GriefPrevention: land claims players set up themselves
How golden-shovel claims work, claim blocks, trusting friends, and the admin commands — so players protect their own builds.
CoreProtect undoes griefing after it happens. GriefPrevention stops it happening at all. Players draw a claim around their base with a golden shovel, and nobody else can build, break, open chests or hurt animals inside it unless the owner trusts them. Nobody has to ask an admin — that is the point, and why it suits servers where the admin is not always online.
GriefPrevention runs on Paper, Purpur and Spigot. Modpacks usually use Open Parties and Claims or FTB Chunks instead, which claim whole chunks from a map screen.
How a claim is made
- Hold a golden shovel.
- Right-click one corner of the area you want to protect.
- Right-click the opposite corner.
- Glowing blocks outline the claim. It reaches from bedrock to the sky, so only the two corners on the ground matter.
New players often place a chest before they have heard of claims, so GriefPrevention automatically creates a small claim around the first chest a player places, and tells them about it. They can resize it later.
Claim blocks
Claims cost claim blocks, one per block of area: a 20 × 20 claim costs 400. Players start with a small allowance and earn more for every hour they play — so a new account cannot claim half the map, and regulars can protect big builds.
/claimslist shows a player’s claims and their remaining claim blocks. To resize a claim, stand inside it with the golden shovel, right-click a corner, then right-click where the corner should move to.
The starting amount and hourly rate are in plugins/GriefPreventionData/config.yml (InitialBlocks and BlocksAccruedPerHour). If players run out too quickly for how your server plays, raise the hourly rate rather than the start.
Checking a claim
Right-click any block with a stick to see whose claim it is in, with its edges outlined. That is the quickest way for players to know where they may build, and for admins to settle “that is my land” arguments.
Letting friends in
The owner stands inside the claim and gives one of four levels of trust:
/accesstrust Name— use buttons, levers, doors and beds. For guests./containertrust Name— also chests, furnaces, crops and animals. For a friend who helps with the farm./trust Name— build and break everything. For a co-owner./permissiontrust Name— also trust other people. Rarely needed.
/untrust Name takes it away, and /trustlist shows who has what. /trust public gives everyone building rights in that claim — useful for a community build area.
Subdividing a claim
For a shared base where each person has their own room, /subdivideclaims switches the shovel into subdivision mode. Each subdivision can have its own trust list. /basicclaims switches back.
Giving claims up
/abandonclaim while standing inside removes that claim and refunds most of its claim blocks. /abandonallclaims removes every claim a player owns. Neither undoes the builds — they are simply no longer protected.
What claims protect against
- Building and breaking by anyone not trusted.
- Opening chests and other containers.
- Killing or leading away animals.
- Fire spreading in and lava or water flowing in from outside.
- Pistons pushing blocks across the claim edge.
- Explosions, unless the owner turns them on with
/claimexplosions.
Claims do not stop PvP by default, and do not protect anything outside a claim. A player who never claims has no protection from GriefPrevention — remind new players, or rely on the automatic first-chest claim.
Admin tools
/adminclaims— switch the shovel to make admin claims, for spawn and public areas. These cost nothing and belong to the server./ignoreclaims— let yourself build inside anyone’s claim, to fix things. Run it again to turn it off./deleteclaim— remove the claim you are standing in, whoever owns it./adjustbonusclaimblocks Name 1000— give a player extra claim blocks, for a big project or a reward./transferclaim Name— hand a claim to another player, for example when someone leaves the server for good.
Admin permissions are griefprevention.adminclaims, griefprevention.ignoreclaims and griefprevention.deleteclaims — give them to your admin group with LuckPerms, not to moderators by default.
Explain it at spawn
Claims only work if players use them. A sign at spawn — “Golden shovel to claim, stick to check, /trust to let friends in” — prevents most of the “someone wrecked my house” reports you would otherwise get. Pair it with CoreProtect for everything claims cannot cover.