Understanding Discord Role hierarchies

When configuring roles using the Lovelace.Tools bot, you may have stumbled upon an error message complaining about role hierarchies. Here's what that means and why it's important!

What is role hierarchy on Discord?

When you navigate to your Discord server's server settings and go to the roles section, you'll find a list of all the roles that are in your server.

These roles are layed out vertically, and that's for good reason! Roles that are higher up the list have more power than the roles below them. Now what does this mean?

Simply put, roles that are below another role, will not be able to edit the role above them or give/take this higher role to/from users.

Example:

Let's say you have 2 roles in your server: Admin is the highest in the list and Mod is the lowest in the list. Let's imagine Mod has full administrator permissions in your server. Mod still will not be able to edit the Admin role (changing the color, permissions..) or give it to itself or other members in the server. This is important! You don't want Mod to be able to demote the Admin or give itself a higher role.

How to fix the Lovelace.Tools error message

If our bot is not letting you set a certain role, simply move the Lovelace.Tools bot's role up in your server settings > roles menu. Make sure it is at least above the role you are trying to set, or ideally, just put it somewhere at the top of the roles list.

This way, the bot will be able to give & take the role you're trying to set to & from members in your server.

More info: Discord article

More info on how Discord roles work can be found in this helpful article by Discord itself.

Other Questions

Does this post still leave questions unanswered? Reach out to us in our Support Discord - we're happy to help!