Minecraft game rules: the ones worth changing on a server

Game rules are switches stored in the world itself that change how Minecraft plays: whether you keep your items when you die, how many players need to sleep to skip the night, whether creepers blow holes in the ground. They are set with the /gamerule command and take effect immediately — no restart.

This page covers the rules servers actually change, their defaults, and what else each one affects. Several have side effects that are not obvious from the name.

How to change them

• gamerule keepInventory true — set a rule. In the console, without the slash; in game, with one, as an operator.
• gamerule keepInventory — with no value, shows the current setting.
• Rules belong to the world, not the server. With several worlds (for example through Multiverse), set them in each one.
• On Cobbly you can also change them from the World tab, under Level Config, without typing commands.

Rule names are case-sensitive in older versions. Very recent versions have started renaming game rules to lower-case names with underscores, so if a name below is rejected, type /gamerule and press Tab to see your version’s spelling.

Death and difficulty

• keepInventory (default false) — true keeps items and XP on death. The single most-changed rule on friend servers. It makes the game far more forgiving; it also makes it hard to lose anything to griefers who kill you.
• doImmediateRespawn (default false) — skips the death screen.
• naturalRegeneration (default true) — false means health only comes back from potions and golden apples. The classic UHC setting.
• fallDamage, fireDamage, drowningDamage, freezeDamage (all default true) — turn individual damage types off. Handy for build servers and parkour events.
• showDeathMessages (default true) — “Steve was slain by Zombie” in chat.

Night, weather and sleeping

• playersSleepingPercentage (default 100) — the percentage of online players who must be in bed to skip the night. At 100, one player who refuses to sleep keeps everyone in the dark. The most useful rule on any multiplayer server. Set it to 50 for half, or 1 for any single player.
• doDaylightCycle (default true) — false freezes the time of day. Set the time first with time set day.
• doWeatherCycle (default true) — false freezes the weather. weather clear first.
• doInsomnia (default true) — false stops phantoms spawning. Phantoms appear for players who have not slept in three in-game days; on servers where some players never sleep, they are a constant nuisance.

Mobs

• mobGriefing (default true) — whether mobs can change blocks. false stops creeper craters and endermen stealing blocks. The side effects: villagers can no longer farm or pick up food to breed, sheep cannot eat grass so their wool never regrows, and piglins cannot pick up gold to barter. It breaks a lot of farms. Many servers prefer a protection plugin that blocks explosions only.
• doMobSpawning (default true) — false stops natural spawning entirely. Spawners still work.
• doPatrolSpawning and doTraderSpawning (default true) — pillager patrols and wandering traders.
• disableRaids (default false) — true turns raids off, which also breaks raid farms.
• maxEntityCramming (default 24) — how many mobs can share one space before they take suffocation damage. A built-in cap on accidental mob piles. Leave it alone or lower it; raising it invites lag.
• forgiveDeadPlayers (default true) and universalAnger (default false) — how neutral mobs like piglins and wolves hold a grudge.

Blocks, fire and drops

• doFireTick (default true) — false stops fire spreading and burning out. Popular on build servers and anywhere with wooden builds near lava.
• randomTickSpeed (default 3) — how fast crops grow, leaves decay and grass spreads. Raising it speeds farms up and makes the server work harder in every loaded chunk. A modest increase is fine; 100 is how people crash servers.
• doTileDrops, doMobLoot, doEntityDrops (all default true) — whether blocks, mobs and entities like minecarts drop items.
• tntExplosionDropDecay (default false), blockExplosionDropDecay and mobExplosionDropDecay (default true) — whether explosions destroy some of the blocks they break instead of dropping them all.
• spawnRadius (default 10) — how far from world spawn new players and players without a bed appear.

Chat and feedback

• announceAdvancements (default true) — the “Steve has made the advancement…” messages.
• sendCommandFeedback (default true) — false hides command results from the player who ran them. Turning it off by accident is a common reason commands “do nothing”.
• commandBlockOutput (default true) — command blocks reporting to operators in chat. Turn it off on maps with clock-driven command blocks, or chat becomes unreadable.
• logAdminCommands (default true) — operators’ commands shown to other operators and in the log.
• reducedDebugInfo (default false) — true hides coordinates on the F3 screen. Some survival servers use it to make exploring harder.

A good default set for friends

If you just want a relaxed survival server, these four cover what most groups ask for:

1. gamerule playersSleepingPercentage 50
2. gamerule doInsomnia false
3. gamerule keepInventory true — if the group prefers it; ask first.
4. gamerule doFireTick false — if anyone builds in wood.

For anything stronger — no hunger, no creeper damage only, per-area rules — a plugin is a better fit than a world-wide rule. See A beginner’s guide to Paper plugins.