s2member/bbpress and user roles

Hello,
I am trying to make some new bbpress forums private at my paid membership site. I’ve read what I could find in the s2member info, specifically the “other integrations”….but still don’t understand what I am doing wrong.

I have one level of membership that I custom labeled “dear subscriber”. I did some reading at bbpress and hoped that changing a member’s role to “forum participant” would allow them to see the “hidden” forums which I would like to offer to a portion of my membership. But changing that role only prevented my member from getting into the site at all. I suppose she wasn’t recognized as a “dear subscriber” (Level #1 member in s2member parlance) when I changed the role.

Wondering if the info in “other integrations” addresses this and I am just not understanding it enough to proceed and/or if my changing my membership level name has anything to do with not seeing Level 4 in the user role list (Level 4 seems to include Level 1 and bbpress something?).

Thank you in advance for any insights!

Still hoping for some help with this….

In trying to figure it out, I am confused about something else. When I tried to work out how to make it work via the “other integrations” info, I noticed that in my dropdown menu for User Roles, I don’t have numbered Levels (0,1,2,3,4). I have names like Gold and Platinum and a variety of Forum roles. So, it makes it more difficult to follow the instructions when I don’t have those Levels?