Zombie Fluxx FAQ

From RabbitWiki

Please add Frequently Asked Questions about Zombie Fluxx here, as well as the official or commonly accepted answers to each question.

• Q: Why do some of my cards have a jagged mark in the bottom left corner?
  • 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.

• Q: Do "dead friends" still count as Friend keepers? Do they become Creepers instead? Do Friends in your hand turn into Zombies when "Dead Friends" is played? What about Friends drawn later?
  • A: Friend Keepers do NOT count as Keepers if the Dead Friends rule is in play. In this case, Friends are treated exactly like Creepers and each counts as single Zombie for anything you might need a Zombie for. They become Keepers again if the rule is discarded. They are NOT considered Creepers until they actually hit the table - a Friend in the hand is still a Keeper. (The words "on the table" need to be added to this card.)

• Q: If you have a weapon to kill Creepers and you have a Dead Friend, do you have to kill the Friend off, or can you wait for the Rule to go away by not attempting to kill any Zombies on your turn?
  • A: Killing Zombies is always optional. The point of Dead Friends is that, if you are going to kill a Zombie, the first one you take down has to be your Dead Friend. But becoming non-violent in hopes of unZombifying your Dead Friend is a fine strategy.

• Q: Do I have to observe the current Draw rule entirely before I can play any cards?
  • A: Depends on when you ask Andy. ;) (This interpretation vs. This one). But you can always make a house rule to cover this situation, if necessary. (See also: mailing list discussion)

• Q: Does Larry count as towards the nine zombies needed for Zombie Baseball Team and/or as the One for Four, Three, Two, One?
  • A: Yes. 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.

• Q: Does "creeper" equate with "zombie" for purposes of Let's Shamble? How do you count multi-Zombie creepers? What about non-Zombie creepers (such as the Radioactive Potato from the party pack)?
  • A: All Zombies are Creepers, but not all Creepers are Zombies. If a card says you need "a Zombie" then any Creeper card featuring a Zombie-something will do. (But the Radioactive Potato doesn't Shamble, it gets tossed around.)

• Q: Can the Radioactive Potato be "killed" with the Shotgun - or killed in any other way that Creepers are killed?
  • A: Andy writes: "Things that kill Zombie Creepers don't kill the Evil Spud unless it applies generically to any Creeper like the Destroy a Creeper action. Zombie Season and the Weapon Bonus options certainly don't affect the Potato, but feel free to come up with House rules. For example, I'd say no to being allowed to use the Shotgun on the Spud (that's just gonna break it up into little radioactive tater tots) but that you can bury the Potato if you have the Shovel."

• Q: If I play Zombie Repellant, and I have two Creeper cards in front of me, can one Creeper go to one player, and the other to another player?
  • A: Yes.

• Q: 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, it 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. (See also: Andy's reply)

• Q: If Zombies are dealt out to you at the beginning of the game, what is the protocol- do you just grab for the draw pile, and whoever gets there first gets the first card? Or do you wait until your turn?
  • A: Andy writes: "We don't have a very strict protocol on that. Everyone looks at their hand and as they find they have Zombies they grab more cards as needed until everyone has 3 non-zombie cards in their hands. Then someone takes the first turn. Chaos seems to work fine here. That said, one way to handle this would be to decide who goes first before anyone looks at their cards, then have a pre-round in which each player takes a pre-turn in which they reveal and replaces their initial Creepers. I don't think that's needed for casual play, but it's probably a good idea for more competitive situations like the official tournaments we'll be starting to run this summer."

• Q: Do multiple Pair of Zombie cards move together or separately? If I choose to kill a regular Zombie Creeper with my Shotgun and I have 3 Pair of Zombies cards in front of me, do they all move to other players or is it one move per one kill?
  • A: In this case, all three Pairs would be moved, and they can be moved in any combination to different players. But a Pair only moves when it is front of the player doing the killing.

• Q: Can you shoot another player's Zombie with the Shotgun?
  • 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.

• Q: 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.

• Q: Regarding the "Start the Clock" Promo Card, does the clock keep ticking if the rule is discarded? Also, does the game end as soon as the timer rings, or at the end of the turn during which the timer rang?
  • A: Andy's answer: On the face of it, the strict interpretations would be answers of "The timer goes away when the rule does" and "Sorry, you don't get to finish your turn when the timer rings." However, depending on the situation you may want to go with other interpretations. The point of the rule is to force the game to come to an end, since there are times when you really need for a Fluxx game to stop within a predictable time frame. (For example, you're at the airport and your flight is boarding.) So, in some cases you might want to create a house rule declaring that Stop the Clock is immune to being discarded or reset. Similarly, when the timer does ring, you might in some situations need to be hard-nosed about ending the game promptly, however in this case I usually favor leeway. Sure, any given Fluxx turn has the potential to go on for too long, but unless the airplane is leaving it's reasonable to allow a grace period. After all, it really doesn't seem right for the game to end with no winner if you're in the middle of your turn and you could have won if you'd just had a few more seconds to finish what you were doing. So here are my actual answers to the questions: "It depends" and "The person whose turn it is gets to finish that turn and win in the usual way before ending the game because of the timer."

• Q: When playing for a Zombie Baseball Team with Start The Clock in play, does the person with the most zombies get to claim partial victory when the timer goes off, and thus get to win? (This question then also lends itself to asking what happens with 10 cards in hand when Start The Clock is in play? Does the person with the most cards when the buzzer goes off claim partial victory?)

• Q: Does Zombie Repellent work on Larry The Zombie? What about Sonic Tranquilizer?