I've recently started a game and I have several people apply as readers to my game. I'm flattered that they are interested and I'm happy to have people read along on our adventures but there are a few reasons that I am hesitating a little. Please tell me if my concerns are valid or if I'm being over sensitive. First and foremost, I have a private thread that is for my own GM planning. It is a place where I spill the contents of my mind and it is often a jumbled mess. I feel really exposed having that available for open viewing to readers. Not that there is anything inappropriate in there, I'm just not interested in having other people read my brainstorming and incomplete ideas. The other thing is having those people as potential replacement player. The reader applicants are mainly people who had applied to my game to play and I'd like to have the option to invite them at some point but I wouldn't feel good about turning readers into players given the info that they've had access to.

So I'm curious about other people's experiences with having readers, good, bad, neutral?

You could always tell them that they are welcome to be readers so long as they understand that it might impinge upon future applications. I was tempted to apply as a reader for your game myself but I don't really keep up with the reading so much.

Most readers are good people. If you ask them not to look at something, they usually won't. Or, you could plan on a Microsoft word doc. Maybe we want different reader settings?

While the other concerns are certainly legitimate, I don't actually feel that a post/thread in the game forum is the best place for brainstorming. A google doc, your Private Notes (accessible from the usercp left-hand menu), etc might have better features and won't be accessible to other people.

The point of giving someone the 'reader' status is to give them access to the private stuff, or allow them to view an otherwise private game. If your game isn't private, and you don't want to share all the private threads/content with them, just don't make them readers. They'll still have access to the forum.

I agree that it's not the best place for planning. My reason for doing it is convenience. I'm often on different computers when working on my game and having my planning on mythweavers assures that I will have the info that I need regardless of the computer I'm on. Maybe there's a simple way of achieving that same convenience without using the forum. I'm open to ideas. One thing I like about planning on the forum is using spoiler tags and such to collapse stat blocks and similar chunks to make my info feel more manageable. Thanks for the input.

Ah, those private notes are perfect. I didn't know they existed. Thanks, Rodrigo. I will use those instead. That makes me feel better about readers

You could ask that they merely subscribe to the game instead of being a reader.. Subscribing puts it in their CP but doesn't give any private thread access..

I like having readers. They make me feel important. Or at least as though someone likes me...

At least one GM I know used readers to create a sort of advisory council on plot and balance issues. The ability to read private threads was a bonus in that case.