[Fluxx] My latest batch of custom cards

[James Hazelton]

I've been buying out the Fluxx Blanxx in every store in town to stock up,
and I decided to spend a few of them. As always, I start by analyzing the
keepers and determining which are the least valuable in my current
game--today's number of applicable goals to beat is 3 (any less than that
warrants a new goal). Then comes the creation brainstorming. I decided that
I would focus on three things: revaluing the lesser keepers, adding some
more powerful cards, and expanding on the importance of Keeper and Hand
Limits. I've been playtesting a little bit, but with such a thick deck, not
all the cards have come up. What do you think?

Keepers:
Life [I've been wanting to introduce this for a while, to pair it with
Death. Incidently, I didn't make a Life & Death goal, because Death isn't on
my list of lesser Keepers. I'll probably do a double-keeper later on that
counts as Life or Death.]

Goals:
Tree of Life [Life and any Tree--my trio of Trees already has three goals
(Forest, Night Forest, and Christmas & Easter {custom--Cross and Tree}), but
I wanted a forth goal, since there are three trees.]
War (Everyone Dies) [This would be War (No Life), but I thought that this
new title makes more of a point and connects War and Life more intuitively.]

Gaia [Earth and Life--pretty straight forward.]
Waking Life [Great movie--This goal was originally going to Life paired with
Sleep, but since Sleep was necessary for the goal with Milk (see below), I
changed it to Dreams.]
Warm Milk [Milk and Sleep--I have found it very difficult to pair anything
with Milk. This is my first custom Milk goal--any other suggestions?]

Actions:
Trash Anything ["Select one of the New Rule, Goal, or Keeper cards in play
and place it in the discard pile." This seems a bit powerful, but it doesn't
seem any more consequencial in a game than any other card. It's hard to come
up with Action cards that are actually relevant to the game.]
Trash N New Rules ["Select N of the New Rule cards in play and place them in
the discard pile, where N is the current number of players." This is part of
the N series, along with Draw N, Play N, Keeper Limit N, and Hand Limit N,
where N is the number of players. I find my games often end with a line of
New Rule cards that stretches across the table, so I wanted more NR
destruction. This is halfway between Rules Reset and Trash a New Rule, but I
don't know how well it plays, since it did not come up in any of the games.]

Rearrange Keepers ["Each player must select one of his Keepers. Redistribute
one Keeper back to each player who supplied one. You decide who gets one."
It was difficult to phrase this into Fluxx terms while being able to fit it
on a card, and I don't think I got it quite right. It's supposed to be a
cross between Taxation and Everybody Gets 1 (One, actually), only with
Keepers. Any idea how I could phrase this concisely?]
Ignore a Rule ["Choose a New Rule card in play. You may ignore that Rule
until the start of your next turn." I can't decide if this should be for
just the player who played it, or if the rule should be mandatorilly ignored
by everyone. Any input?]

New Rules:
Chicken Scratch ["Handwritten Keepers don't count toward the Keeper Limit."
This is one of my favourites. I wanted to make handwritten cards
mechanically special, but all I could come up with was that they don't count
toward the Keeper Limit. This is kind of unfortunate, because Keepers are
the least common handwritten card I have. It's mostly Goals and Actions. I
tried to think of a way to make all handwritten cards somehow exempt from
the Hand Limit, but I couldn't figure out how to do this without revealing
most of your hand to prove it. Any suggestions? By the way, the card was
going to be called "Chicken Scratch Exemption," but I ran out of room again.
Rule Limit 6 ["Only 6 New Rule cards can be in play at a time. If ever there
are more than 6, the turn player must immediately discard New Rules until
there are only 6." Definitely the most controversial card I made, and it
went over so-so. I'm considering taking it out entirely. I made it in the
first place because I often suffer from a huge 15-rule game, and it might be
nice to keep that in check once in a while. However, this card suffers
severely from a lack of room. Most importantly, you should be able to play
as many New Rules as you want, and only observe the limit at the end of the
turn. Second, the Rule Limit 6 card itself wasn't supposed to count toward
the rule limit. Third, you shouldn't be able to discard the Rule Limit with
its own effect, but by the card text, you can. Lastly, I wanted to expressly
state that it can be trashed by No Limits and similar effects, but that was
left out too. As a result, I'm no longer happy with it. It was trashed
pretty soon after it was put into play, so I don't know how well it works
long-term. I don't want it to go into effect for one turn, and then die the
next. That's no fun. This may end up being a wasted effort.]
Toaster Bonus ["If a player has the Toaster on the table, that player may
ignore the Keeper Limit (if any)." This came from a desire to make one of
the lesser keepers useful. I also wanted to bring back the old tradition of
X Random Keeper Bonus, but give it a new life that's actually useful. I like
the idea of players fighting over this one nearly useless Keeper, and having
it be passed back and forth. Unfortunately, I also play with the Robot, so
in a 3-player game, it's possible that only one person would have to observe
the Keeper Limit, and that wouldn't necessarily be fun. Input?
Moon Bonus ["If a player has the Moon on the table, that player may ignore
the Hand Limit (if any)." Same as above. The Moon, like the Toaster, has
only two goals associated with it (although it also uses the Night Forest),
and I wanted it to be more special. I play with the Star, so it has the same
two-at-once problem that the Toaster has. It's iffy, buy I like the look of
X Random Keeper Bonus on the table. It just has a kitchiness that Cross
Bonus, Borders Bonus, or Rich Bonus don't have.]

And that's how I spent my Monday. I don't mean to post every single time I
make a new card, but this time I really do want input on some of the more
difficult cards. Also, if someone has an idea what I could call a double
Keeper that counts as Life and Death, I would be most interested. The only
thing I have come up with is "A Matter," but I don't know how to draw that.

Thanks for reading!

James
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