If you want to redirect your root site to a subfolder then the following code can help you:
RedirectMatch ^/$ http://name.com/forums/
Add that to your .htaccess file after “RewriteEngine On”.
The ^ is a regular expression and stands for the the start string, the $ stands for the end string.
If you are new to RegEx I recommend the Regular Expression Cheat Sheet!

If you want to hide your directory index so that people can’t see your files if they open a directory without a index file you have to add this to your .htaccess
Options -Indexes