Double Mojo Question

[schnozzberries]

We were playing munchkin zombies earlier this evening, and my friend and I got into a pretty heated argument about the Double Mojo card. He laid it down without having a mojo card, thinking that he could play it now and lay down a mojo to use with it later. We told him he could not do that and made him discard the card. He got angry and argued that since it didn't say he couldn't do it on the card, that it meant that he could do it (which I think is a ridiculous argument). Who is right?

[Clipper]

You must have a Mojo in play to play Double Mojo, or else it would be discarded. However, given the mistake was an honest one and a simple one to make, it seems a bit unfair to force the player to discard the card, especially if they didn't have much experience with the game.

Letting them take back the play of the card seems the fairest way to correct the mistake.

[MunchkinMan]

The rules say this:

Originally Posted by The Rules, Mojos & Powers, p. 6

These cards may be played to the table as soon as they are acquired, or at any time during your own turn. The same is true for Double Mojo, but you must already have a Mojo to play it.

Nothing on the card Double Mojo contradicts this rule, so the argument that Double Mojo doesn't prevent you from playing it alone is an invalid argument.

However, Clipper is correct about the discarding issue. I see no reason to make the player discard the card . It's not a card that is normally played and discarded, so he should have been able to return it to his hand in this instance of a mistaken play.

[Nikolai]

Originally Posted by Clipper

You must have a Mojo in play to play Double Mojo, or else it would be discarded.

Originally Posted by MunchkinMan

However, Clipper is correct about the discarding issue.

Really? I'd say your quote from the rule book is pretty clear in that you are simply not allowed to play a Double Mojo card without a Mojo in play.
You can't play it anyway to discard it afterwards, for instance because you want to avoid Charity.

So I'd say it is clear that even if wanting to play very strict and not wanting to give the player a "not-so-experienced-bonus" (although I would absolutely recommend a less strict play style in general), the player should have taken back the Double Mojo to his hand, he should neither have been required nor allowed to discard it.

Unless this part in the rules means one is allowed to discard a Double Mojo card *from one's hand*:

Originally Posted by Munchkin Zombies rule

s, p. 4, top of right column]
You can discard a Mojo card at any time, even in combat: "I don't wanna be a Plague Zombie anymore."

Does it mean that?

But even then I'd say he shouldn't have been *required* to discard it as a consequence of mistakenly trying to play it, because playing doesn't equal discarding from his hand.

[MunchkinMan]

Actually, that's a good point. Making someone discard a card that they played illegally could allow them to avoid having to give Charity. Nothing in the rules allows one to discard a card from one's hand at one's whim (not even Race/Class/Power/Mojo/etc. cards), so this falls under showing the other players one's cards: We can't stop you. . . Now, if you play a Curse that results in having no effect on the target, that's one thing, but playing a card that doesn't follow the play-resolve-discard model of a Curse shouldn't result in a discard since it allows for illegal Charity avoidance.