The world of gaming produces many strange practices and whilst I would never admit to sleeping with my dice under my pillow to “charge” them – not for many years anyway, there are certainly a few tics, habits, routines or obsessions that I participate in and which my fellow gamers also seem to fall prey to. Whilst I wouldn’t want to rubbish my native language –it is the only language I can even halfway competently speak after all, it just seems to be lacking a little when it comes to describing these charming little habits. Geekdad has an international readership. Perhaps your language has just the word that we can adopt. Let us know in the comments! Measure the geekiness of your family gaming night by checking to see if any of your geeklets have developed any of these habits.
· The action of checking the rules or re-reading a power, despite knowing full well what it does, in the hope of finding your way out of an impossible situation.
· Insisting on reading the entire rulebook out loud, when it would be much easier to just get started. Often best exemplified (or worst, depending on your perspective) when a game is more complicated to explain than it is to actually play. I’m looking at you Yu-Gi-Oh. 
· The action of arranging game pieces (Meeples (Carcassonne) are a particular favourite in this regard) in geometric patterns when not being used in the game. Particular Kudos should be given to those who can form 3-D shapes by stacking said pieces.
· The snatching of defeat from the jaws of victory. A particular favorite of mine from many evenings of Heroclix. How often has Doctor Doom been relishing his sweet, sweet victory over the Fantastic Four only to have his victory denied at the last moment. On the gaming table as it is in comics.
· Spending hours sorting all the pieces of a game into individual zip-locked bags so that you can spend more time playing the game than setting it up. Cough, Battlelore, cough.
