How to change the game mode and difficulty on a Minecraft server

Find the row that matches what you want. The settings are in the Settings tab; the commands go in the Console tab.

1. Open the Settings tab of your server.
2. Type gamemode or difficulty in Search settings, or scroll down to the Gameplay group.
3. Choose a value under Difficulty: peaceful, easy, normal or hard.
4. Choose a value under Default gamemode: survival, creative, adventure or spectator.
5. Switch on Force gamemode on join if players who joined before should also get the new mode.
6. Press Save changes in the bar at the bottom of the page.
7. Restart the server with the Restart button.

A changed field shows a star after its name until you save, and Discard in the same bar puts the old values back. The server reads these values only when it starts, which is why the restart is needed.

In the file, the same settings are four lines. You can also edit them in the Files tab and restart afterwards:

gamemode=creative
force-gamemode=true
difficulty=normal
hardcore=false

Write each value as a word in small letters. Every other line of the file is in server.properties explained.

Creative players still die in the void and from the kill command. Adventure suits any area where players should play without changing the map, such as a parkour course or a spawn hub.

Type the command in the Console tab without a slash. In the game, an operator types the same command with a slash in front.

gamemode creative Steve
gamemode adventure @a[gamemode=survival]
gamemode survival @a[name=!Steve]

• gamemode creative Steve switches one player to creative.
• gamemode adventure @a[gamemode=survival] puts every player who is in survival into adventure, for example when an event starts.
• gamemode survival @a[name=!Steve] puts everyone in survival except Steve.
• The console always needs a name or a selector, because it is not a player itself. In the game, /gamemode creative without a name switches yourself.
• Write the mode as a word. Numbers such as gamemode 1 stopped working in Java Edition 1.13.

In the game, operators can also hold F3 and press F4 to open the game mode switcher. Keep F3 held and press F4 again to move to the next mode, then let go of F3 to switch.

The defaultgamemode command changes the mode for new players while the server runs. Set the same mode under Default gamemode in Settings as well, so the server starts with it after a restart. Other admin commands are listed in Minecraft server commands.

In the game, gamemode, defaultgamemode and difficulty need operator level 2 or higher. A new operator gets level 4 unless op-permission-level says otherwise, so every operator can use them. The console can always use them.

1. Open the Players tab and go to Operators.
2. Press Add operator and fill in the player's Minecraft username.
3. The player can now use /gamemode in the game.

An operator can use every command of the game. To give someone the game mode command and nothing else, use a permission plugin on Paper. With LuckPerms, from the console:

lp user Steve permission set minecraft.command.gamemode true

The nodes of the game itself are minecraft.command.gamemode, minecraft.command.defaultgamemode and minecraft.command.difficulty. EssentialsX adds short commands such as /gmc for creative and /gms for survival, with permissions that start with essentials.gamemode. Permissions with LuckPerms explains groups and nodes, and whitelist and operator levels what each operator level allows.

difficulty
difficulty hard

• difficulty without a value shows the difficulty the server plays on now.
• difficulty hard changes it at once, without a restart. The other values are peaceful, easy and normal.
• Switching to peaceful removes hostile mobs straight away, named ones in a pen included.
• Set the same value under Difficulty in Settings, so the server also starts on it after a restart.
• On a hardcore world the difficulty stays on hard, whatever the command or the setting says.

These are the differences players notice most on Java Edition:

Minecraft also keeps a local difficulty for every area. It rises the longer players spend in a chunk, as the world gets older and around the full moon, and it starts higher on hard. A higher local difficulty means more mobs with armour and enchanted weapons. Press F3 in the game to see the value on the Local Difficulty line.

• Mob farms and raid farms need easy or higher. On peaceful, hostile mobs do not spawn and raids cannot start, so XP farms that use hostile mobs stop working. Crop and animal farms keep working.
• Cheaper villager trades come from curing zombie villagers, so you need zombie villagers first. Only on hard does every villager a zombie kills turn into one; on easy the villager dies.
• New players who have not played survival before do best on easy or normal, where starving cannot kill them.
• A creative build server can stay on peaceful, so no mobs walk around the builds.
• An SMP for experienced players usually plays on normal or hard. How to set up a Minecraft SMP covers the other choices for an SMP.

The world, the builds and the inventories stay the same when you change the difficulty later.

Minecraft saves the game mode of each player in their player data. With Force gamemode on join off, a player comes back in the mode they were in when they left, whatever the default says.

With it on, the server sets every player to the Default gamemode each time they join. That includes operators: when the default is survival, a builder who switched to creative is back in survival after the next join.

Switch it on when:

• You turn a creative build server into a survival server and everyone must start in survival.
• You run a lobby or an event map in adventure, so nobody keeps creative from an earlier visit.
• Staff use creative or spectator while they work, and that should end when they log out.

On a normal SMP you can leave it off. A player's mode then stays the way an operator set it.

• The setting changed nothing. Check that you pressed Save changes and restarted the server afterwards.
• Players lose creative each time they join. Force gamemode on join is on and the default is survival. Switch it off, or set the default to creative.
• `Unknown or incomplete command` in the game. The player is not an operator, or their operator level is below 2. Add them under Operators in the Players tab.
• The difficulty is back on the old value after a restart. The server starts on the value under Difficulty in Settings; set it there as well.
• The difficulty will not leave hard. The world is a hardcore world; see make a hardcore Minecraft server.
• No monsters on easy, normal or hard. A game rule for mob spawning is off. Check the Game rules card in the World tab, as in keep inventory and game rules.
• A player's mode changes when they enter another world. A world plugin such as Multiverse-Core sets a game mode for each world.