Advanced Forum Descriptions with Permissions

Hacking n00b over here! aranoid:

I wanted to create a hack that shows under forum descriptions which usergroups have permissions to do what.

I hoped to display this information: Posting priviledges, New Thread priviledges, Moderators.
I also wanted to be able to display extra info for forums on my boards that serve specific purposes, EG. News posting, voting and downloading priviledges. I thought I'd better learn to walk first

I got stuck at displaying the actual permissions in root/index.php, which were hard coded into templates. I tested on a forum with forumid 6, so I created a template called forumperms_6. There was a blank line displayed where I expected the template to appear, so I got it partly right. This is even before I hack away further to report the actual permissions.

So... I've come to the conclusion that I've bitten off more than I can chew. I'm better at having ideas than making them happen, so can anyone take this and run with it?