.:: a few thoughts on the subject by rob wright ::.

A Christian father recently told me that his 13 year-old son wanted to play RuneScape, and he asked my opinion. This is what I told him:

• Rating is T for Teen. The official definition Teen definition: Titles rated T - Teen have content that may be suitable for persons ages 13 and older. May contain violent content, mild or strong language, and/or suggestive themes.
• Review from Christian Centered Game Reviews: http://www.ccgr.org/article_read.asp?id=31
• A Rune is “Any of the characters in several alphabets used by ancient Germanic peoples from the 3rd to the 13th century a poem or incantation of mysterious significance, especially a magic charm.” (from dictionary.com)
• Good Review by a father: http://www.almenconi.com/topics/games/runescape.html He notes that the game allows chatting between players and there can be as many as 10,000 players in the game. You can restrict chatting to your “buddy list,” but there are no parental controls and the chat restrictions can easily be disabled by the child.

It seems similar to Dungeons and Dragons. Unless I could guarantee that the players would only chat with their friends, then I wouldn’t let my sons play unless I was playing with them. With no limitations on the chatting, they would be in an unmonitored environment purely for entertainment purposes…the cost-benefit doesn’t justify unmonitored playing. Also, I don’t remember where your computer is located in your house. If you let your son play, then I would make sure that you are around and he knows that you could “walk in” at any time. And as with any computer game, I would restrict the amount of time that he can spend playing. Finally, depending on their Christian maturity, I probably wouldn’t let my sons play because players can “pray” to gods in the game and increase their “prayer points.” I’m not sure if this is a required element of the game. This is from the game web site “As well as using magic spells you can also pray to the gods of RuneScape to give you an advantage.” Here is information on the use of magic in the game. Here is a list of all the “skills” that are used in the game.

Overall, I would say no….