How to protect spawn with WorldGuard regions and flags

Install WorldGuard and WorldEdit

WorldGuard is a plugin for Paper, Purpur, Spigot and Folia. It does not run on Fabric, Forge or NeoForge. It needs WorldEdit to start, because regions are drawn with a WorldEdit selection. FastAsyncWorldEdit counts as WorldEdit: it announces itself under that name and loads before WorldGuard, so either one works. Never install both.

1. 1

   Install both from the catalog

   On the Plugins tab, search worldguard and press Install, then search worldedit and install WorldEdit or FastAsyncWorldEdit.

2. 2

   Restart

   Restart the server from the Console tab. WorldGuard creates plugins/WorldGuard with a config.yml and a folder per world.

3. 3

   Check the console

   If WorldGuard is missing from the plugin list after the start, the console usually says it is missing its WorldEdit dependency. Plugin not loading explains that message.

Create a region to protect spawn

These commands run in the game, because a region takes its shape from your own WorldEdit selection. Stand at spawn with the build team's area in view.

1. 1

   Select the area

   Type //wand to get a wooden axe. Left click one corner of spawn and right click the opposite corner. A region can be a box or a flat outline with a height; spheres and cylinders are not accepted.

2. 2

   Stretch it from bottom to top

   Type //expand vert. Without it the region is only as tall as the two blocks you clicked, and players can dig in from below or build on top. The WorldEdit guide has the other selection commands.

3. 3

   Define the region

   Type /rg define spawn. From that moment nobody can build inside except its members and owners. Names are unique per world and not case sensitive.

4. 4

   Let the build team in

   /rg addmember spawn RiverFox22 adds one player. /rg addmember spawn g:builder adds everyone in the permission group builder, such as a group you made in LuckPerms. Owners are added with /rg addowner.

A player who is not a member and tries to break a block sees Hey! Sorry, but you can't break that block here. WorldGuard saves regions by itself after a short moment, in plugins/WorldGuard/worlds/world/regions.yml; /rg save writes them right away.

Set region flags for PvP, mobs, explosions and a greeting

Membership decides who may build. Everything else is a flag: a rule with a value, set per region. A typical spawn:

/rg flag spawn pvp deny
/rg flag spawn mob-spawning deny
/rg flag spawn creeper-explosion deny
/rg flag spawn tnt deny
/rg flag spawn fire-spread deny
/rg flag spawn use allow
/rg flag spawn greeting Welcome to spawn!

use allow lets everyone press buttons and open doors, which a protected region otherwise blocks for visitors. To remove a flag, give it no value: /rg flag spawn pvp. /rg flags spawn shows every flag of the region as a list you can click to change values.

WorldGuard has many more, from leaf-decay to crop-growth. Its advice is to set flags only where you want something different from the default, and never to use protection flags such as block-break to open or close a whole region. Membership and passthrough are for that.

Make a flag apply to visitors only

A flag can be aimed at part of the players with -g. These groups are WorldGuard's own and have nothing to do with permission groups:

/rg flag spawn -g nonmembers game-mode adventure

One flag holds one value per region. If visitors and members need two different values of the same flag, make a second region.

Turn off PvP everywhere with the global region

Every world has a region that covers all of it, called __global__. It sits below every other region and does not protect anything by default. Setting a flag on it creates it:

/rg flag __global__ pvp deny

That turns PvP off in the whole world, and an arena region with pvp allow can switch it back on in one place. On a build or creative server you can also stop building everywhere outside regions with /rg flag __global__ passthrough deny. Do not set build on the global region: it stops pistons and everything else that places or breaks blocks across the world.

Regions inside regions: priority and passthrough

Regions may overlap, and then a player has to be a member of all of them to build. Two tools change that.

• Priority. Every region starts at 0. Where regions overlap, only the ones with the highest priority count for building, and the highest one that sets a flag decides that flag. A shop inside spawn with its own owner gets /rg setpriority shop 10.
• Passthrough. A region made only for a flag, such as a PvP arena inside spawn, should not protect anything by itself. /rg flag arena passthrough allow makes it transparent for building, so spawn's members can still work there.

/rg define arena
/rg flag arena pvp allow
/rg flag arena passthrough allow

When two regions with the same priority disagree on an allow or deny flag, deny wins.

Keep players out of an area

entry applies to non-members unless you choose a group, so a staff room is two commands:

/rg define staffroom
/rg addmember staffroom g:mod
/rg flag staffroom entry deny

Everyone else bounces off the edge with Hey! You are not permitted to enter this area. Change that line with entry-deny-message. exit deny works the other way round and keeps non-members inside, for a jail or a parkour start.

Find, change and remove regions

Right click a block with leather to list every region that covers it. That needs worldguard.region.wand, which operators have.

Region files live in the plugins folder, so the backups on our Backups tab include them. When you reset the Nether or the End, the regions of that world stay in their file and apply to the new terrain.

Let staff manage regions without op

Without op, nobody can use WorldGuard commands until a permissions plugin gives them. With LuckPerms, a moderator rank that can look up regions and change members, and an admin rank with everything:

lp group mod permission set worldguard.region.info.* true
lp group mod permission set worldguard.region.list true
lp group mod permission set worldguard.region.wand true
lp group mod permission set worldguard.region.addmember.* true
lp group mod permission set worldguard.region.removemember.* true
lp group admin permission set worldguard.* true

Many region permissions also come in an own form, such as worldguard.region.addmember.own.*, which only works on regions the player owns. Keep in mind that worldguard.* contains the bypass for every region, so admins have the same blind spot as operators when they test.

Why WorldGuard is not protecting a region