Should you disable mob griefing in Minecraft?

While not an official word, griefing is described as an action in which someone annoys other players just because they can, something Minecraft is no stranger to. It is a term players of multiplayer games are familiar with.

However, there is another kind of griefing that plagues Minecraft: mob griefing. Mob griefing in Minecraft refers to the ability of certain game mobs to cause damage to the world environment, or otherwise damage the player’s creations.

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Minecraft mob griefing: What is it, and should you disable it?

Mob griefing

A creeper about to explode (Image via Minecraft)

There are a handful of mobs in Minecraft capable of griefing the player. The most iconic example of the game is inarguably the creeper explosion, since the creeper is the most iconic mob in the game.

These explosions leave large craters in the landscape, while only dropping a fraction of the blocks. In order to repair the damage, the player will need to go find other blocks.

However, endermen picking up blocks is also considered griefing, as they can take blocks out of players’ base or builds without the player having the ability to stop them, as they often teleport away or otherwise despawn while holding the stolen block.

This will also prevent zombies from being able to destroy doors when attempting to reach the player. Animals cannot trample tilled farmland, and rabbits will be kept from eating a player’s crops.

One of the stranger things the game classifies as mob griefing is the act of farming from the villagers in-game. When mob griefing is turned off, farmers in villages cannot harvest and replant crops.

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How to turn off mob griefing

The command to turn off mob griefing (Image via Minecraft)

Players in the Java edition only need to open their chat console, either by using the T key or hitting the forward slash. They then need to type the command /gamerule mobGriefing false to disable mob griefing.

If a player uses the forward slash to open the console, there will already be a forward slash in the text box, so players should leave it out when typing the command. This will also require the allow cheats option to be set to true.

Bedrock players will need to ensure that host privileges are enabled for the world in question. They then need to select the world and go into the more options section and into the game options. There should then be a mob griefing setting which can be set to false.

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Should you turn off mob griefing?

A farmer villager (Image via Minecraft)

There are definite positives to turning off mob griefing. A player wouldn’t have to worry about creepers dealing immense damage to their builds or base, or endermen stealing some blocks here or there. Nor would they have to worry about doors going missing due to zombies or animals destroying their farmlands.

But there is a huge drawback as well. Villagers not being able to farm means that players cannot take advantage of any kind of automated villager farm. That might not seem like a huge downside, and for more casual players it isn’t. Players wanting to take their game to the next level in terms of heightened automation will see this as a huge dealbreaker.

So at the end of the day, there is no hard answer. If a player cares not to take advantage of automated villager farming, there isn’t really a downside to having mob griefing turned off. However, if that is something a player might want to experiment with in the future, they’ll need to leave mob griefing turned on.