Might as well put this up while I'm thinking about it...

I personally think that a 'View as Player' option would be handy for a GM (or a mod) in a game, especially one that uses a lot of private messages, as I've often wondered to myself just what the post looks like without all the PMs in it. It could also be handy when you're dealing with a game with multiple threads and/or GMs, so you don't accidentally read any PMs they put in their posts for other players.

I'm not running a game at the moment but when I was helping run one, at times I had wished for just that.  Before I had read all the TOS I had thought one could do it with a 'mundane' account, but that flew out the window when I saw the 1 account per person.  Jase pointed out that for posts in public threads you can kind-of get the effect by logging out.

Actually, the effect could even be useful for players who have multiple players.  A drop-down that filters whom they are representing at the time.  [with the default being:All combined.]

Depending on how things are written, it might be easy to do, or it might be hard.  But I think the feature would be handy if implemented.

Oh that would be helpful. Sounds complicated to implement though.

Problem is as a GM you are held accountable for ALL content in the game.

They have been wary of anything that hides your full view of all content.

But you could still see all content if you want to.

Really, I don't think this feature should be viewed as blocking the GM from seeing any content like has been discussed.  On opening the game, it would/should ALWAYS default to full view, where everything is visible.

The GM would see all threads, all PL etc on entering any page by default.  But by accessing a drop-down list, could select any player, or character and see things based on if they were that individual.

With this suggestion:
Your GM enters their game,
  they see all the threads.
They wonder what I would see, and select Loreguard from the perspective drop-down,
  They see a list of the threads in groups 0, 1, and 2
They click on the newest non-notice thread,
  They see everything for the last 20 posts in that thread.
They want to know if I saw the monster around the corner several posts back:
They select Loreguard from the perspective drop-down,
  They see the last 20 posts as I would have seen them.
One of the posts has a link to the rules notice post, which they click on,
  They see everything in the rules post.
They select me from the perspective drop-down again.
  They see the rules, but all of the magic rules are gone, because they were part of a private line group for Magicians.

If you are worried about it, you might make when displaying from a Perspective, you might not have it modify the 'last read' timestamps of things, so they stay unread until read again.

With this, it would allow one to check things easily, but there would be NO legitimate danger of someone arguing that they couldn't be held responsible for the content.

Actually the perspective concept could also work for players, allowing them to somewhat quickly determine if something in the past was known by one of their characters, or both.

+1 from me for this - I have wished for similar things myself and nearly created a second account to do so - until I also re-read the TOS and saw that was not allowed. I currently have three games going and in the two established ones this feature would allow me to see what a certain character sees.

The way I see it as there is a dropdown menu where you can select a certian character and see what they would see - just makes it easier and more streamlined to make sure each is getting everything they should, and nothing they should not.

+1. If you are seriously worried that a GM will always be in "player mode" so as to avoid responsibility, well, that seems a little outlandish. Not to mention, they would still be exactly as responsible as if they were in GM mode but chose not to read any orange text. So as long as "I chose not to read it" is not an excuse for inappropriate content (and I'm guessing it's not), this feature shouldn't (and can't) keep a GM from doing their responsibilities.

Another +1.

+0

Doubt I would use this as I dont run PC vs PC games. I have private lines but its not really that complex. If the PL turned orange its in PL mode.

Rather see the development go toward something else. Like the private message sorting which was turned down in part for the must-see requirement.

+1

I would love this feature, it would be greatly useful.  But I am also for making it low priority.

   Definate +1 from me.