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Minecraft Server Rules for Friends (Copy-Paste Template)

Last checked: 7 October 2026

Pick one of the three templates below, paste it into your Discord or a sign at spawn, and change what does not fit. Then enforce what the game can: a whitelist for who joins, operators you trust, the pvp and keep_inventory game rules, difficulty and spawn protection. Rules about stealing, griefing a base or x-ray cannot be enforced in vanilla Minecraft: they need plugins, or friends who keep their word.

The short answer

Good rules for a friends server are short, specific and enforceable. Three templates follow, each with 9 to 11 rules: casual survival, a no-grief build server and a hardcore-ish season. Copy one, cut what does not fit your group, and post it where everyone sees it before they join.

Then split the list in two. Some rules the game can enforce for you, with settings most hosts expose: who can join (the whitelist), who can run commands (operators), whether players can hurt each other (the pvp game rule), whether you keep items on death (keep_inventory), difficulty, and a protected area around spawn. The rest, like “don’t take from other people’s chests”, the vanilla game cannot check. For those you need plugins on a host that allows them, or friends who keep their word.

Template 1: casual survival

For a group that mostly plays together and wants fewer arguments, not more rules.

  1. Be kind in chat and voice. No slurs, no harassment, no spamming.
  2. Don’t take, break or change anything that isn’t yours without asking first.
  3. Build at least 100 blocks from someone else’s base unless they say it’s fine.
  4. No fighting other players unless both of you agreed to it.
  5. Shared farms are shared: replant what you harvest and leave some for others.
  6. Label your chests. An unlabelled chest in a shared area is shared.
  7. No hacked clients, x-ray texture packs or duplication glitches.
  8. Turn off big redstone clocks and lag machines when you log out.
  9. Don’t kill other people’s pets, named animals or traded villagers.
  10. Ask the owner before inviting anyone new.

Settings that back it up: whitelist on, pvp off if nobody wants to fight, keep_inventory on or off as the group prefers, difficulty normal.

Template 2: no-grief build server

For a server where people spend weeks on builds and the worst outcome is someone breaking one.

  1. Spawn belongs to everyone. Build there only with the owner’s okay.
  2. Claim a plot by marking its corners with signs that carry your name.
  3. Never edit, break or “fix” someone else’s build without asking.
  4. No lava or water spills, no TNT and no fire outside your own plot.
  5. Take only from chests marked “free”.
  6. Clean up your scaffolding, towers and holes when a build is done.
  7. Leave 1 block of path between your plot and the next.
  8. No player fighting.
  9. Big shared projects get a vote in the group chat first.
  10. If something of yours gets broken, tell the owner; don’t take revenge.
  11. No hacked clients or x-ray.

Settings that back it up: whitelist on, pvp off, mob_griefing off so creepers and endermen leave builds alone, spawn protection on, and operator status for one or two people only.

Template 3: hardcore-ish

For a season with real stakes, where a death means something.

  1. Difficulty is hard, and you keep nothing when you die.
  2. One life: if you die, you switch to spectator until the season ends.
  3. No respawning by logging out and back in during a fight.
  4. Player fighting is allowed, but only away from spawn and shared bases.
  5. No killing a player who is AFK or still loading in.
  6. Items dropped on death belong to whoever picks them up.
  7. No hacked clients, x-ray or duplication glitches.
  8. No hiding items in other players’ ender chests or bases.
  9. The season ends when the dragon dies or when the owner says so.

Settings that back it up: difficulty hard, keep_inventory off, pvp on. On a server you set up yourself, hardcore=true in server.properties turns on hardcore mode, but only for a world created after you set it; hardcore cannot normally be switched on for an existing world.

How to enforce each rule

RuleVanilla or Paper featureHow to set it
Only friends can joinWhitelist/whitelist on and /whitelist add <name>; white-list=true in server.properties
Only trusted people use commandsOperators/op <name>; /gamerule needs level 2, /ban and /whitelist need level 3
No player fightingpvp game rule/gamerule pvp false (a server.properties setting before Java Edition 1.21.9)
Keep items on death, or notkeep_inventory game rule/gamerule keep_inventory true (keepInventory before Java Edition 1.21.11)
No creeper holes in buildsmob_griefing game rule/gamerule mob_griefing false (mobGriefing before 1.21.11); this also stops villagers and piglins picking up items
Don’t build at spawnSpawn protectionspawn-protection=16 in server.properties protects a 33 by 33 square; it only works if the server has at least one operator, and operators can still build
Hard mode, one lifeDifficulty and hardcore/difficulty hard; hardcore=true in server.properties for new worlds
Someone broke the rulesKick and ban/kick <name>; /ban <name> overrides the whitelist, and /pardon undoes it

Game rule names changed in Java Edition 1.21.11: they moved from camelCase to snake_case, so older guides say keepInventory and mobGriefing. If /gamerule keep_inventory is not recognised, your server runs an older version; use the old name. Paper runs the same game rules and server.properties settings as vanilla, so everything in this table works on a Paper server too.

What the game cannot enforce

Vanilla Minecraft has no idea who owns a chest or a house, so these rules depend on trust or on plugins:

  • No stealing. Any player can open any chest. Plugins that lock containers or protect land can stop it.
  • No griefing outside spawn. Spawn protection covers only the area around spawn. Land claim plugins protect bases elsewhere.
  • Finding out who broke something. The game keeps no record of who placed or broke a block. Block-logging plugins do, and can roll damage back.
  • Fighting only by agreement. The pvp rule is on or off for everyone. Per-player or per-zone combat needs a plugin.
  • No x-ray or hacked clients. The game cannot see what a player’s client does. Anti-cheat plugins catch some of it.
  • Be kind in chat. Operators can kick or ban, but nothing filters words for you without a plugin.

Those rules need a host that lets you upload plugins, such as Aternos or Minehut. Aternos’s homepage lists plugins and Paper, Spigot and Purpur servers (as shown in an Internet Archive snapshot dated 25 August 2026), and Minehut’s homepage says you can upload plugin files from its web dashboard, as of 7 October 2026. For a small group that knows each other, a clear list that everyone agreed to is often enough.

Tips for writing your own rules

  • Keep it under 12 rules. Nobody reads a list of 30.
  • Say what happens. “Break a rule and you lose operator status for a week” works better than “be nice”.
  • Agree before the first night. Post the rules in your group chat and get a thumbs-up from everyone before the server opens.
  • Write numbers, not adjectives. “100 blocks from another base” beats “not too close”.
  • Give one person the final word. Usually the owner. Operators enforce; the owner decides.

Setting up who can join comes first: see how to whitelist friends.

Where Shulkerboxes fits (and doesn't)

On Shulkerboxes, the rules you can enforce are in the server’s Settings: who can join (“Only players on your list” by default), operators, difficulty, game mode, PvP and keepInventory. Rules that need plugins, such as chest locks, land claims or block logging, cannot be added, because custom plugins are not supported.

Shulkerboxes is free Minecraft: Java Edition hosting for a friend group, with no ads, no credit card and no port forwarding. The server sleeps when empty and wakes when a friend joins, ready in about a minute, and friends can join while the owner is offline. It is invite-only with a waitlist and open in the US, Spain, Germany, Mexico and Brazil, and your saved world is yours to download. It is free because gameplay on every server is recorded and used to build de-identified AI training datasets that are licensed to other companies (full explanation). Servers run Paper with built-in homes and /tpa; modpacks and custom plugins are not supported, and Bedrock players cannot join, so if your group needs those, pick a host that supports them, such as Aternos.

Have an invite code? Enter it on the home page. No invite yet? Join the waitlist and we will save you a spot.

FAQ

What are good Minecraft server rules for friends?

Keep it to about ten: be kind in chat, don’t take or break what isn’t yours, build away from other bases, no fighting without agreement, replant shared farms, no hacked clients or x-ray, and ask the owner before inviting anyone new.

How do I turn off PvP on a Minecraft server?

Type /gamerule pvp false as an operator. Before Java Edition 1.21.9, PvP was the pvp setting in server.properties instead.

How do I turn on keepInventory on a server?

Type /gamerule keep_inventory true. On versions before Java Edition 1.21.11 the rule is called keepInventory.

Can I stop friends from stealing from chests in vanilla Minecraft?

No. Vanilla has no chest ownership. A plugin that locks containers or protects land can, on a host that allows plugins; otherwise it is a rule your group has to keep.

What does spawn protection do?

It stops players who are not operators from placing or breaking blocks near world spawn. The default spawn-protection=16 covers a 33 by 33 square, and it only works when the server has at least one operator.

How do I make a Minecraft server hardcore?

Set hardcore=true in server.properties before the world is created. It applies to worlds created after the change, so an existing world needs a new one or an honour rule.

Sources

All Minecraft Wiki and Minehut pages were fetched on 7 October 2026. Aternos refused automated fetches that day, so its homepage was read through the Internet Archive snapshot named below.

Written by the Shulkerboxes team.