in front of you, afflicted with it’s Creeper, however, the Doctor cannot cure a Holographic Projection of something – the card clearly states that the Doctor can only cure your own Keepers.

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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.)

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See this question in a video!
Our Friend The Expendable Crewman, Part 2

A: Yes. The Expendable Crewman is a real martyr/idiot/klutz who jumps/falls into the line of fire, gets beamed away somewhere (or killed or whatever) whenever someone moves to take any type of Keeper, no matter what the stated action or power that causes that Keeper to be taken or destroyed.

Imagine this scenario:

As your Scientist is attempting to lure the Energy Being into his trap, the clumsy (and terribly unlucky) Expendable Crewman just happens by, accidentally stumbling into the trap, and is captured by your Scientist instead of the Energy Being. You get the Expendable Crewman instead of the Energy Being. Reset your trap and try again next turn…

Or… Red alert! Someone is trying to beam your Energy Crystals right out of the engineering room. Your Expendable Crewman (always first into the fray!) leaps towards the beam… and is sucked up by the would-be thief (some opponent’s Scientist).

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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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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”.)

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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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A: If a Creeper is drawn by the active player, they must take the Creeper (play it in front of themselves) and draw to replace, such that all the cards they have drawn for whatever the Action indicates will contain no Creepers.

For example, if I play Everybody Gets One, then I, as the active player, am the one drawing cards. As such, I have to take all the Creepers I draw, redrawing until I’m holding enough non-Creeper cards to give 1 to each player including myself. In a deck with a lot of Creepers, anything that makes you draw cards is a liability!

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…I say it’s just one card, but my husband says it should be three, since three Creepers were drawn. Who is right?

A: For practical purposes, you are correct. If you have laid down three Creepers in a row like that, you are left needing to draw 1. After your draw phase, you should end up having drawn just 1 non-Creeper for your Draw 1.

If anyone is having a hard time wrapping their head around why this is, here’s a blow-by-blow description of what happens when you draw three Creepers in a row while trying to Draw 1.

You Draw 1. It’s a Creeper.
It goes in front of you, and you draw to replace it, hoping for a non-Creeper to satisfy the current Draw rule.
Your “draw to replace” is… a second Creeper.
It goes in front of you with the first, and you draw to replace it, hoping for a non-Creeper to satisfy the current Draw rule.
Your “draw to replace” is… a third Creeper.
It goes in front of you, and you draw to replace it, hoping for a non-Creeper to satisfy the current Draw rule.
Your “draw to replace” is… finally a non-Creeper, which you add to your hand, and you have successfully followed the current Draw rule, which is Draw 1.

As you can see, in some ways, your husband is right… but the thing is, the three cards that were “drawn to replace” did happen… they’re just over as soon as you draw 1 non-Creeper.

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A: Creeper cards say “You can’t win if you have this unless the Goal says otherwise.” This means that having a Creeper in play in front of you prevents you from winning whether it is attached to one of the Keepers needed for the Goal or not.

Creepers occur in many versions of Fluxx, but only in a relatively few versions do they attach to specific Keepers. So the question of attachment does not affect the general behavior and limitations of Creepers.

This is sort of the corollary to this question: If a Goal requires a Keeper and an Attaching Creeper…

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A: Yes, as long as the Keeper is compatible with the Creeper. Some attaching Creepers can only attach to Keepers with certain specific qualities, like they have to be sentient, or they have to be investigators, or they have to be mechanical.

For example, you could attach both Evil and Malfunction to the Teleporter to get an Evil Malfunctioning Teleporter. In Cthulhu Fluxx, The Poet could be Mad and also have Nightmares… heck, he could also be Metamorphosed as well.

This can make it easier to get rid of those Creepers, since you only have to get rid of that one VERY afflicted Keeper to ditch ALL the attached Creepers.

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For example, if an attaching Creeper is played when there is no appropriate Keeper to attach to, does it stay unattached forever (or until the Action Creeper Reassignment is played), or does it attach to the next available Keeper which accompanies it in play? In other words, does it only attach if there are (appropriate) Keepers in play when it goes down on the table, or will it attach to Keepers played later?

A: The text on attaching Creepers states “If you have any [appropriate Keepers] in play, you much choose one to attach this to.” This property is not limited to the moment when the Creeper is first played. If there is no appropriate Keeper to attach to when it is played, it will attach to the first appropriate Keeper that arrives.

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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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any of these?
Card text (paragraphs)
Card title or name
Card Type (special symbols)
Doom/anti-doom hourglasses

A: The special powers referred to on Creepers that can be canceled out are found in the paragraphs describing any special actions or abilities related to having a given Keeper in play. There’s nothing special about a card being a Keeper, or about the name (there are no “names” of cards that give you any abilities are there?) Doom/anti-doom counters are also a separate concept, unaffected by Creepers: Doom is a quality, not an ability.

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A: There is no reason Surprises would work any differently depending on the number of players. Surprises always counter Surprises in full, no matter what the function of the Surprises in question.

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Some examples:

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…

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… 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?

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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.

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A: Yes.

See also: If multiple Surprises are canceled by each other, how do you figure out what happens…

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…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.

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A: Yes

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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…

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A: No. In general, you can’t use the out-of-turn portion of a Surprise during your turn, moreover the Canceled Plans card specifically says it is used to stop a Goal which another player has just played.

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A: Only the Goal just played.

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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?”

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If I play a card on my turn and another player plays a Surprise to cancel it, then I play another Surprise to cancel the first one, since it’s my turn, does mounter Surprise count as a Play for me?

A: It does not count as a play. It’s sort of meta-out-of-turn.

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For example, Play 3 is in effect at the start of a turn, the current player plays Play 4, but another player plays Veto – what is the current play limit; 3, 4, or the default 1?

A: A: The newly played and Vetoed New Rule is canceled, so the old New Rule stays in play.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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For example, if the Goals were He Bravely Ran Away (requires the 3-Headed Giant) and Rabbits of DOOM (requires the Killer Rabbit).

A: No, not if they are two different Creepers like this. The 3-Headed Giant you need to win with He Bravely Ran Away prevents you from winning with Rabbits of DOOM, while the Killer Rabbit you need for that prevents you from winning with He Bravely Ran Away.

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A: In the vast majority of cases, you cannot win if you have Creepers not specifically required by the goal.

Exceptions:
• Do your extraneous Creepers say that they keep you from winning? (Almost all Creepers do, but if they don’t then go for it.)
• Is there a Rule in play that lets you win even if you have Creepers? (There are a couple of these, depending on which versions you have.)
• In Batman Fluxx, if the Goal requires a Villain, Villains don’t prevent you from winning. However, if the Goal does NOT require a Villain, then Villains ANYWHERE prevent you from winning.

See also: The… Goal requires a Keeper and either of two Creepers…

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

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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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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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A: No. There is no limit to the number of Creepers you can have in front of you.

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A: You keep drawing until you get a non-Creeper.

You may be seeing this question because it relates to a deck with a Mystery Play analogue (a card with the same or nearly the same functionality, but a different name). To see all of the Mystery Play analogues, check out the Fluxx Card Comparison Chart, (also linked in the lower part of the right sidebar).

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