Teams in Minecraft with /team: Colours, Friendly Fire and Hidden Names

Where to type the commands

In your server's panel, in «Console», without the slash: team add red. From the game chat they work too, with the slash (/team add red), if you're an operator (how to make yourself op).

Teams are saved with the world (in the main world's scoreboard): they're still there after restarting, and they disappear if you reset the world.

If you type /team and a space in chat, autocomplete shows you the options as you go; option names are in English and that's how you have to write them.

Two teams in a minute

1. Create the teams

   team add red and team add blue. The internal name is a single word (letters, numbers, hyphen or underscore). If you want a different name to show, put it after in quotes: team add red "Red Team".

2. Give them a colour

   team modify red color red and team modify blue color blue. The colour shows on the name above the head, in chat and in the player list (Tab).

3. Put the players in

   team join red Ana Luis and team join blue Marta Pablo. A player can only be on one team: if you put them on another, they leave the previous one.

4. Check

   team list shows the teams and team list red who's on red.

The colours it accepts

They're the 16 chat colours, with their English names: black, dark_blue, dark_green, dark_aqua, dark_red, dark_purple, gold, gray, dark_gray, blue, green, aqua, red, light_purple, yellow and white. team modify red color reset removes it.

The team colour is also the colour of the glowing outline: effect give @a[team=red] glowing 30 makes the whole red team visible through walls, in red, for 30 seconds. Very handy at the end of a hide and seek or to find the stragglers.

The team modify options

They're all written team modify <team> <option> <value>. The ones that really change the game:

friendlyFire (true by default): with team modify red friendlyFire false players on the same team don't hurt each other. Careful: if the game rule pvp is false, nobody gets hurt, whatever team they're on (gamerules guide). For a red versus blue, pvp has to be true.

seeFriendlyInvisibles (true by default): teammates with an invisibility potion show up half transparent. Set it to false if you don't want even your own team to see you.

nametagVisibility: always (the default), never, hideForOtherTeams (rivals don't see your name, teammates do) and hideForOwnTeam. For hide and seek, team modify hiders nametagVisibility never: the name gives anyone away behind a wall.

deathMessageVisibility: the same four values, for the death messages in chat.

collisionRule: always (the default), never (they pass through each other, no pushing), pushOtherTeams (they only push rivals) and pushOwnTeam. never works really well in lobbies and parkour, where pushing gets annoying.

prefix and suffix: a text before or after the name. team modify red prefix "[Red] ", with the space inside the quotes so it doesn't stick to the name. displayName changes the team name that's shown.

Splitting players at random

With selectors you don't need to write names. @a[team=] are the players with no team, @a[team=red] those on red and @a[team=!red] everyone but them. @a is all online players and @r one at random (all about selectors).

To split them evenly, keep alternating these two commands until nobody is left without a team: team join red @r[team=] and team join blue @r[team=]. Each one puts a random player from those who still have no team in.

To start another round: team empty red and team empty blue empty the teams without deleting them, keeping their colours and options. team leave @a takes everyone out at once, and team remove red deletes the whole team.

Sending each team to its base and keeping score

With the team set up, everything else can be done by team: tp @a[team=red] 100 64 100 takes red to its base, and spawnpoint @a[team=red] 100 64 100 makes them respawn there when they die.

A scoreboard for each team: scoreboard objectives add kills playerKillCount "Kills" and then scoreboard objectives setdisplay sidebar.team.red kills. The sidebar only shows to players on teams of that colour, so each side can see a different one.

Team-only chat: any player can type /teammsg or /tm followed by the message, and only their team reads it. To announce something to a team in colour in the middle of the screen, a /title to @a[team=blue] (the /title and /tellraw guide; the generator below writes it for you).

If something doesn't work

«A team already exists by that name»: the team is still saved from another game. Use team empty to empty it or team remove to delete it.

Players on the same team still hurt each other: check that friendlyFire is false on that team (team modify, not team add) and that there's no PvP or minigame plugin changing it.

The colour doesn't show in chat: some chat plugins (EssentialsX Chat, LuckPerms with prefixes) write their own format and cover the team's. Above the head and in Tab the team colour does show.

A teams or minigame plugin (BedWars, SkyWars) creates its own teams when the game starts: if you use one, don't mix /team by hand in that world.

Frequently asked questions