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: Yes. The zombies can win, even if they Ain’t So Bad. Specifically, the Zombies Ain’t So Bad Rule says that you can still win even if zombies are disallowed on the Goal, but it says nothing about zombies being ignored on UnGoals. Just because you can win with them, doesn’t mean they might not also be able to win.

Thematically, imagine a world where zombies pose no physical threat to humans… but they have taken complete control of power. The president is a zombie, congress is all zombies, the supreme court is all zombies. Humans are not allowed to hold any positions of power, and are an oppressed minority. But hey! They’re not eating your brains!

Not so bad is not the same as good.

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…Here is the scenario: the Rule Zombies Ain’t So Bad is in effect, and every player has at least one zombie. The player who has the Car and no Friends plays the Goal I Alone Survived, which states that, in order to win, the player must have the Car, no Friends, and be the only player with no zombies (which is negated by the Zombies Ain’t So Bad Rule). The question is, in this situation, would the player with the Car and no Friends win, or, since Zombies Ain’t So Bad, is it fair to say that they would not be the only survivor, and the game continues?…

A: We agree with your second outcome, which is that, while Zombies Ain’t So Bad (ZASB) means your zombies don’t count, it also means that everyone else’s zombies don’t count either, and, since you all have not-so-bad zombies, you’re not really any better off than they are, and there are plenty of other survivors, so you don’t win.

BUT, this raises an even thornier question, which I brought up to Andy: Does this mean that one simply can’t win with I Alone Survived (IAS), if ZASB is in play, because everybody else is also Surviving, with their not-so-bad zombies? What if I am the only person with no zombies, and everyone else does have them? Honestly, I’m thinking that nobody would even think to question the outcome if one claimed victory in that scenario, since one is clearly meeting the stated win conditions… and yet I feel that we should address it.

Andy ruled that, in that case, you CAN claim victory with IAS, because, even if Zombies Ain’t So Bad… they’re still kind of annoying, so you really are in a superior position if you don’t have to deal with them. So if ZASB is in play, then the Goal basically becomes I Alone Remain Unpestered by Bothersome Zombies (IARUbBZ).

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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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A: No, you cannot. In most cases, if you have a Creeper not mentioned on the Goal you are trying to win with, then it prevents you from winning.

The exception could be considered to be Batman Fluxx, where, if you are winning with ANY Goal which requires a specific Villain (the Creepers of the Batman version) then no Villain prevents your win. You are considered to be “on the side of the bad guys” for that win. Batman Fluxx is also an exception in that, if the Goal does NOT require a Villain, then Villains ANYWHERE (in front of ANY player) will prevent the win.

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A: You must finish distributing all of the cards. The person who got the winning combo might receive a Creeper which would negate their win. Consider the consequences of playing the one card, Mix It All Up, as being simultaneous. So you only check for win conditions after all of the Keepers/Creepers have been distributed.

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

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…for example, for the Goal Enemy Alliance that requires Romulans and Klingons, if I have both the TNG and TOS versions of the Romulans Creeper, does the second Romulans count as an extra Creeper which prevents my win, as mentioned in this FAQ? Or is it just more of what I need to win?

A: Since the Goal specifically mentions Romulans without specifying one of the other, they’re effectively identical, and both count towards the Goal and not against it, and it doesn’t matter that you have a superfluous one. It’s more like what’s described in this FAQ.

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A: Yeah. Sorry about that – but that doesn’t mean all is lost! You still have many options open to you:

You could get rid of or steal their Repellent (Actions: Trash a Keeper, Steal a Keeper, Exchange Keepers)
You could make their Repellent Not Work (Rule: It’s Not Working!)
You could get yourself a Sonic Tranquilizer (Keeper)
You could kill your zombies extra dead (…And Stay Dead!) or get rid of all zombies (No Zombies)
…or hope that you all can just make friends with the Zombies because Zombies Ain’t So Bad (Rule)!

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A: At first glance, this does look tricky, but after some thought, and close reading of the cards, the answer is pretty clear.

Out of Ammo (OoA) causes the Can of Gasoline and the Chainsaw to be discarded… unless one person has both, in which case the Chainsaw can be kept: it runs out of fuel, but is refilled by the Can of Gas. The Flamethrower specifies that it, too, is discarded if it runs Out of Ammo.

The only thing that seems confusing is that the Flamethrower ALSO specifies that it “counts as the Can of Gasoline.”

So… the Chainsaw can be “saved” from being Out of Ammo if you have either the Can of Gasoline or the Flamethrower. Nothing can “save” the Flamethrower or the Can of Gasoline, however, so if you have all three when Out of Ammo is played, all you’re left with is the Chainsaw.

We could also look at it as three possible sets of pairs:

(Gasoline + Chainsaw) OoA = Chainsaw
(Flamethrower + Chainsaw) OoA = Chainsaw
(Gasoline + Flamethrower) OoA = nothing

Although, thematically, it might seem that the Flamethrower should be equivalent to the Chainsaw in that it seems like it should be able to be “refilled” (“saved”) by the Can of Gas… well, we didn’t think of that, so it’s not specified, so that’s not how it works. There probably wouldn’t have been enough room on the card to describe that anyhow.

UNOFFICIAL POSSIBLE HOUSE RULE:
If you wanted to play that as a house rule, or course, that would be fine with us. If that were the case, then when you had all three when you run Out of Ammo, you’d be able to keep either the Chainsaw or the Flamethrower to be “saved” by refilling with the Gasoline, your choice. That is not an official ruling according to the cards, however. Regarding the pairs above, of course, it would look like:

(Gasoline + Chainsaw) OoA = Chainsaw
(Flamethrower + Chainsaw) OoA = Chainsaw
(Gasoline + Flamethrower) OoA = Flamethrower

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A:The Eradication Bonus can be “triggered” over and over again on any turn. The Zombie Boss and Adrenaline Bonus are both what we would call “formulaic bonuses”: they add to the number allocated for your official Draw and/or Play, which have a limit of “on your turn” (or “each turn” which is meant to be “each time your turn comes around”). Eradication Bonus, by contrast, is in addition to whatever you might Draw for your official Draw allowance, so it is not limited by the one-time nature of one’s Draw allocation for the turn.

We hope that makes sense. Let me see if I can find the FAQs which discuss formulaic vs. additional bonuses…

So, here is an answer which describes formulaic bonuses like the Zombie Boss or Adrenaline Bonus:

Q: If there is a Rule (or Keeper) in play that adds to the Draw/Play, and then I increase the Draw/Play, does that added Draw/Play count against the new Draw/Play total?

For example, if the rules are currently Draw 2, Zombie Boss, then whoever meets the conditions that make them the Zombie Boss, is at Draw 2 (+1). How many you get to Draw on your turn is one number that counts for your whole turn once. That number may change during your turn, resulting in additional Draws (but not “un-draws”.) You may go from Draw 2 (+1) to Draw 3 (+1) and get an extra for your single total Draw allowance for the turn.

On the other hand, if you were to use Jackpot, and draw 3 extra cards, those don’t count towards your Draw allowance for the turn. You could be at Draw 2, play Jackpot, draw 3 more cards, then increase the Draw to Draw 4, and you’d still get to draw 2 extra, since Jackpot is on top of your official on-your-turn Draw Allowance, which went from 2 to 4.

Q: If I play an Action or invoke an “optional action” that lets me draw cards, and then I increase the Draw rule, do I still get to draw extra for the Draw rule increase?

Although it is a Rule, and not an Action, the Eradication Bonus does not mention “on your turn” so we’d consider this to be an extra card you get IN ADDITION to your Draw allowance, and therefore it is not limited to your once-on-your-turn Draw allowance. Whenever the number of Zombies changes from some to none, you get to trigger that extra card draw, which is separate from your Draw allowance for the turn.

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…So the other player is just stuck with him all the time?

A: Yes, sadly, that is indeed the case. We look to the wording on the Zombie Repellent, which states that Zombies are instantly moved away from the player with that Keeper. Instantly means that there is no time when the Zombie is in that player’s possession and, there being no “in between” place or “in between” time for him to be in any other place, the instant he is moved away when the Goal changes, he is instantly repelled back to the only other player in the game.

Though Larry is particularly punishing in some respects, when he stops moving, he becomes, in many ways MORE like all of the other Zombies – and, while you won’t be able to MOVE him away from you, there are plenty of other ways to KILL Zombies in the deck. You’ll just have to break out the Shotgun, or declare open Zombie Season, or invoke that Weapons Bonus to use some Lumber on him so you can take him out of play entirely.

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

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

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

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

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…Player A only has the Zombie Repellent sitting in front of her while Player B has the Car and a zombie. The Goal I Alone Survived is played, requiring just the Car and everyone else having zombies. During Player A’s turn, she plays Exchange Keepers and trades her Zombie Repellent for Player B’s Car. Some of the players in the game believed that Player A won instantly because at the moment she was the only one without zombies and met the Goal, but the others believed that Player B’s having received the Zombie Repellent would go instantly into effect – and he would have transferred his lone Zombie to Player A…

A: Player A does not win. Although it could be argued that there is a slight lag in both in story and gameplay while Player B sprays his repellent and decides where his zombie goes, we would rule that technically those things are simultaneous in terms of gameplay, and moreover, even story-wise the lag would not affect the long-term outcome: the car thief would not be the only one surviving. Here’s how we see the story playing out:

Sure, it makes sense that the repellent would take a little time to take effect, but this is irrelevant. If someone (Player A) literally ran up to you and your zombie and your car, and stole your car, tearing off with it into the distance, while tossing you their can of zombie repellent, saying “So long sucker!” who would win?

One might argue that Player A wins because you were temporarily “with zombie” and they were driving off with the car. That’s one answer – but we think you would survive in the end, since you have the repellent, so your car thief, player A, is not “Alone Surviving” to meet the stated intent of the Goal.

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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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…as long as one of them is mine, to satisfy the Weapon Bonus limitation to only kill my own zombies?

A: If you’re asking whether, if your only Keeper is The Shotgun, can you use it as a “Weapon” for Weapon Bonus IN ADDITION TO it’s ongoing ability to kill a Creeper, the answer is NO.

The Weapon Bonus is intended to give you the ingenuity to adapt an item not normally used as a weapon. These items, marked with a “POW”, symbol are potential weapons, but not actual weapons. You’ll notice the Shotgun does NOT have this symbol, which the Weapons Bonus specifically references. That’s because the Shotgun is an actual weapon all the time.

We suppose that, technically, after firing off one round as a ranged weapon, one could use the Shotgun as a club in close combat, much as one might use the lumber… but we deemed that to be more confusing than the current situation. This way you use each Keeper power once. The Shotgun once for it’s power to shoot a Creeper, and each potential weapon (POW) Keeper once if Weapon Bonus is in play.

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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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… I’ll Hold ‘Em Off says: You win if you are the only player with a zombie creeper and you have the Shotgun or any other Keeper that can be used as a weapon.

A: It is not required that you be the only one with weapons, only that you’re the only one with zombies. Think of it this way:

We all might be armed, but you’re the only one actively fighting zombies, since they’re only in front of you, so you can claim to be stepping up as the big hero. If you had a zombie, but no weapons yourself, of course, you’d hardly be “holding them off”. In fact, you’d probably be getting your brains eaten.

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…Do I get to play those cards because of Play All, or do I have to discard them because of the Hand Limit 0?

A: You must play those extra cards because of Play All. Hand Limits only apply to you when it’s not your turn, and when you played the Draw increase, you extended your turn. You need to keep playing, and would only need to comply with the Hand Limit if one of the subsequent cards you played changed or removed the Play All rule.

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A: Apparently more commonly spelled “repellent” which is how we have spelled it in our games. Try your search again.

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A: No. Even if you call the zombies over to you, or draw them yourself, they are repelled before they actually get to you so you never actually “have” them such that you could win with them. Unless, of course, It’s Not Working!

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… We were playing Cthulhu Fluxx, and what complicates things is that my wife had the Secret Cultist, so she would win if the UnGoal overrides the Goal, but my son would have won with the Goal if that overrides the UnGoal. [Note from Looney Labs, in Cthulhu Fluxx, a simultaneous Goal and UnGoal could arise from either Double Agenda or The Stars Are Right. Zombie Fluxx and Martian Fluxx could also generate this condition since they both have Double Agenda and an UnGoal. Zombie Fluxx also has the Zombie Boss Rule which can make a player win in the case of the UnGoal being met.]

A: Well, this IS a doozy. Andy and I had to think this through carefully.

But in the end, the answer seems obvious: on the rule sheet itself, at end of the first page in “Notes” is the ruling for ties:

“The game doesn’t end until there is a clear winner. If for some reason two of more players meet the winning conditions simultaneously, the game continues until a single winner emerges.”

So, for your situation, the answer is actually fairly simple: there were two players meeting winning conditions simultaneously, so keep playing until a clear winner emerges. Note that the “clear winner” need not be one of the two originally tied. It could happen that someone else manages to break the tie and win instead of either one of them.

What got a little tricky for us, is that we also wanted to rule in cases where the Cultist/Secret Cultist/Zombie Boss wasn’t invoked, which is to say when there is one player winning, but the conditions for “all players losing” is also met. How could that be? Would we rule that there is only one player winning? Or would we rule that there is “no clear winner”, since that player should simultaneously be both winning and losing?

We went with the latter: If a Goal and UnGoal are met simultaneously, then, even if there is not an actual player that can claim victory in the case of the UnGoal conditions, having the UnGoal met is like having the “forces of evil” be the winner. So if a player meets the winning condition, they are actually tied with “the forces of evil” , thus play would continue until a clear winner emerges.

In a way, all that the Cultist/Secret Cultist/Zombie Boss does is make an actual player represent those forces of evil, thereby claiming that victory.

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A: For cards like the Radioactive Potato or Larry the Zombie, we would rule that the Goal, as a set, has been changed if you:

• Go from zero Goals to one
• Change one Goal out for another
• Go from one Goal to two
• Change one of the two Goals
• Go from two Goals to one
• Go from one goal to zero

All of these things would be considered a change in the Goal. The cards that could make that last situation happen may not be in Zombie Fluxx or Fluxx 4.0, but there is at least one card out there that can make that happen.

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…It seems like it wouldn’t really matter.

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

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

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See this answer as a video!
Ain’t So Bad

A: One could argue that your Zombified Friends are still Friends,
since Zombies Ain’t So Bad.
–Or–
One could argue that once your Friends are Zombified, it’s simply impossible to win with ANY Goal requiring Friends, even if Zombies Ain’t So Bad, since, really, they may not be so bad, but they’re not your friends anymore, they’re zombies. How many people describe their friends as “not so bad”? That’s hardly enthusiastic, you know?

So let’s ask ourselves how many of their Friend-attributes they maintain in Zombified form, such that they would meet the various Goals in a thematic sense:

• Zombie Food: are Zombified Friends Zombie Food?
Not really. Zombies don’t eat each other.

• Barricade the Windows: Could my Zombified Friends help me Barricade the Windows?
Maybe. Depends how hard it is to do that task. It would probably be hard.

• Getaway Driver: Can my Zombified Friends drive a car?
We’re gonna go with a big “no” on that one. Seriously doubtful.

and finally…

• We’re All All Right: Are my Zombified Friends “All Right”?
I don’t care how “not so bad” Zombies are, my Zombified Friends are definitely NOT “all right”.

TLDR:
The short answer from Andy himself is the second answer: if Dead Friends is in play, you can’t win with ANY Goal requiring Friends, because they’re not Friends any more, they’re zombies, even if they’re really nice Zombies. Sorry.

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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: Dead Friends only makes Friend Keepers that are in play into Creepers. Any Friends in your hand are presumably deep in hiding and have not been exposed to any fatal dangers that might have killed or contaminated them.

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A: It means that you, personally, have to have no Zombies in front of you, in order to win with this Goal. It doesn’t matter if other people have Zombies. For that to be the case, in this version, there would have to be wording like “…and no Zombies in play anywhere on the table.” I don’t think there are any Goals that call for that scenario, however.

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…I thought we should all lose a card, but my friend reasoned that none of us could be eaten by zombies if there were no zombies on the table.

A: Your friend is correct. If there are no Zombies on the table, they can’t eat anything, so if everyone is tied at zero Zombies, nobody loses anything. The card I’m seeing actually has this right at the end of the card where it says, in parentheses “unless no one has a Zombie.” We will be reviewing this card on the next print run, however to make sure it’s completely clear. It’s possible it accidentally got tweaked in some way that made it less clear, so we’ll just give it a look-see, and fix it if necessary.

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

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

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A: Zombie Repellent is not a “use” card. It is a permanent feature of you as a player while you have it. As long as you have it in front of you, it’s not possible for you to have any zombies in front of you as well. They just bounce off of you, and you send them to someone else.

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A: If Dead Friends is in effect, then all Friends are treated as zombies, and they will run away from your Zombie Repellent just like any other zombies. Bummer, eh?

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A: Our call would be that you could win if you have both, since both are mentioned on the same Goal, and the rule regarding winning with Creepers is that it’s possible if the Goal specifically requires that Creeper. Another way to think of it is that it’s not an “exclusive or” (XOR) it is an “inclusive or” (and/or). An exclusive or would mean one or the other, but not both, whereas an inclusive or means one or the other or both.

This is true for any Goal which requires any subset of a group of Creepers. If the Creeper is shown on the Goal, it will not prevent the win, but if the person in question has any Creepers NOT shown on the Goal they’re trying to win with, then those excess unrelated Creepers will prevent the win.

It would be difficult to find all of them to list them here, but we will tag various applicable Goals as they are brought to our attention.
Terrifying Inspiration (Cthulhu Fluxx)
Q Who (Star Trek TNG Fluxx)

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A: No. When you take the Zombie cards and deal them out for “Return Of The Dead”, you deal them as if you were dealing for the beginning of the game: you mix them up, face down, so you don’t know who is getting what, and then you deal them out face down to the players, in normal dealing order, which is clockwise, starting from the person on your left. You get to start with the person on your left so that, as the person who played the card, you get the advantage of being likely to get fewer Zombie cards if they do not deal out evenly.

When everyone gets their Zombie cards, of course, they immediately get turned over and laid on the table.

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The rule states “During your turn, you may move 1 of your Zombies to any player who has one of the following Keepers on the table: Brains, a Friend, Sandwiches, Coffee or Donuts.”

In other words, can I give 1 zombie to each player with the Keepers stated in the rule. So 1 zombie to each player with the stated Keepers… also one of the those players had 2 or more of those Keepers. Can I give them one for each of those Keepers?

A: This card is vastly less powerful than you think it is.

The intention of the “Look Over There!” card is that anyone who has a zombie on the table may get rid of ONE of their Zombies per turn (there is no “to each player” intended – the one zombie mentioned is the one zombie a player may move per turn). They may give that single zombie to any other player who has any of those Keepers that might attract zombies.

You may end up giving multiple zombies to the same person if they have even one of those Keepers, but it would take several turns to do so, since you only get to distract one of your zombies per turn.

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A: The Creepers in Zombie Fluxx work a little differently than other Creepers. Most other Creepers specify on them that you can’t win if you have them, but Zombies do not say this – instead, in Zombie Fluxx, it is the Goal which will indicate whether zombies will prevent your win.

If the Goal doesn’t say that you can’t have zombies, then it’s okay if you have zombies.

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A: When the Dead Friends rule is removed from play, your Friends are no longer Zombies. Yeah, they’re cured, or reawakened, or whatever strange zombie-movie analogy works for you.

The best way to keep this sort of thing in mind is that Fluxx rules are never meant to invoke any kind of memory condition. You should be able to look at the rules in play, and understand exactly what is going on at any given moment, and not have to remember that something was previously in play, but has some sort of lingering effect.

You could leave the room while everyone takes their turn, and be able to come back, and, just by seeing the cards in play, understand the status of the game. If there were lingering effects, this would not be possible: if someone played Dead Friends, and it was then removed, all while you were out of the room, you’d have no way of knowing your friends had become zombies (very dangerous!)

So Fluxx rules don’t work that way. You can go get a snack – you’ll still be able to tell what’s going on when you return.

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A: It might seem like these 2 Goals become impossible if you play Zombie Fluxx without Zombies (since these goals require a Zombie with other stuff) but a close reading of the special rules for Playing Without Zombies uncovers this phrase: “Ignore any text on Goals about requiring a Zombie (or not) to win.” Thus, those two Goals become just like most others, simply requiring a specific pair of Keepers.

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A: Yes. The Flame-Thrower doesn’t say that it’s limited to once per turn, so it’s not. Of course, you can only kill zombies in front of you. It’s not a long-range weapon like the Shotgun.

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A: No. (It would need to say so on the Goal card for that to be the case.) POW! Keepers “can” be used as weapons, when the circumstances are right, i.e. when the Weapon Bonus is in play, OR when the Goal is “I’ll Hold ’em Off!”

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A: No. The Zombie Victory is prevented if someone has a working Sonic Tranquilizer on the table.

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A: If you leave those marked cards out of the deck, and ignore anything on a goal about requiring zombies (or not) in order to win, you can play a simpler game that’s good for people new to Fluxx. Look for the explanation and list of marked cards under “Playing without zombies” on the Zombie Fluxx package insert.

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A: Killing zombies is always optional. The point of the Dead Friends rule is that, if you are going to kill any zombies, the first ones you take down have to be your Dead Friends. But becoming non-violent in hopes of unZombifying your Dead Friends is a fine strategy.

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A: Yes and No. Larry is considered One Zombie. However, having Larry prevents you from winning even if the Goal allows for victory with Zombies, so while he counts as One Zombie, he does not help with those goals… unless you have Larry tranquilized with the Sonic Tranquilizer.

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A: Yes. If, for example, you have two Creeper cards in front of me, you can give them both to one player, or one Creeper can go to one player, and the other to another player.

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A: All Zombies are Creepers in Zombie Fluxx, but not all Creepers that exist in the Fluxx universe are Zombies. If a card says you need “a Zombie” then any Creeper card featuring a Zombie-something will do. If a card says you need a certain number of Zombies (the Zombie Baseball Team, for example) then you can count the number of Zombies shown. If something affects Creeper cards, then obviously, you can’t separate two Zombies shown together on a card. Look to the specific wording on each card to for clarification.

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A: Separately. Suppose you have a single Zombie and two Pair of Zombies cards in front of you. If you were to kill the single Zombie, both Pair of Zombie cards would be moved, but they could be moved either to different players or both to the same player.

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If the Zombie Victory goal is out and there are 5 or more Creeper cards on the table and one person has the Zombie Repellent card and a zombie gets passed to the person with the Zombie Repellent, is the Zombie Victory condition fulfilled? Or does “instantly” imply that the person never actually gets the zombie card? For example, the Zombie is given to him, and he passes it on to somebody else before he sets it down?

A: The game continues, Zombie Repellent keeps you from ever truly being in possession of a Zombie. You may be the player responsible for redirecting them as they approach you, but the intent is that Zombie Repellent keeps you permanently free of Zombies.

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A: Yes. It’s a ranged weapon so you can shoot it at any Zombie on the table. This is not true for POW! Keepers though, which only work as weapons against your own Zombies.

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If another player has a Zombie and a Pair of Zombies and I have the Shotgun and I kill his Zombie, does his Pair of Zombies move?

A: No. The reason the Pair of Zombies decides to “run away” is that, as a pair, they’ve put together enough of what’s left of their dead brains to realize that they’re in a dangerous area and need to leave. This doesn’t happen if a zombie near them simply keels over because of a distant shotgun shot.

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A: Yes. Larry is a Zombie, so the Repellent will drive him away just like any other Zombie.

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A: No. The Dead Friends card says “your Friends”, so you can ignore other people’s Friends.

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A: No. The Chainsaw is kept, but the Gasoline is discarded. (The Chainsaw runs out of gas, so you refill it from the Can of Gas, which is then empty.)

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A: Yes. The Sonic Tranquilizer is a device with an off switch, so if you don’t want to ignore your Zombies, you don’t have to. Any card that says “can” or “may” is optional, according to the choice of its owner.

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A: Well, it depends whether you’re talking about a tie at the time the Zombie Boss card is played, or whether there is a current Zombie Boss, and someone increases their zombie count to make it a tie.

In the first case, nobody attains Zombie Boss status until they have a clear lead on zombies.

After that, they remain the Zombie Boss until someone actually overtakes them in number of zombies. So if Alice has four Zombies, and Bob has three when Zombie Boss is played, then Alice is the Zombie Boss. Even if Bob gets another Zombie, making them tied at four zombies each, Alice remains the Zombie Boss until Bob gets a fifth zombie.

This does create a little bit of a memory condition as to who is currently the Zombie Boss, but this is easily overcome by placing the Zombie Boss rule card in front of the current Boss.

Think of it this way: When the Zombie Boss card is played, imagine there’s a “Zombie Crown” tossed into the middle of a playing field. If two “teams” are tied, neither can attain it. As soon as one player has more zombies, they get the “crown.” When someone catches up on zombies, however, now they’re tied with one player already wearing the “crown”… and they’ll continue to wear it until another player actually gets more zombies than them to take it away.

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…Does everybody lose, or does the Zombie Boss text override Larry ?

A: Zombie Boss is a Rule that allows you to win with Zombies; however, Larry says you can’t win even if the Rules or Goal would allow you to win with Zombies. Therefore, in this situation, even the Zombie Boss loses. You could consider Larry to be the winner. That jerk.

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Suppose my opponent has the Zombie Quartet, I have the Shotgun and a Single, Duo, and Trio Zombie, and the goal is “4,3,2,1.” I have not drawn yet. May I shoot the Zombie Quartet with the Shotgun before I draw, so that I can take it myself?

A: Yes. You can use the optional Shotgun action at any point during your turn, including as the very first thing you do before drawing cards.

(You could use the Laser Pistol in Star Fluxx to shoot the Cute Fuzzy Alien if it had a Creeper attached, to put it on top of the draw pile, too)

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A: Yes. They’re still there, they’re just harmless, so you can still win with any Goal requiring zombies. For example, you can successfully assemble a Zombie Baseball Team, even if they’re all asleep. They’re very easy to manage that way. Though you may not have a very successful season, the Goal is merely to assemble the team.

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A: Yes. It says on the Sonic Tranquilizer you can ignore any Zombies you have when trying to win, so if you have the Tranquilizer, it’s as if you don’t have Larry. Although it says on Larry that he prevents victory even if the Rules or Goals say otherwise, the Tranquilizer is a Keeper, so it still works. (Unless “It’s Not Working!” is in play, of course.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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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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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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.
• In Nature Fluxx (aka EcoFluxx) all Creepers prevent everyone from winning, regardless of who has them.

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?

See this answer in a video!
Little Answers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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See this answer in a video!
Little Answers

A: Yes. For a brief moment in between your turn and your extra turn it is technically not your turn, and you must comply with all Limit rules at that time.

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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: The Goal change and the Larry move are considered to be simultaneous, so we would rule that Larry/Potato blocks that win. Basically, do both of the things (play the Goal and move the Creeper) and THEN take a look at the situation to see if you win or not.

If the Potato/Larry is moving around the table preventing wins, and you play what would be the winning Goal, and it makes that Creeper move AWAY from you, you’re then YAY, but if playing the Goal makes it move ONTO you, then you’re stuck. No win. Getting the timing right to play the Goal you need is part of the challenge of having either of these on the table.

The timing puzzle is just as tricky (maybe trickier!) if You Also Need A Baked Potato is in play so that you need to get the Radioactive Potato to move ONTO you with your winning Goal play.

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