LobbyForge FAQ: the Discord LFG bot, answered

Checked against the product as it works today.

Straight answers to the questions people actually ask. If yours is not here, ask in the support Discord — that is the fastest way to reach us for anything, including bug reports — or email support@lobbyforge.net.

Do I need to invite the bot before I can design anything?

No, and that is deliberate. Sign in, pick a server, and you can design and preview complete layouts before the bot is anywhere near your server — a layout is pure data until it is published. The bot is only needed for the two things that actually touch Discord: publishing a layout, and choosing which channels it posts to. You can get all the way to a finished, previewed design before granting a single permission.

Why don’t I see my server in the list?

The dashboard only lists servers where you have the Manage Server permission. That is the bar Discord itself sets for inviting bots, so listing anything less would show you servers you could design for but never publish to. If you were just given the permission, sign out and back in — your server list comes from Discord at sign-in, and refreshing the session refreshes it.

Does the bot read my messages?

No — and not as a policy choice it could quietly reverse. The bot never requests access to message content in the first place; it asks Discord for voice states only, because who is in which voice channel is all a lobby roster needs. It also does not use Discord’s privileged members intent, so it cannot see your member list either — it only learns that a member exists when they press a lobby button or join a lobby. Not having the access is a stronger guarantee than promising not to use it.

Is the preview really what Discord will show?

Yes. The preview is produced by the same rendering code the bot uses when it posts to Discord — not a lookalike rebuilt in the browser. Two renderers would drift apart the first time either changed, and a preview that lies is worse than no preview, so there is only one.

What does the free plan include?

One layout per server, three lobbies open at once, fifty lobbies per day, and the bot in one free server per account — measured against the server's owner as well as the account that clicked install, so inviting it through a different admin does not grant a second one. Premium removes or raises all of these, and adds spectator seats, private lobbies, custom icons and your own fields, none of which the free plan has. The numbers are a considered starting point rather than a law of nature — they will be tuned as we learn what real servers need, and the limits in force are always the ones shown in your dashboard.

How do I get premium?

From the server’s own page. Open the server in the dashboard, pick Premium for that one server or Premium+ for five seats you place on servers yourself — and move later, when your communities change — and pay through Stripe’s checkout. Card details go to Stripe and never touch us. Activation is automatic and takes a few seconds after payment; the page shows that happening rather than pretending it was instant.

Cancelling returns the server to the free plan’s limits. Nothing you designed is deleted. If checkout misbehaves, tell us in the support Discord or email support@lobbyforge.net.

How do I cancel premium?

From the same place you bought it. Open the upgraded server in the dashboard and, under Plan, press Manage subscription — it opens Stripe’s billing portal, where you can cancel, change your card, or download invoices. It is Stripe’s portal rather than our own buttons because your card details live with Stripe and never touch us.

Cancelling runs to the end of the period you already paid for, then the server returns to the free plan’s limits. Nothing you designed is deleted. On Premium+, cancelling ends every seat the subscription placed, not just the server you pressed it from.

What happens when I hit a limit?

Nothing breaks. You get a clear message saying which limit you hit and what would lift it — never a silent failure. The concurrent-lobby limit clears itself as lobbies empty and close, so it binds for minutes, not until midnight. The daily cap exists as abuse protection, not as the thing you are meant to feel: if honest use is hitting it, it is set wrong, and we want to hear about it. Lobbies that are already open are never closed to enforce a limit.

How quickly do published changes reach Discord?

Within seconds. Publishing pushes the new revision to the bot rather than waiting for it to poll, so the panel in your server updates almost immediately. The same is true in reverse: delete a layout and its button disappears from the panel straight away, so nobody can open a lobby for a layout you just removed.

What happens to lobbies that are open when I edit a layout?

They keep working. Editing and republishing a layout while lobbies are open marks those lobbies stale rather than breaking them: they carry on rendering with the design they were created under, with a note that the settings have moved on, and they close normally when they empty. New lobbies get the new design. Publishing should never be something you have to schedule around your players.

Who closes empty lobbies?

Nobody has to — the reaper does. Once a lobby’s voice channel has sat empty for the timeout set in its layout, the channel is deleted and the lobby closes itself. Hosts never need to tidy up, and your server never accumulates a graveyard of dead voice channels.

Does my plan cap party size?

No. Party size is part of your design, not your plan — you choose the sizes and presets in the layout, and no plan caps them. The premium lever is extra voice slots: room in the voice channel beyond the party itself, for spectators, coaches or substitutes. We put the paid line there deliberately, because charging for how many people are allowed to play together felt wrong.

What if the bot is offline?

The dashboard tells you — you will see a banner on the server page rather than things quietly not working. You can keep designing and publishing as normal: changes are stored and applied the moment the bot reconnects. Nothing is lost while it is down.

Can I move the bot to a different server?

Yes. Remove it from the old server (from Discord’s own server settings), then invite it from the new server’s page in the dashboard. One honest detail: on the free plan, the install allowance frees up a short while after removal rather than instantly. That delay is an anti-abuse measure — it stops the bot being hopped between servers to dodge the per-server limits — so if the invite button is still disabled right after you removed the bot, wait a little and try again. The old server’s layouts are kept, so moving back later restores everything.

How do I delete my account, and what happens to my layouts?

Deletion is self-service: it is at the bottom of the Your servers page, and it is immediate and permanent — your account record, sign-in sessions and stored Discord token are erased, and support cannot restore them. Layouts you designed stay with the server they belong to, no longer attributed to you. That asymmetry is deliberate: one departing administrator should not be able to destroy a server’s setup for everyone still in it. If you want a layout gone too, delete it from that server first. Deleting your account does not remove the bot from any server — do that from Discord’s server settings.

How long do you keep data about lobbies?

Closed lobbies — including who hosted and who joined — are deleted 90 days after they close. Audit events, the record of which administrator changed what, are kept for one year and then deleted. The full inventory of what is stored, why, and how it is protected is in the Privacy Policy, which names the actual tables rather than talking about “certain information”.

Questions about this document? Ask in the support Discord or email support@lobbyforge.net.