An Illegal Trade

[mahobear8]

In my most recent game of Killer Bunnies, one of my opponents offered to trade hand for hand.  I had a pretty poor hand considering my situation, so I naturally accepted.  It turned out that the opponent had 6 cards in his hand, making the trade technically illegal, but knowing the group I was playing with, they would all allow anything that works against my favor, especially something as creative (yet still illegal) as a trade to trick an opponent into having 6 cards in his hand.  Naturally, the same scheme won't ever happen to the same person twice.  I suppose the discussion here is should the player receiving the extra card really be punished for making a trade that he thought was legal, or should the trade be declared illegal to begin with, thus the players should undo it and the player with the extra card can discard 1 card, catching himself with too many cards.  Realistically speaking, both players involved with the trade had broken the rules, one knowingly and one out of ignorance, but only the ignorant one was punished in this case.  Naturally, the loss of 1 turn and 1 carrot is not drastically game changing, but the situation brings up interesting rule scenarios

[TheDavii]

Aug 15, 2017 6:51:28 GMT -5 mahobear8 said:

In my most recent game of Killer Bunnies, one of my opponents offered to trade hand for hand.  I had a pretty poor hand considering my situation, so I naturally accepted.  It turned out that the opponent had 6 cards in his hand, making the trade technically illegal, but knowing the group I was playing with, they would all allow anything that works against my favor, especially something as creative (yet still illegal) as a trade to trick an opponent into having 6 cards in his hand.  Naturally, the same scheme won't ever happen to the same person twice.  I suppose the discussion here is should the player receiving the extra card really be punished for making a trade that he thought was legal, or should the trade be declared illegal to begin with, thus the players should undo it and the player with the extra card can discard 1 card, catching himself with too many cards.  Realistically speaking, both players involved with the trade had broken the rules, one knowingly and one out of ignorance, but only the ignorant one was punished in this case.  Naturally, the loss of 1 turn and 1 carrot is not drastically game changing, but the situation brings up interesting rule scenarios

According to the rules:

1. Cards that are traded from the five card hand must be traded card for card. Each player must maintain a hand of 5 cards before and after the trade (Rule #03 of the “Serious Rules”).
2. Certain types of down items (bunnies, Carrots, Mysterious Places, pawns, saved Special and Very Special cards, and Zodiacs) may only
   be traded once. If you receive one of these items in trade, you cannot subsequently trade it on another turn. (Rule #01 of the “Serious Rules”). This means that “loaning” is not allowed! Items that have been stolen or moved around as a result of a card consequence do not count as traded, so a carrot stolen with the ‘Carrot Thief’ card could be traded at a later time.

So, since you're asking for what the rules say, I'll provide the pedantic answer: Trading hand-for-hand is not legal. Trading card-for-card is legal, with the exceptions listed in #1 and #2. I'd guess the exceptions in #2 are the reasons that trading hand-for-hand is not legal, since previously traded cards may not be traded a second time. 

But, you should have caught the 6th card before it got to you because you wouldn't have had a 6th card to trade card-for-card.

Everybody has got to know all of the rules from the outset, or it isn't really a fair game.  When we play, if an illegal play is made, determine if the illegality will have any consequence, and if so we "rewind" as far as we can to a point before the illegal play. Your friends decided to punish you and that may be fair since you didn't count the cards in your hand.