What is the Highest Role in Discord?
The highest role with ultimate power in any Discord server is the server owner. This privileged role sits atop the permissions hierarchy and has complete administrative control over every aspect of a community.
An Primer on Discord‘s Role System
To understand why the server owner role reigns supreme, it helps to first look at how Discord structures its servers. Servers have a permissions system based on roles – named sets of privileges that govern what members can or cannot do.
Higher priority roles like moderators and admins have enhanced abilities compared to everyone else. This role hierarchy establishes an administrative chain-of-command.
Server Owner
└─ Administrators
└─ Moderators
└─ Members
└─ Bots & Other Low-Level RolesAccording to Discord, over 19 million servers have been created. Large active servers may have elaborate role structures with 50+ customized roles.
The Unmatched Power of the Server Owner
The server owner sits at the very top of this hierarchy. This god-mode role has the highest priority permissions possible within Discord‘s architecture.
Abilities & Privileges
The server owner can:
- Modify all server settings from name, region, verification level, and more
- Create, edit, re-order, and delete roles and channels
- Change permissions for roles and members
- Ban, kick, and unban members
- Promote members to moderator/admin roles
- Transfer ownership or delete the server
Essentially absolute control over every facet of the community.
Designating & Transferring Ownership
When a server is created, the creator is automatically assigned as its first owner. Ownership can optionally be transferred later to someone else – an irreversible action handing over total control.
Discord enforces that each server must have exactly one owner. Co-ownership or shared ownership is not possible.
Server Creation --> Founder becomes Owner
Optional Future Transfer:
Owner --> New Owner (Irreversible Change)Visual Identification
Server owners can be quickly identified by the gold crown ☑️ icon displayed next to their username across the platform. This lets members instantly recognize who holds the master administrator role.
Why Hierarchical Roles Matter
Maintaining order at scale requires special privileges. Discord‘s role system empowers server administrators to keep large communities running smoothly.
Owners can appoint moderators and admins to help enforce community rules. Without hierarchical roles, these enormous servers would easily descend into unmanageable chaos.
For example, the /r/Overwatch Discord has over 280,000 members. They maintain a complex hierarchy of over 60 roles – keeping such a massive server focused requires lots of moderation.
The Server Owner: Discord‘s Supreme Role
On a Discord server, no other role comes close to the power and control of the original creator who formed the community. The owner stands supreme with undisputed authority to shape various admin tiers below them however they see fit.
As an experienced admin and participant of various gamingDiscords over the years, I‘ve seen owners fully utilize their immense privileges to directly craft their vision for a server.
So in Discord, while impressive large servers may have deep complex role structures, the server owner remains an unchallenged autocrat over their digital kingdom!
