Privacy controls, or lack thereof

I have no trust problems with the members of my group, and thus don’t have a need for locking them out of editing pages, characters, etc. I can easily see the usefulness of pages that are character-specific, though, that allow the GM and less than all the players draft something on the side. For example, “private” information, character secrets, individual story arcs, etc. Yeah, that can be done by email (though not the message system on Obsidian Portal itself), but that means taking the information “off-site,” as it were.

I myself am pretty much open kimono for the individual story arcs I run, but I can see how other GMs/other campaigns might want a different option.

I have no trust problems with the members of my group, and thus don’t have a need for locking them out of editing pages, characters, etc. I can easily see the usefulness of pages that are character-specific, though, that allow the GM and less than all the players draft something on the side. For example, “private” information, character secrets, individual story arcs, etc. Yeah, that can be done by email (though not the message system on Obsidian Portal itself), but that means taking the information “off-site,” as it were.

I myself am pretty much open kimono for the individual story arcs I run, but I can see how other GMs/other campaigns might want a different option.

I can definitely see the argument for keeping certain things private between GM and a single player. I’m dealing with that in my campaign right now.

I can definitely see the argument for keeping certain things private between GM and a single player. I’m dealing with that in my campaign right now.

I know what you mean about player participation, there are hurdles there that exist beyond the realm of OP that you cannot fix no matter how much you’d like to Micah! I literally just had someone come in my office and ask how to access their email, told them I’d be there momentarily and by the time I walked out they already figured it out. Felt like giving them a damned gold star, no one wants to actually learn for themselves anymore – just a giant hand holding fest and it gets old fast. If i want to know something or do something, I do it myself. Not to say that everyone should be that way but for the sake of all things good – I just wish people would try a little harder sometimes.

As for OP features I’m sure you’ll get over whatever hurdles you’re coming across. The co GM feature is great as well as the other multitude of things done recently. If players really are worried about spoilers in a campaign they can just use willpower to stop themselves, simple as that.

I know what you mean about player participation, there are hurdles there that exist beyond the realm of OP that you cannot fix no matter how much you’d like to Micah! I literally just had someone come in my office and ask how to access their email, told them I’d be there momentarily and by the time I walked out they already figured it out. Felt like giving them a damned gold star, no one wants to actually learn for themselves anymore – just a giant hand holding fest and it gets old fast. If i want to know something or do something, I do it myself. Not to say that everyone should be that way but for the sake of all things good – I just wish people would try a little harder sometimes.

As for OP features I’m sure you’ll get over whatever hurdles you’re coming across. The co GM feature is great as well as the other multitude of things done recently. If players really are worried about spoilers in a campaign they can just use willpower to stop themselves, simple as that.

While I’m not entirely sure if this is even a feature I’d use, given my current change in GM philosophy, but I can still lay out a case for a few instances I might use it for.

First: It’s not about trust, its about excitement. Lets say I have three players; Mike, Art, and Paul. Mike and I have been working together for a dramatic reveal about his character’s father being the main campaign antagonist, without Art or Paul’s knowledge. We could use a wiki page for a shared workspace but we’d risk Art and Paul stumbling upon it accidentally. It isn’t that we don’t trust Art and Paul, its that we have all clicked that link and read something we shouldn’t have on accident. As it stands now, all the work to record and document this upcoming plot is in my lap. I can’t let Mike add his ideas to it unless I make him a co-GM… but I have things going on that he shouldn’t know about yet.

Second: This could potentially increase Player Participation. Maybe it is just my group but if I told my players, “I’ve setup everyone with a special wiki page called ‘(Player’s Name)’s Notes to the Narrator” I would see a usage of that page skyrocket. Then I’d be able to cannibalize that, either then or after the fact, to expand the overall campaign site with. Never overlook the effect that special treatment and exclusivity have on players.

Third: Endlessly useful for a “Cut-Throat” game. While most games are cooperative, it is entirely possible to play competitively. My favorite game, Houses of the Blooded, even has a page or two devoted to tweaking the game for just that purpose. Now, you can always argue that “You’re players should trust each other enough that this won’t be a problem.” but we can no overlook basic human nature. Some people have the mentality that “If I’m playing against the other players, that is the intended purpose of this game, then I want every advantage I can get.” and that mentality has zero reflection on how fun they can be at the table.

Fourth: Expanding Obsidian Portal’s attracted user-base beyond Role-Players. Yes, I know this site is made from the ground up for RPG Campaign management but I see no reason why that should be worn as a shackle. There are some tabletop miniature wargames, board games, and even card games that could put this site to effective use. Who here hasn’t heard of a year long slow play game of Diplomacy? You could setup granular controls within the wiki for planning, plotting, communications, whatever. It won’t take much to expand some non-RPG games into an RPG-esc game and I think that if OP can offer the service its only going to strengthen the community.

Fifth: Because you took away my ability to have orphan characters and I’m going to bitch about that every chance I get.

While I’m not entirely sure if this is even a feature I’d use, given my current change in GM philosophy, but I can still lay out a case for a few instances I might use it for.

First: It’s not about trust, its about excitement. Lets say I have three players; Mike, Art, and Paul. Mike and I have been working together for a dramatic reveal about his character’s father being the main campaign antagonist, without Art or Paul’s knowledge. We could use a wiki page for a shared workspace but we’d risk Art and Paul stumbling upon it accidentally. It isn’t that we don’t trust Art and Paul, its that we have all clicked that link and read something we shouldn’t have on accident. As it stands now, all the work to record and document this upcoming plot is in my lap. I can’t let Mike add his ideas to it unless I make him a co-GM… but I have things going on that he shouldn’t know about yet.

Second: This could potentially increase Player Participation. Maybe it is just my group but if I told my players, “I’ve setup everyone with a special wiki page called ‘(Player’s Name)’s Notes to the Narrator” I would see a usage of that page skyrocket. Then I’d be able to cannibalize that, either then or after the fact, to expand the overall campaign site with. Never overlook the effect that special treatment and exclusivity have on players.

Third: Endlessly useful for a “Cut-Throat” game. While most games are cooperative, it is entirely possible to play competitively. My favorite game, Houses of the Blooded, even has a page or two devoted to tweaking the game for just that purpose. Now, you can always argue that “You’re players should trust each other enough that this won’t be a problem.” but we can no overlook basic human nature. Some people have the mentality that “If I’m playing against the other players, that is the intended purpose of this game, then I want every advantage I can get.” and that mentality has zero reflection on how fun they can be at the table.

Fourth: Expanding Obsidian Portal’s attracted user-base beyond Role-Players. Yes, I know this site is made from the ground up for RPG Campaign management but I see no reason why that should be worn as a shackle. There are some tabletop miniature wargames, board games, and even card games that could put this site to effective use. Who here hasn’t heard of a year long slow play game of Diplomacy? You could setup granular controls within the wiki for planning, plotting, communications, whatever. It won’t take much to expand some non-RPG games into an RPG-esc game and I think that if OP can offer the service its only going to strengthen the community.

Fifth: Because you took away my ability to have orphan characters and I’m going to bitch about that every chance I get.

One very large use case for such concerns is that the characters do not know everything there is to know about the other characters in a campaign. One character may be doing something, or keep secrets, from other characters, even if the players all trust each other. And the only way or that to really work is if the players, likewise, keep some secrets from each other. Or, for example, perhaps only one party member speaks Elvish (or pick your favorite language). If an NPC says something in that language, only one character will understand it, and the rest of the party must rely on the accuracy of their translation. If this one character has reasons to hide pieces of information (perhaps it pertains to some Big Dark Secret or perhaps the character is just spiteful. Note: the _character_ not the _player_), then what “the party” knows and what the GM and single player knows are potentially different things. It would be nice to be able to store the truth, and the truth as the party knows it, and have each version be accessible to the proper players. And as such secrets spread (in our example, perhaps the character in question reveals the secret to just one other character), we need to be able to let others read the true account/notes. As has been noted, this can all be done via email, but having one centralized location with fine grained access would be nice.

Basically, I agree that you have to trust your players. But that does not mean that the _characters_ have to trust the other _characters_ 100% of the time (in fact, to make a world more realistic, I’d argue that the characters should not know everything about each other. Secrets are important), and often the best way to keep an in-character secret is to make sure that it is kept secret out-of-character as well. Otherwise, a player whose character shouldn’t know X might accidentally let THEIR knowledge of X influence their character.

Perhaps a system where the default level of privacy is as it is now, but you can turn on finer grained controls if you want them. That way, for the majority who do not need it, nothing changes, but for those who wan to be able to restrict a page to only one or two players can, and they know that they change the settings at their own risk.

One very large use case for such concerns is that the characters do not know everything there is to know about the other characters in a campaign. One character may be doing something, or keep secrets, from other characters, even if the players all trust each other. And the only way or that to really work is if the players, likewise, keep some secrets from each other. Or, for example, perhaps only one party member speaks Elvish (or pick your favorite language). If an NPC says something in that language, only one character will understand it, and the rest of the party must rely on the accuracy of their translation. If this one character has reasons to hide pieces of information (perhaps it pertains to some Big Dark Secret or perhaps the character is just spiteful. Note: the _character_ not the _player_), then what “the party” knows and what the GM and single player knows are potentially different things. It would be nice to be able to store the truth, and the truth as the party knows it, and have each version be accessible to the proper players. And as such secrets spread (in our example, perhaps the character in question reveals the secret to just one other character), we need to be able to let others read the true account/notes. As has been noted, this can all be done via email, but having one centralized location with fine grained access would be nice.

Basically, I agree that you have to trust your players. But that does not mean that the _characters_ have to trust the other _characters_ 100% of the time (in fact, to make a world more realistic, I’d argue that the characters should not know everything about each other. Secrets are important), and often the best way to keep an in-character secret is to make sure that it is kept secret out-of-character as well. Otherwise, a player whose character shouldn’t know X might accidentally let THEIR knowledge of X influence their character.

Perhaps a system where the default level of privacy is as it is now, but you can turn on finer grained controls if you want them. That way, for the majority who do not need it, nothing changes, but for those who wan to be able to restrict a page to only one or two players can, and they know that they change the settings at their own risk.

For me, there is parts of the content that I want my team to see, and part I would like to reveal to a larger group.

Really what I’d like to see is in terms of use, a simple system. I know this may not be easy to create, but basically a default setting that works as things are now, and then below that a check box system, setting pages to Public (Everyone, even those not in the game) can see, Private (Only those in the game can see), GM (Only the GMs can see) and possibly the ability to check off select party members ability to see which defaults all other boxes to their tightest restriction. (That last part is for other GMs based on what I’ve read or seen.) This way if a GM wishes a story to be public, but not their game details, they can, or if they want all but character details to be seen.

Editing of pages is a trust issue, I understand that very well. But that control should be on the Player Management page with a yes or no to editing. And possibly a GM Lock Box to lock all out regardless of power. I will gladly explain in more detail if anyone wants to know.

Tempest

For me, there is parts of the content that I want my team to see, and part I would like to reveal to a larger group.

Really what I’d like to see is in terms of use, a simple system. I know this may not be easy to create, but basically a default setting that works as things are now, and then below that a check box system, setting pages to Public (Everyone, even those not in the game) can see, Private (Only those in the game can see), GM (Only the GMs can see) and possibly the ability to check off select party members ability to see which defaults all other boxes to their tightest restriction. (That last part is for other GMs based on what I’ve read or seen.) This way if a GM wishes a story to be public, but not their game details, they can, or if they want all but character details to be seen.

Editing of pages is a trust issue, I understand that very well. But that control should be on the Player Management page with a yes or no to editing. And possibly a GM Lock Box to lock all out regardless of power. I will gladly explain in more detail if anyone wants to know.

Tempest

“I can understand why you would not want to add the level of bugs and complexity that come with the system, but if you could do it without any work or bugs, the trust argument seems like it really isn’t up to you. Just because I should be able to trust people, doesn’t mean I can (I as the DM of any campaign, not specifically me).”

“I had two players walk out on my campaign quite a few months back, I didn’t expect any problems from one, but the other I didn’t trust. However, I am obsessive (read: anal) about the organization, PCs must be listed under the player that played them, even if that player no longer is in my campaign. Now, as I said, if the work to make it happen is particularly difficult, I don’t have any problem with you simply stating that and letting it be. However, I don’t feel that making a judgment call for every other DM is an appropriate argument for why you should not implement the system.”

“Please, do not take this comment to be judgmental (as that would be hypocritical on my part), I am simply stating that while group trust may be ideal, we do not live in an ideal world. Even if I trust a player, it doesn’t mean I am right in trusting that player. Nor does it mean that a player might not, innocently, alter something because they have the ability and feel that that means I have given them permission to alter pages at their whim (which I have most definitely not). I am very detail oriented, and while I wish I had someone to help me work on the wiki for my campaign, I have only allowed people to help in certain areas because I am insistent on a certain amount of uniformity in everything I do.”

“However, if implementing this means that I must either make a blanket sweep of pages that can be altered and pages that can’t, or if I have to individually mark each of my nearly 300 NPC/PC pages, I would rather just leave it and have a system to revert back to old updates.”

“If it were at all possible, my suggestion would be that a DM could set that edits on certain sections must be approved. This would allow players to edit as they please, and allow me to veto anything that I don’t want added. However, I can also see where that may cause problems, but if you could implement it, it might be a solution that works for everyone.”

(I am not sure if my thoughts are well organized there, ironically, but I’m a bit tired. Hopefully I made all my points without to much deviation. I should note that I didn’t have a specific point to make, just a lot of viewpoints to consider if they haven’t been stated before.)

“I can understand why you would not want to add the level of bugs and complexity that come with the system, but if you could do it without any work or bugs, the trust argument seems like it really isn’t up to you. Just because I should be able to trust people, doesn’t mean I can (I as the DM of any campaign, not specifically me).”

“I had two players walk out on my campaign quite a few months back, I didn’t expect any problems from one, but the other I didn’t trust. However, I am obsessive (read: anal) about the organization, PCs must be listed under the player that played them, even if that player no longer is in my campaign. Now, as I said, if the work to make it happen is particularly difficult, I don’t have any problem with you simply stating that and letting it be. However, I don’t feel that making a judgment call for every other DM is an appropriate argument for why you should not implement the system.”

“Please, do not take this comment to be judgmental (as that would be hypocritical on my part), I am simply stating that while group trust may be ideal, we do not live in an ideal world. Even if I trust a player, it doesn’t mean I am right in trusting that player. Nor does it mean that a player might not, innocently, alter something because they have the ability and feel that that means I have given them permission to alter pages at their whim (which I have most definitely not). I am very detail oriented, and while I wish I had someone to help me work on the wiki for my campaign, I have only allowed people to help in certain areas because I am insistent on a certain amount of uniformity in everything I do.”

“However, if implementing this means that I must either make a blanket sweep of pages that can be altered and pages that can’t, or if I have to individually mark each of my nearly 300 NPC/PC pages, I would rather just leave it and have a system to revert back to old updates.”

“If it were at all possible, my suggestion would be that a DM could set that edits on certain sections must be approved. This would allow players to edit as they please, and allow me to veto anything that I don’t want added. However, I can also see where that may cause problems, but if you could implement it, it might be a solution that works for everyone.”

(I am not sure if my thoughts are well organized there, ironically, but I’m a bit tired. Hopefully I made all my points without to much deviation. I should note that I didn’t have a specific point to make, just a lot of viewpoints to consider if they haven’t been stated before.)

I agree with you on fine grained permissions and try to avoid them in my apps. I would encourage you to stick to your guns here. In one of the campaigns I’ve just started on Obsidian Portal (http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/a-crying-shame) we’re running an experiment in keeping all of the player interactions public. Character generation was public, no notes or whispers in MapTools during play, etc.

I am a player in another game with the same group. In that game, all of the players have secrets and side plots they are running with the GM. That’s fun for each player, but everything is so secret that nobody else gets to play with it, which is less fun for everybody.

So we’re trying to keep everything in the open and role play what our various characters know or do not know. If OP had fine grain permissions, I don’t know that I would have even thought to try this. Keep it simple.

I agree with you on fine grained permissions and try to avoid them in my apps. I would encourage you to stick to your guns here. In one of the campaigns I’ve just started on Obsidian Portal (http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/a-crying-shame) we’re running an experiment in keeping all of the player interactions public. Character generation was public, no notes or whispers in MapTools during play, etc.

I am a player in another game with the same group. In that game, all of the players have secrets and side plots they are running with the GM. That’s fun for each player, but everything is so secret that nobody else gets to play with it, which is less fun for everybody.

So we’re trying to keep everything in the open and role play what our various characters know or do not know. If OP had fine grain permissions, I don’t know that I would have even thought to try this. Keep it simple.

There are a lot of good thoughts here, and thanks to everyone for their feedback. I’ll do a follow up post where I address some of this.

The case that I’m most sympathetic to is keeping things secret for the sake of excitement, like Rob mentions. I’ve had places where I’d like to do this, and as mentioned, it’s not about trust, but excitement. You don’t want to be told the end of a movie, nor do you want to know that your party member is secretly a werewolf. It’s more fun to discover things exactly as your character would.

One thing to note is that for now, this is mostly an academic discussion. We’ve got plenty to work in the near term, so it’s not like any sweeping changes are going to appear any time soon. But, it’s still useful to understand what people are thinking and how other peoples’ games are different than my own.

There are a lot of good thoughts here, and thanks to everyone for their feedback. I’ll do a follow up post where I address some of this.

The case that I’m most sympathetic to is keeping things secret for the sake of excitement, like Rob mentions. I’ve had places where I’d like to do this, and as mentioned, it’s not about trust, but excitement. You don’t want to be told the end of a movie, nor do you want to know that your party member is secretly a werewolf. It’s more fun to discover things exactly as your character would.

One thing to note is that for now, this is mostly an academic discussion. We’ve got plenty to work in the near term, so it’s not like any sweeping changes are going to appear any time soon. But, it’s still useful to understand what people are thinking and how other peoples’ games are different than my own.

The excitement of secrets is overrated. Similarly to shammond42, I’ve gone as aboveboard as possible in my games. All the players in the group know that Aislyn and Ouroboros are siblings, even though *none* of the characters know that (even the two of them!). The excitement then becomes about how/when that information comes to light, not the “wait, what?” moment. It allows the group to play with literary techniques like dramatic irony, which would otherwise be impossible.

In my experience, the benefits of increased collaboration outweigh the benefits of increased secrecy. The overall philosophy of the Obsidian Portal seems in line with that idea, so I’d pretend fine-grained permissions didn’t exist if you implemented them.

The excitement of secrets is overrated. Similarly to shammond42, I’ve gone as aboveboard as possible in my games. All the players in the group know that Aislyn and Ouroboros are siblings, even though *none* of the characters know that (even the two of them!). The excitement then becomes about how/when that information comes to light, not the “wait, what?” moment. It allows the group to play with literary techniques like dramatic irony, which would otherwise be impossible.

In my experience, the benefits of increased collaboration outweigh the benefits of increased secrecy. The overall philosophy of the Obsidian Portal seems in line with that idea, so I’d pretend fine-grained permissions didn’t exist if you implemented them.

I have no need for “fine” permissions personally, but it is nice to have all my public and private notes in one place. I think there should be a GM only section for almost everything. Then i do not have to switch between paper and online… its just handy. Eventually most of the GM notes find their way into public notes as the players discover new information. But i do agree that granular levels like player A for page x is too much – if your players are good role-players then yea, trust is the issue.

I have no need for “fine” permissions personally, but it is nice to have all my public and private notes in one place. I think there should be a GM only section for almost everything. Then i do not have to switch between paper and online… its just handy. Eventually most of the GM notes find their way into public notes as the players discover new information. But i do agree that granular levels like player A for page x is too much – if your players are good role-players then yea, trust is the issue.

Kelly:

We do have GM-only sections for pretty much everything. I suppose we could add something for the forum, but it’s there for wiki pages, characters, and adventure log posts. It covers the vast majority of cases.

Kelly:

We do have GM-only sections for pretty much everything. I suppose we could add something for the forum, but it’s there for wiki pages, characters, and adventure log posts. It covers the vast majority of cases.

Rob has pretty well summed up my thoughts on the topic but allow me to expand or personalize the thoughts in my own words.

First: I agree it’s not a trust issue. Sometimes players just like to have little surprises that they can play out with the other players. I’m GMing a d20 Modern game where the game setting started as modern day Minnesota. During character development and the direction the game was going to take, one player was given a minor telekinesis ability that he wanted to role play out to everyone’s surprise. If all the players were allowed to see his character sheet, he couldn’t have done this.

I do see Sabe’s point in this and good role players would have still been able to act surprised but sometimes the players enjoy the real thing.

Second: I don’t really have anything to add to player participation other than to say that my original suggestion was just have a single area on the site for each player to have their private information to share with the DM. Rob suggests a wiki page. My suggestion was to just have another text box on the character’s page marked, “DM and Owner Only.” This gives a place for the DM and the owning player a place to share information exclusive to that character.

Third: I GMed a game where absolutely no one trusted anyone and with good reason. If you were able to look at everyone’s character sheet, you would have been able to find out that one of them had planted a gps locater on you and of course, you would look for it to get rid of it. This was a group of 12 to 15 players that continually met up and split into 3 or 4 factions and sometimes they were actively working against each other. I know that most role playing games are team exercises but this one was every person for themselves. They had bugs, cameras, and gps equipment planted on each other and references on their character sheets to organizations that other players might have found objectionable.

Let me add that this game was incredibly fun and a colossal pain in the ass to GM. Where was Obsidian Portal 15 years ago? =) I had notes all over the place, in notebooks, on scraps of paper, on character sheets, on different websites, in Word documents, and some in my head (the worst place of all). OP would have been a godsend but I would have needed a way to privatize each character’s information.

I also GMed a game where I brought in a team of players to play as opposing unit to PCs. The PCs had a tip that a key physicist was going to be killed and they had to go rescue him. The cameo PCs were the team sent to kill the physicist. I put up a map and each person told me where they were going to moving and I told them when they came in contact with each other and GMed over the combat that ensued. Obviously, neither team was allowed to see the information for the other team.

Again, it’s not about trust but it’s about the setting of the game and having options available to support these types of games.

Fouth: Rob states that it could expand beyond just role playing but I would say that it could expand to include more role players as well as those other games. I currently GM a Play by Post game and the couple of suggestions that I have made would increase the appeal of OP to other online gamers.

For those that don’t think that a separate “DM and Owner Only” box is necessary, I say, “Great!” Don’t use it. For those of us that can see uses for it, it would be a handy little addition for our games.

Rob has pretty well summed up my thoughts on the topic but allow me to expand or personalize the thoughts in my own words.

First: I agree it’s not a trust issue. Sometimes players just like to have little surprises that they can play out with the other players. I’m GMing a d20 Modern game where the game setting started as modern day Minnesota. During character development and the direction the game was going to take, one player was given a minor telekinesis ability that he wanted to role play out to everyone’s surprise. If all the players were allowed to see his character sheet, he couldn’t have done this.

I do see Sabe’s point in this and good role players would have still been able to act surprised but sometimes the players enjoy the real thing.

Second: I don’t really have anything to add to player participation other than to say that my original suggestion was just have a single area on the site for each player to have their private information to share with the DM. Rob suggests a wiki page. My suggestion was to just have another text box on the character’s page marked, “DM and Owner Only.” This gives a place for the DM and the owning player a place to share information exclusive to that character.

Third: I GMed a game where absolutely no one trusted anyone and with good reason. If you were able to look at everyone’s character sheet, you would have been able to find out that one of them had planted a gps locater on you and of course, you would look for it to get rid of it. This was a group of 12 to 15 players that continually met up and split into 3 or 4 factions and sometimes they were actively working against each other. I know that most role playing games are team exercises but this one was every person for themselves. They had bugs, cameras, and gps equipment planted on each other and references on their character sheets to organizations that other players might have found objectionable.

Let me add that this game was incredibly fun and a colossal pain in the ass to GM. Where was Obsidian Portal 15 years ago? =) I had notes all over the place, in notebooks, on scraps of paper, on character sheets, on different websites, in Word documents, and some in my head (the worst place of all). OP would have been a godsend but I would have needed a way to privatize each character’s information.

I also GMed a game where I brought in a team of players to play as opposing unit to PCs. The PCs had a tip that a key physicist was going to be killed and they had to go rescue him. The cameo PCs were the team sent to kill the physicist. I put up a map and each person told me where they were going to moving and I told them when they came in contact with each other and GMed over the combat that ensued. Obviously, neither team was allowed to see the information for the other team.

Again, it’s not about trust but it’s about the setting of the game and having options available to support these types of games.

Fouth: Rob states that it could expand beyond just role playing but I would say that it could expand to include more role players as well as those other games. I currently GM a Play by Post game and the couple of suggestions that I have made would increase the appeal of OP to other online gamers.

For those that don’t think that a separate “DM and Owner Only” box is necessary, I say, “Great!” Don’t use it. For those of us that can see uses for it, it would be a handy little addition for our games.

So if I pay OP doesn’t that grant me the option to disable editing for players? Also I have to jump hurdles right now with added them to my game.

So if I pay OP doesn’t that grant me the option to disable editing for players? Also I have to jump hurdles right now with added them to my game.

My only thought on the matter is that a DM doesn’t really need to worry about losing anything if he simply uses his DM area to keep a “hard copy” of his material. It takes up more space obviously…but since players can’t see the DM area, then they can’t edit it can they?

As for other issues, it would be nice to allow a DM to designate an area as accessible ONLY to a particular player. Perhaps simply place it in their Character Area…a subset of the character profile viewable only to the player and the DM.

Over all, I’m happy with the site the way it is now…can’t complain for the price.

My only thought on the matter is that a DM doesn’t really need to worry about losing anything if he simply uses his DM area to keep a “hard copy” of his material. It takes up more space obviously…but since players can’t see the DM area, then they can’t edit it can they?

As for other issues, it would be nice to allow a DM to designate an area as accessible ONLY to a particular player. Perhaps simply place it in their Character Area…a subset of the character profile viewable only to the player and the DM.

Over all, I’m happy with the site the way it is now…can’t complain for the price.

I see a lot of the responders to this have mostly had stuff to say about having some sort of player only sectret area to post information to specific players and what-not. But thats not the only side of the coin…

Again I agree its not a trust issue. I don’t believe that any of my players would go out of their way to maliciously change stuff to make the game better for themselves or to destroy something that I’ve done in the game.

But with that being said tonight one of my players had noticed that I’d made several errors in the adventure log post that I’d spent the last 2 weeks working on. It totaled 6 pages of typed notes. I’m sure you can appreciate how much work went into that.

He edited my post and copied it into MS Word and then did a spell/grammer check and changed everything that came up as wrong. Then copied and posted it back into the log.

I’m also sure you can understand how many changes that would have made to my log post. Everytime I wiki linked someones name or a place, now gone. The formatting for bolding or indenting, italics, ect ect ect,… gone. Spaces and indents, gone.

I now basically have to go back through the entire post and redo everything. This adds to a huge workload of having to redo everything, then do up todays session for my players. Todays session was just as epic as the last one and I expect atleast 4 pages on todays session.

I belive a simple two teired system that you’ve already have inplace would do wonders to ease my currently extremely frustrated mind. You currently have GM’s, Co-GM’s and players in a game. If a GM wishes to have help adding stuff to the website then he can promote one of his players to a Co-GM or call it something else but there should be no reason why a player should ever be able to alter anything that a GM posts, even if the player has the best intentions in mind.

I see a lot of the responders to this have mostly had stuff to say about having some sort of player only sectret area to post information to specific players and what-not. But thats not the only side of the coin…

Again I agree its not a trust issue. I don’t believe that any of my players would go out of their way to maliciously change stuff to make the game better for themselves or to destroy something that I’ve done in the game.

But with that being said tonight one of my players had noticed that I’d made several errors in the adventure log post that I’d spent the last 2 weeks working on. It totaled 6 pages of typed notes. I’m sure you can appreciate how much work went into that.

He edited my post and copied it into MS Word and then did a spell/grammer check and changed everything that came up as wrong. Then copied and posted it back into the log.

I’m also sure you can understand how many changes that would have made to my log post. Everytime I wiki linked someones name or a place, now gone. The formatting for bolding or indenting, italics, ect ect ect,… gone. Spaces and indents, gone.

I now basically have to go back through the entire post and redo everything. This adds to a huge workload of having to redo everything, then do up todays session for my players. Todays session was just as epic as the last one and I expect atleast 4 pages on todays session.

I belive a simple two teired system that you’ve already have inplace would do wonders to ease my currently extremely frustrated mind. You currently have GM’s, Co-GM’s and players in a game. If a GM wishes to have help adding stuff to the website then he can promote one of his players to a Co-GM or call it something else but there should be no reason why a player should ever be able to alter anything that a GM posts, even if the player has the best intentions in mind.

Now that Player Secrets have been implemented (and as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, Micah, that was the deciding factor in deciding to get a paid membership to OP for us), this only leaves the issue that Wheatkings raises. Frankly, I agree with you that a Permissions architecture is not the ideal way to solve this. I think a far more useful tool would be to implement page History, so that edits can be seen and/or reverted. At the minimum, I think that History is a far more important and urgent feature to add than Permissions. Perhaps someday, after History is in, we can think about Permissions–heck, I think it would be nice to allow ~anyone~, or any OP member, to edit my pages. But that isn’t possible without a History function.

Besides, History is useful even if no one else ever edits my wiki. I may wish to look back on what my pages have looked like in the past, or I may have made an editing mistake of the order that Wheatkings mentions–I’ve done it before!

So please…add History!

Now that Player Secrets have been implemented (and as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, Micah, that was the deciding factor in deciding to get a paid membership to OP for us), this only leaves the issue that Wheatkings raises. Frankly, I agree with you that a Permissions architecture is not the ideal way to solve this. I think a far more useful tool would be to implement page History, so that edits can be seen and/or reverted. At the minimum, I think that History is a far more important and urgent feature to add than Permissions. Perhaps someday, after History is in, we can think about Permissions–heck, I think it would be nice to allow ~anyone~, or any OP member, to edit my pages. But that isn’t possible without a History function.

Besides, History is useful even if no one else ever edits my wiki. I may wish to look back on what my pages have looked like in the past, or I may have made an editing mistake of the order that Wheatkings mentions–I’ve done it before!

So please…add History!

Page edit history is definitely on the TODO list, we just haven’t gotten to it yet. Nor can I give any kind of estimate, only that we’ll get to it someday.

Page edit history is definitely on the TODO list, we just haven’t gotten to it yet. Nor can I give any kind of estimate, only that we’ll get to it someday.