Game rules are a set of customizable options for a specific in-game world.

Modifying game rules

In Java Edition, game rules can be changed using toggle buttons on the "Edit Game Rules" menu built into the "Create World" screen. The game rules are split into categories named "Player", "Mobs", "Spawning", "Drops", "World updates", "Chat", and "Miscellaneous".

In Bedrock Edition, about half of the game rules can be changed using toggles on the "World settings" and "Cheats" sections of the world's Game settings screen. The remainder can be changed only with commands.

When in-game, game rules can be changed using the /gamerule command, using the syntax /gamerule <rule> [<value>], where <rule> is the name of the game rule and <value> is an allowed value, which depends on the type of the game rule. The types are boolean (where the allowed values are either true or false) and integer (where any whole number is able to be entered).

List of game rules

The following is a list of game rules available in-game, their allowed values, and their availability in Java Edition and Bedrock Edition.

List of game rules

Rule name	Description	Default value	Type	Availability
				Java	Bedrock
announceAdvancements	Whether advancements should be announced in chat.	true	Bool	Yes	No
blockExplosionDropDecay	Whether block loot is dropped by all blocks (false) or randomly (true) depending on how far the block is from the center of a block explosion (e.g. clicking a bed in dimensions other than the Overworld).	true	Bool	Yes	No
commandBlocksEnabled	Whether command blocks should be enabled in-game.	true	Bool	No	Yes
commandBlockOutput	Whether command blocks should notify admins when they perform commands.	true	Bool	Yes	Yes
commandModificationBlockLimit	Controls the maximum number of blocks changed when using /clone, /fill, or /fillbiome.	32768	Int	Yes	No
disableElytraMovementCheck	Whether the server should skip checking player speed when the player is wearing elytra. Often helps with jittering due to lag in multiplayer.	false	Bool	Yes	No
disablePlayerMovementCheck	Whether the server should skip checking player speed.	false	Bool	Yes	No
disableRaids	Whether raids are disabled.	false	Bool	Yes	No
doDaylightCycle	Whether the daylight cycle and moon phases progress.	true	Bool	Yes	Yes
doEntityDrops	Whether entities that are not mobs should have drops.	true	Bool	Yes	Yes
doFireTick	Whether fire should spread and naturally extinguish.	true	Bool	Yes	Yes
doInsomnia	Whether phantoms can spawn in the nighttime.	true	Bool	Yes	Yes
doImmediateRespawn	Players respawn immediately without showing the death screen.	false	Bool	Yes	Yes
doLimitedCrafting	Whether players can craft only those recipes that they have unlocked.	false	Bool	Yes	Yes
doMobLoot	Whether mobs should drop items and experience orbs.	true	Bool	Yes	Yes
doMobSpawning	Whether mobs should naturally spawn. Does not affect monster spawners.	true	Bool	Yes	Yes
doPatrolSpawning	Whether patrols can spawn.	true	Bool	Yes	No
doTileDrops	Whether blocks should have drops.	true	Bool	Yes	Yes
doTraderSpawning	Whether wandering traders can spawn.	true	Bool	Yes	No
doVinesSpread	Whether vines can spread to other blocks. Cave vines, weeping vines, and twisting vines are not affected.	true	Bool	Yes	No
doWeatherCycle	Whether the weather can change naturally. The /weather command can still change weather.	true	Bool	Yes	Yes
doWardenSpawning	Whether wardens can spawn.	true	Bool	Yes	No
drowningDamage	Whether the player should take damage when drowning.	true	Bool	Yes	Yes
enderPearlsVanishOnDeath	Controls whether thrown ender pearls vanish when the player dies.	true	Bool	Yes	No
fallDamage	Whether the player should take fall damage.	true	Bool	Yes	Yes
fireDamage	Whether the player should take damage in fire, lava, campfires, or on magma blocks.	true	Bool	Yes	Yes
forgiveDeadPlayers	Makes angered neutral mobs stop being angry when the targeted player dies nearby.	true	Bool	Yes	No
freezeDamage	Whether the player should take damage when inside powder snow.	true	Bool	Yes	Yes
globalSoundEvents	Whether certain sound events are heard by all players regardless of location.	true	Bool	Yes	No
functionCommandLimit	The maximum number of commands that can be executed by /function at once.	10000	Int	No	Yes
keepInventory	Whether the player should keep items and experience in their inventory after death.	false	Bool	Yes	Yes
lavaSourceConversion	Whether new sources of lava are allowed to form.	false	Bool	Yes	No
logAdminCommands	Whether to log admin commands to server log.	true	Bool	Yes	No
maxCommandChainLength	The maximum length of a chain of commands that can be executed during one tick. Applies to command blocks and functions.	65536	Int	Yes	Yes
maxCommandForkCount	?	65536	Int	Yes	No
maxEntityCramming	The maximum number of pushable entities a mob or player can push, before taking 6 entity cramming damage per half-second. Setting to 0 or lower disables the rule. Damage affects Survival-mode or Adventure-mode players, and all mobs but bats. Pushable entities include non-Spectator-mode players, any mob except bats, as well as boats and minecarts.	24	Int	Yes	No
minecartMaxSpeed	The maximum speed in which minecarts can go.	8	Int	Yes	No
mobExplosionDropDecay	Whether block loot is dropped by all blocks (false) or randomly (true) depending on how far the block is from the center of a mob explosion (e.g. Creeper explosion).	true	Bool	Yes	No
mobGriefing	Whether creepers, zombies, endermen, ghasts, withers, ender dragons, rabbits, sheep, villagers, silverfish, snow golems, and end crystals‌[BE only] should be able to change blocks, and whether mobs can pick up items. When mobGriefing is disabled, piglins do not pick up gold ingots, but a player can still barter with them by using the item on the mob. Similarly, villagers do not pick up food items but can still breed until they run out of any food already in their inventory. This also affects the capability of zombie-like creatures like zombified piglins and drowned to pathfind to turtle eggs.	true	Bool	Yes	Yes
naturalRegeneration	Whether the player can regenerate health naturally if their hunger is full enough (doesn't affect external healing, such as golden apples, the Regeneration effect, etc.).	true	Bool	Yes	Yes
playersNetherPortalCreativeDelay	Control how many ticks the player in Creative has to wait in the nether portal in order to travel through dimensions through it.	1	Int	Yes	No
playersNetherPortalDefaultDelay	Control how many ticks the player in Survival or Adventure mode has to wait in the nether portal in order to travel through dimensions through it.	80	Int	Yes	No
playersSleepingPercentage	What percentage of players in the Overworld must sleep to skip the night. A percentage value of 0 or less will allow the night to be skipped by just 1 player, and a percentage value more than 100 will prevent players from ever skipping the night.	100	Int	Yes	Yes
projectilesCanBreakBlocks	Control whenever do projectiles can break blocks (like trident breaks pointed dripstone).	true	Bool	Yes	No
pvp	Whether the player can fight with other players.	true	Bool	No	Yes
randomTickSpeed	How often a random block tick occurs (such as plant growth, leaf decay, etc.) per chunk section per game tick. 0 and negative values disables random ticks, higher numbers increase random ticks. Setting to a high integer results in high speeds of decay and growth. Numbers over 4096 make plant growth or leaf decay instantaneous.	3‌[JE only] 1‌[BE only]	Int	Yes	Yes
recipesUnlock	Controls whether the player needs to collect items to unlock recipes in the recipe book.	true	Bool	No	Yes
reducedDebugInfo	Whether the debug screen shows all or reduced information; and whether the effects of F3 + B (entity hitboxes) and F3 + G (chunk boundaries) are shown.	false	Bool	Yes	No
respawnBlocksExplode	Prevents beds/respawn anchors from exploding in other dimensions.	true	Bool	No	Yes
sendCommandFeedback	Whether the feedback from commands executed by a player should show up in chat. Also affects the default behavior of whether command blocks store their output text.	true	Bool	Yes	Yes
showBorderEffect	Whether border blocks create red particles that float up to indicate a border.	true	Bool	No	Yes
showCoordinates	Whether the player's coordinates are displayed.	true	Bool	No	Yes
showDeathMessages	Whether death messages are put into chat when a player dies. Also affects whether a message is sent to the pet's owner when the pet dies.	true	Bool	Yes	Yes
showTags	Hides the "Can place on" and "Can destroy" block lists from item lore, as well as item lock indicators.	true	Bool	No	Yes
snowAccumulationHeight	The maximum number of snow layers that can be accumulated on each block.	1	Int	Yes	No
spawnChunkRadius	Control the radius of the spawn chunk.	2	Int	Yes	No
spawnRadius	The number of blocks outward from the world spawn coordinates that a player spawns in when first joining a server or when dying without a personal spawnpoint. Has no effect on servers where the default game mode is Adventure.	10	Int	Yes	Yes
spectatorsGenerateChunks	Whether players in Spectator mode can generate chunks.	true	Bool	Yes	No
tntExplodes	Whether TNT explodes after activation.	true	Bool	No	Yes
tntExplosionDropDecay	Whether block loot is dropped by all blocks (false) or randomly (true) depending on how far the block is from the center of a TNT explosion.	false	Bool	Yes	Yes
universalAnger	Makes angered neutral mobs attack any nearby player, not just the player that angered them. Works best if forgiveDeadPlayers is disabled.	false	Bool	Yes	No
waterSourceConversion	Whether new sources of water are allowed to form.	true	Bool	Yes	No

Additional behavior

This section needs expansion. 

You can help by expanding it.

This section explains more complex behaviors of certain gamerules.

• disableRaids
  • When true, the Bad Omen effect is not removed from a player when entering a village.
  • Stops a raid if set to true while a raid is in progress, but the existing raid mobs do not despawn.
• doEntityDrops
  • When false items cannot be removed from item frames.^{[needs testing]}‌^{[Java Edition only]}
  • Doesn't seem to have effect in Bedrock Edition ^{[needs testing]}
• doMobLoot
  • Does not affect drops not related to a mob's death, such as chicken laying eggs, or sheep dropping wool when sheared.
  • Does not affect the dropping of wither roses when mobs are killed by the wither.^[1][2]
• doMobSpawning
  • Affects only natural mob spawning. Mobs from structures,‌^{[Java Edition only]} monster spawners, and events still spawn when set to false.
  • Trial spawners do not work
• doTileDrops
  • When false, containers still drop their contents, but not themselves.
    • Shulker boxes do not drop anything, causing the items in them to be lost.
  • When false, destroying an armor stand does not drop it nor any armor it had equipped.
  • When false, item frames still drop themselves and their items.‌^{[Java Edition only]}
  • When false, infested blocks do not spawn silverfish when broken.
• drowningDamage
  • When false, the player still loses air, but does not take damage when the air is depleted.
• fireDamage
  • When false, the player may still be set on fire, but does not take damage when on fire.
• forgiveDeadPlayers
  • Every neutral mob that can be aggravated remain aggravated even after the offending player dies, with the exception of piglins when a player does not wear golden armor and iron golems when it is created from a village where the player is unpopular.
• keepInventory
  • When true, players also retain their experience upon death.
  • When true, health and hunger are still reset as normal upon death.
  • When true, all effects are still removed upon death.^[3]
  • When true, items enchanted with Curse of Vanishing do not disappear upon death.^[4]
• mobGriefing
  • When false, prevents all mobs from modifying the environment in any way. This includes trampling crops and turtle eggs, picking up items, destroying blocks, or moving blocks. Specifically, it prevents:
    • Allays from picking up dropped items.
    • Blazes from creating fire or lighting campfires.
    • Creepers from destroying blocks when they explode, although they still damage entities.
    • End crystals from destroying blocks when they explode, although they still damage entities.
    • The ender dragon from destroying blocks, causing it to just fly through them instead.
    • Endermen from picking up or placing blocks.
    • Evoker from turning blue sheep red.
    • Foxes from picking sweet berries from a sweet berry bush.
    • Ghast fireballs from exploding blocks and creating fire. They still damage entities.
    • Piglins from attempting to barter by picking up dropped items; using the item on them still works.
    • Rabbits from eating carrot crops.
    • Ravagers from destroying crops and leaves.
    • Sheep from turning grass blocks into dirt, but does not prevent the regrowth of wool. They still act as if they are eating the grass and regrow their wool upon doing so, but the grass remains and the grass breaking sound does not play.
    • Silverfish from hiding in infested blocks and destroying those blocks when hatching.
    • Snow golems from creating snow trails.
    • Villagers from farming and picking up items. However, they can still open doors and throw items.
    • The wither and its heads from destroying blocks with their explosions. Entities are still damaged, and a wither rose drops as an item.
    • Zombies from breaking doors and attacking turtle eggs.
  • Has no effect on the player.
• playersSleepingPercentage
  • When set to 0, at least one player is still required to sleep to skip the night.
  • When set to a number greater than 100, night is not skipped no matter how many players are sleeping.
• randomTickSpeed
  • Does not affect:
    • Cauldrons filling with water or powder snow while raining or snowing.^[5]
      • Still affects filling of water and lava in cauldrons below pointed dripstone.
    • Death of coral blocks, coral, and coral fan.
    • Hatching of frogspawn^[6] and sniffer eggs^[7].
• snowAccumulationHeight
  • When set to 0, snow layers do not form at all.
  • When set to 8 or higher, snow forms up to the level of a full block, but no greater than that.
• universalAnger
  • Every neutral mob that can be aggravated targets all nearby players whenever they are aggravated.
  • Bees attack all nearby players when their beehive is broken, regardless of the setting of this gamerule.^[8]
    • Bees becoming angry when attacked works as expected.

History

Gallery

• 
  All the gamerules in 1.17.

References