…I drew three Creepers in a row. I say I should redraw 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.

Now, it’s going to look very different if it’s a multiple Draw, and you draw all of your cards at once. Let’s say it’s Draw 4:

You Draw 4. Three of them are Creepers.
The non-Creeper goes towards your Draw count, and the 3 Creepers go in front of you. At this point, you’ve only drawn 1 non-Creeper, and it’s Draw 4, which is why you’ll now find yourself drawing 3 cards for the 3 Creepers, as you try to achieve the required 4 cards Drawn.
You’d continue like that: Let’s say your draw to replace includes 2 Creepers.
The non-Creeper goes into your hand, and goes towards your Draw count. Now you’ve drawn 2 non-Creepers, and you are still going for a total of 4. Which is why you draw 2 to replace those 2 Creepers you just drew.

This continues until you have drawn 4 cards to your hand. Creepers can’t be held in your hand, so they don’t count as part of your Draw (neither do they count against your Play number, since you didn’t have any choice about whether to play them or not).