Protect regions with WorldGuard

WorldGuard lets you draw a box around an area and control what happens inside it: no block-breaking at spawn, no PvP in the safe zone, no explosions in the shop district. It's how you protect the parts of your world that matter. It works hand in hand with WorldEdit — you use a WorldEdit selection to mark out each region — so install both.

⚠️ Heads up: WorldGuard requires WorldEdit to be installed too — it uses WorldEdit's selections to define regions. Install WorldEdit first, or WorldGuard won't enable. Read WorldEdit basics if selections are new to you.

The idea

A region is a named, protected box. You give it flags — rules like "no building" or "no PvP" — and WorldGuard enforces them for anyone inside. Members and owners you add to a region are exempt from its build restriction, so staff can still work there.

1. Select the area (with WorldEdit)

Protecting spawn is the classic first job. Stand at spawn and select a generous box around it:

//wand

Left-click one corner, right-click the opposite corner. Make the box tall — from bedrock to sky — so nobody digs under or builds over your protection. //expand helps:

//expand 20 up
//expand 20 down

2. Define the region

Turn that selection into a named region:

/rg define spawn

(/rg is short for /region.) You now have a region called spawn covering your selection. Check it any time with:

/rg info spawn
/rg list

3. Add the protection flags

By default a fresh region already blocks non-members from building. Lock the rest down with flags — these are the stable, everyday ones:

/rg flag spawn pvp deny
/rg flag spawn mob-spawning deny
/rg flag spawn creeper-explosion deny
/rg flag spawn greeting Welcome to spawn!
/rg flag spawn farewell Leaving spawn

To let specific people build in a protected region, add them:

/rg addmember spawn Steve
/rg addowner spawn YOUR_NAME

4. The whole-world region

There's a special built-in region, __global__, that covers the entire world with no selection needed. Use it for server-wide rules:

/rg flag __global__ creeper-explosion deny

That stops creeper terrain damage everywhere at once — a popular server-wide setting. Region flags on a smaller region override the global one where they overlap.

🎯 Good to know: When two regions overlap, WorldGuard uses priority to decide which wins. Give the more specific region a higher priority so its rules take precedence: /rg setpriority arena 10. For simple setups (one spawn region inside the default world) you won't need to think about it.

Managing regions

/rg redefine spawn     # reselect with WorldEdit, then resize the existing region
/rg removemember spawn Steve
/rg remove spawn       # delete the region entirely

Region data is saved per-world at /plugins/WorldGuard/worlds/<world>/regions.yml, but you manage it with the commands above — hand-editing that file is rarely needed and easy to corrupt.

The config file

WorldGuard's global behaviour lives in /plugins/WorldGuard/config.yml (and per-world files). Most defaults are sensible; the settings beginners occasionally flip are toggles like blocking TNT or fire spread world-wide — but the same effects are usually cleaner as __global__ flags, which is the approach above. Leave config.yml alone until you have a specific reason.

Verify it works

Join as a non-op player, stand in spawn, and try to break a block — it should be denied, and you should see your greeting message when you walk in. If op'd, you bypass protection, so test with a normal account.

The honest limits

• WorldGuard protects and restricts — it doesn't log or undo. It stops damage going forward; it can't tell you who did something or roll it back. Pair it with CoreProtect for the full "prevent and repair" combo.
• It's not player land-claiming. WorldGuard regions are defined by admins with WorldEdit. If you want players to claim their own plots with a golden shovel, that's a different plugin (like GriefPrevention) — see the protection stack.
• Ops bypass it. That's intended; de-op to test real behaviour.
• The core commands and common flags above have been stable for years; the full flag list is long and occasionally gains entries, so check WorldGuard's current documentation for anything exotic.

Troubleshooting

• WorldGuard won't enable — WorldEdit isn't installed, or is the wrong version. Install/update WorldEdit and restart.
• /rg define says "select a region first" — you haven't made a WorldEdit selection; run //wand and click two corners.
• Protection isn't working — you're probably op (ops bypass) or a member/owner of the region. Test as a plain player.
• A flag name is rejected — flag names vary slightly by version; check WorldGuard's current docs for the exact spelling, and confirm with /rg info afterwards.

Next steps

• Roll back grief with CoreProtect
• WorldEdit basics
• The classic protection stack
• Build a rank ladder with LuckPerms