Nooooo, do the exact opposite.

That is just BEGGING for him to be prayed upon.

Yeah, ignore this advice entirely.

I don't believe anyone here would actually intentionally abuse a kid... and I'm surprised you think otherwise.

No sense in telling people. People will see your brother's character for his actions, not his age. Like Nejii, if he acts maturely no will pick on him no matter what his age. If he acts childish and idiotically, then people will, even if he were much older.

I know otherwise.

I make some of them, but most of them I get from here.

EDIT: not that I really use them much anyomore anyway, I got tired of them.

Well, I started playing IRE when I was about 12. It's not a good idea... I would wait until he can, like, write a satisfactory essay or something. I don't think a lot of people realize that while the game takes a certain amount of intelligence to understand, to truly participate, you need to be able to contribute to the culture of whatever orgs you are a part of, and this involves a fair amount of experience in writing. I had fun at the time, yeah, but I didn't fit in. I was obsessed with buying a pet artifact cow

I guess what I'm saying is that they could have a decent time, but you can't really enjoy the depth of IRE at that age.

Edit: And yeah, it forced me to grow up, and sometimes in ways that kids don't want to or shouldn't have to yet. It's not a huge deal though, middle school will probably be worse than Lusternia.

I started playing Aetolia at 14, and I had a similar pet desire. Mine was a flying squirrel with dragon wings.

But, hey- I still got going. I honestly attribute text-based games for a fraction of my love of writing. Now I'm spending thousands of dollars every few months for a university to tell me I'm good at what I do! I don't know how strong the correlation really is, but it's definitely where a lot of my creativity was cultivated.

I say let him give it a shot. If he's interested in writing and reading at that age, there's no sense in telling him no! He'll just find a way around you eventually.

And then you have people like me, who have played text based games for ages, and still can't type or spell or uses good gramer.

Personally, I think anyone who says that game x or thing b, is what helped them grow up or get good at something, are lying to themselves. It was just the medium in which those skills articulated themselves.

Hehehh...
But yeah, thank you all for your opinion. It seems a major agreement that it matures you, and I don't want to be responsible for his lost innocence, so maybe I'll force him to stick with Rock Band for the time being.

Alrighty. I'll articulate my example a little better.

Text-based games allowed me to explore writing as a creative medium in a way that I wouldn't have been able to had I not started playing.

I started playing Achaea around that age with no problem. I wasn't exposed to any graphic situations or vulgar or foul scenes. If he can handle text violence, I'd say he could handle Lusternia, so long as he stays away from OOC clans (and the forums!).

When i was 13, internet was not yet as pervassive.. and ps2/nintendo ruled the world.. -- i hate nintendo now.. it ruined my life. all those hours wasted.. I could have learned the guitar instead..

Or if you really hafta let him play -- just monitor it so he doesnt get known as that creepy kid who spends all his times on games.. You know the one - horn-rimmed glasses.. cant wait to get out of school.. no time to socialize.. cause he needs to go kill some dragons.. sad.

Or maybe, you should just introduce him to girls first? (Man, my brother should have done this..)

While your faith in the playerbase is admirable...yeah, not a good idea.

I can attest otherwise, I'm afraid.

I have no faith in players when it comes to griefing, being assholes, whatever. It's just that I thought everyone here, name your worst griefers, would take into consideration that she's interacting with a child. It actually makes me sad that I'm apparently wrong.

Raoul started playing when he was around 13 I think, either way he was really young.
Compared to some of the other people I interact with, he is actually mature.
Violence/other stuff is no big deal if he watches movies.

Just keep him out of Dark Carnival. And away from Incabulos

And Kharvik.

I started playing Lusty when I was 13...That was a year ago, I think.

I think that's a silly idea. If you judge that he needs to be treated like a thirteen-year-old (i.e., people will inevitably treat him like a kid), I wouldn't say he's old enough for Lusternia. He should be judged by how he behaves in himself, not by the preconceptions that will inevitably occur if people know his RL age.

And as others have said, I think only you can really judge his maturity. You might think he'd be OK with, say, the Celestines, but that the Ur'Guard would be too harsh an environment. Or you might decide that he's too immature to play at all, or that he should be able to eventually get on to smooshing gorgogs with huge mallets within a few months.

Of course, you could also say that, if he is fairly sheltered, an environment with (mostly) mature people and a not-exactly-cuddly-for-the-most-part atmosphere might help with that. But that makes me sound like a Harden'Upâ„¢ ad.