Minecraft Game Rules List: Every Rule and Its New Name

Before December 2025, the Java Edition command for keeping your items on death was /gamerule keepInventory true. That is not the rule's name anymore. Snapshot 25w44a moved game rules into a registry and renamed every one of them from camelCase to snake_case, and that change shipped in Java Edition 1.21.11, the Mounts of Mayhem drop, on December 9, 2025. Java's rule argument is case-sensitive and has to match a registered rule, so on the current Java release the command is /gamerule keep_inventory true.

Bedrock never went through the rename. It still uses all-lowercase names like keepinventory, and when you type them Bedrock does not care about capitalization.

The rename did more than change the case, too. Twenty-five rules were renamed beyond the case change, three now mean the opposite of what their old names said, and two were deleted and replaced by a number. Here is the whole set as of Java 26.3 and Bedrock 26.50: every ID, what it used to be called, the label the menu shows, the default, and which Bedrock rules permanently switch off achievements the moment you touch them.

Game rules at a glance

The counts come from the Minecraft Wiki's game rule list for Java and Microsoft's /gamerule reference for Bedrock, which lists the same 38 names. The one experimental Java rule is max_minecart_speed, and it only exists in a world with the Minecart Improvements experiment switched on. Our rails and minecarts guide covers what it does.

The rename, old name to new

Any rule that existed before 1.21.11 and is missing from the table below (and from the fire and minecart notes further down) simply switched to snake_case: keepInventory became keep_inventory, mobGriefing became mob_griefing, randomTickSpeed became random_tick_speed. These 25 are the ones Mojang's 25w44a changelog lists as renamed beyond the case change:

Mojang's changelog frames it as making the names more descriptive, and the wiki's version history adds that many were renamed to reflect their labels in the Edit Game Rules menu. That is why doDaylightCycle became advance_time (the menu says "Advance time of day") and doInsomnia became spawn_phantoms. Two more renames happened outside that list: the experimental minecartMaxSpeed became max_minecart_speed in the same snapshot, and Bedrock replaced its own locatorbar with playerwaypoints in Bedrock 26.30, migrating true to everyone and false to off.

Each full Java ID carries a namespace, minecraft:keep_inventory, but the command takes the short form. The wiki's own examples all drop the prefix. If you run command blocks or datapack functions written before 1.21.11 that set game rules, check them against this table.

Three rules now mean the opposite

Three old rules were phrased as "disable X". Their replacements are phrased as "X", so the value flips, and the changelog says so directly:

The raids rule has two side effects worth knowing before you use it. With raids off, Bad Omen is not removed when you walk into a village, and switching it off mid-raid stops the raid but leaves the raiders standing there. More on how raids start in our raids and pillagers guide.

Fire tick is gone, and a radius replaced it

doFireTick and allowFireTicksAwayFromPlayer (the second one only arrived in 1.21.5) were both removed in 1.21.11. Their replacement is a number: fire_spread_radius_around_player, the maximum distance in blocks from a player at which fire can spread.

So the Java answer to "how do I stop fire spreading" is now /gamerule fire_spread_radius_around_player 0, and -1 is the lowest value the rule accepts. Bedrock kept the old switch: /gamerule dofiretick false.

Keep inventory, precisely

The command is /gamerule keep_inventory true on Java 1.21.11 and later, and /gamerule keepinventory true on Bedrock. The menu calls it "Keep inventory after death". Here is what it actually keeps, per the wiki's notes on the rule:

That Curse of Vanishing line is the surprising one: the curse exists to delete an item on death, and keep inventory overrides it. The effects line matters if you were counting on a potion to see you through a respawn. Our status effects guide covers what you lose.

On Bedrock, keepinventory sits on the cheats side of the fence, which has a permanent cost covered further down. On Java, a Hardcore world locks the in-game Edit Game Rules button entirely, so keep inventory is not a lifeline you can reach for mid-run.

Every Java game rule, grouped like the menu

The Edit Game Rules screen sorts rules under seven headings. The tables below follow that grouping, with the label each rule shows in the menu (as of 26.2), the Bedrock equivalent where one exists, and the Java default.

One warning about that screenshot: the world it was taken in has Spawn mobs, Advance time of day and Update weather switched off. Read defaults from the tables, not the picture.

Chat

Drops

That last default is the odd one out: block and mob explosions lose drops by default, TNT does not. Blocks destroyed by TNT drop 100% of the time, as if mined with an unenchanted tool (so no Fortune), which has been true on Java since 1.14 and on Bedrock since 1.21.0. One Bedrock catch from the wiki's explosion notes: worlds created before 1.21 keep their old tntexplosiondropdecay setting, so an older Bedrock world only gets full TNT drops after you set it to false yourself.

Miscellaneous

If you want to try vanilla commands for yourself, the command blocks guide is the starting point. This list is the settings layer underneath them.

Mobs

Player

The portal delay pair is worth knowing if you run a nether hub on a server: the 4-second wait is a game rule, not a hard-coded constant.

Spawning

Java has separate switches for patrols, traders, wardens and plain monsters. Bedrock has none of those four as game rules, only the broad domobspawning and doinsomnia; it controls patrols and wandering traders with a separate command, /mobevent, instead.

World Updates

Bedrock-only game rules

Nine Bedrock rules have no Java counterpart:

showdaysplayed got a second job in Bedrock 26.10: with it on, Hardcore worlds show their number of days played on the Play screen.

Which Bedrock rules cost you achievements

This is the split that matters most on Bedrock. Some rules can be changed from the world settings or with /gamerule without turning cheats on. The rest need cheats, and per the Minecraft Wiki, a Bedrock world saved with cheats enabled can never earn achievements again, even if you switch cheats off later. The game's own warning, shown when you create a world with any of those settings, says the same thing.

The 38 Bedrock rules split exactly in half:

Read the right-hand column before you touch anything in a world you care about. Keep inventory, always-day, no weather, no phantoms and no mob griefing are all on the cheats side. A Bedrock survival world cannot have any of them and still earn achievements. The safe column is still useful: one-player sleep, fire spread, TNT, coordinates and natural regeneration can all be changed without the lock.

Where to change them without a command

Java Edition. All 58 standard Java rules have a toggle or number field in the Edit Game Rules menu, which you can open from the Create New World screen. Since Java 26.1 (March 24, 2026) you can also reach it from inside a world, through a World Options screen in the pause menu, and it has a search bar that matches a rule's ID, its name, its description and its category. Per the 26.1 change notes, the in-game rules screen is available to operators and disabled for everyone else.

Java 26.2 gave the host of a singleplayer world an Allow Commands toggle in World Options, so turning on /gamerule no longer needs the old Open to LAN workaround. Java 26.3 then moved World Options into the slot where the Open to LAN button used to be and split it into General and Multiplayer sections, with Allow Commands under General. In Hardcore, the Allow Commands, Edit Game Rules and difficulty controls are locked.

Bedrock Edition. About half the rules can be changed from the Create New World screen, the Edit World screen, and the settings in the pause menu. Everyday toggles like coordinates, fire spread, TNT and natural regeneration sit in the Advanced tab; keep inventory, the daylight cycle and mob griefing sit in the Cheats tab. The rest are command-only, or editable in the Bedrock Editor's export screen.

Five rules that break something when you flip them

These are the rules whose side effects reach past their names, all taken from the wiki's notes on each one.

1. mob_griefing false does not just stop creepers cratering your base. Villagers stop farming and stop picking up food, though they keep breeding until the food already in their inventory runs out. That quietly stalls a crop-fed villager breeder. Allays stop collecting items. Piglins stop picking up thrown gold, but you can still barter by using gold on a piglin directly. It has no effect on bees, breezes, frogs, turtles or players.
2. block_drops false eats shulker boxes. Containers still spill their contents, just not themselves, with one exception: a broken shulker box drops nothing at all, contents included.
3. spawn_mobs false does not give you a mob-free world. It only covers natural and global spawning. Monster spawners, raids, spawn eggs, iron golems and commands all still produce mobs. The spawner guide covers how the spawner block works.
4. random_tick_speed is a crop-speed dial with edges. 0 freezes random ticks: no crop growth, no leaf decay. Above 4096, plant growth and leaf decay become instant. It does not touch coral dying, frogspawn hatching or sniffer eggs hatching. The defaults also differ, 3 on Java and 1 on Bedrock, so a number copied from a Java tutorial is not the same setting on Bedrock. Our automatic farms guide works its growth maths at the Java default of 3.
5. players_sleeping_percentage 0 still needs a sleeper. Zero means one player in bed is enough, not that the night skips itself. Anything over 100 means the night can never be skipped by sleeping. Since 1.21.11 the rule's minimum is 0, so negative values are out.

Quick Action Checklist

• On Java 1.21.11 or later, use the snake_case names: keep_inventory, advance_time, advance_weather, spawn_phantoms, mob_griefing, spawn_mobs.
• On Bedrock, use the lowercase names: keepinventory, dodaylightcycle, doweathercycle, doinsomnia, mobgriefing, domobspawning.
• Flip the value when translating disableRaids, disableElytraMovementCheck or disablePlayerMovementCheck: raids false is the new "no raids".
• Stop fire spread with fire_spread_radius_around_player 0 on Java, dofiretick false on Bedrock.
• Check the cheats column before changing a rule in a Bedrock world you want achievements in: keep inventory, always-day and no phantoms all cost them, permanently.
• Audit old command blocks and datapacks that set game rules. Anything written before 1.21.11 uses the old names.
• On Java 26.3, skip the command entirely: pause menu, World Options, Edit Game Rules, then search for the rule. The screen is for operators only, which in singleplayer means switching Allow Commands on first.