History Minecraft / TropesGToL

* GenderInclusiveWriting: Since the person playing Minecraft can be either gender, [[https://minecraft.wiki/w/End_Poem the poem]] that is revealed [[AWinnerIsYou after defeating the Ender Dragon]] avoids using gender-specific pronouns of any sort when referencing them.
** Additionally, every creature in the ''Minecraft'' universe is confirmed to be [[BizarreAlienBiology naturally]] [[OneGenderRace genderless,]] with the only exceptions being the female Ender Dragon and the Player (whose gender is [[SelfInsertFic the player's gender]]).%%[[note]]The Player is not a naturally occurring Minecraft creature, and the Ender Dragon is [[EldritchAbomination implied not to be as well.]][[/note]]

*** In multiplayer, if two or more fishing rods are reeled in at the same time, the victim gets the full momentum increase from both rods, catapulting them up several times the height of the wall. As Grian [[https://youtu.be/S8M_akvDTNE?t=171 discovered]] in the WebVideo/DoubleLifeSMP, this can [[https://youtu.be/S8M_akvDTNE?t=266 kill a Warden]].

** Continuing the proud tradition of fishing rods in this role is, well, the [[ShapedLikeItself fishing rod]]. [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Normally, it's used for just that]] -- casting out into a body of water and flinging in a fish when it bites (or, if the rod has the Luck of the Sea enchantment, maybe something else more valuable). Most players wouldn't even bother using it for anything else. But suddenly, a whole new world of possibility opens up when the astute player realizes that it doesn't just reel in fish, [[RodAndReelRepurposed it reels in ANY creature]]. With practice, a player atop a wall can heave up monsters into sword range and with a quick switch, slash the unfortunate on their way back down to fall-damage town. The cherry on top? Even ghasts are affected, which can be used to pull the elusive flying buggers closer so they can't avoid your hail of arrows.

** While not technically "lost" considering they're easy to reproduce on the surface and using materials from most upper levels of the underground and immediately accessible in the Nether, in the ancient cities there are some examples of functional redstone circuitry set up in what appear to be laboratories, suggesting that the previous inhabitants were intelligent enough to make redstone circuits or were researching them.

*** In multiplayer, if two or more fishing rods are reeled in at the same time, the victim gets the full momentum increase from both rods, catapulting them up several times the height of the wall. As Grian [[https://youtu.be/S8M_akvDTNE?t=171 discovered]] in [[WebVideo/LifeSMP Double Life]], this can [[https://youtu.be/S8M_akvDTNE?t=266 kill a Warden]].

* The Poisonous Potato is at best emergency food and a requirement for an Advancement, but it has a 60% chance of applying Poison to you, outbalancing any health you would have regenerated if you got lucky and you can't even compost it or use it for anything else. Funnily enough because of this, the April Fools' 24w14potato update consisted of lots of uses for the Poisonous Potato, most of which players would clamor for including in the base game because of their legitimate usefulness.

* HideYourChildren: Averted. The game lets the player kill not just villagers, but villager children and baby animals as well. You can even sic zombies on villager children so that they become children zombies!

* HollywoodDarkness: Mostly averted. The player can technically make out shapes in even the darkest of underground caverns without torches, but only just. However, the light during the nighttime never drops below full moon brightness, regardless of the moon's phase.

* InformedEquipment: Averted, every piece of armour you wear is shown on your character's model. A full set almost completely covers it, kinda making all that painstaking skin design [[ConcealedCustomization a waste of time]], unless you wear chainmail armour.

* JungleJapes: The jungle biome.
* JustAddWater: Crafting is a crude form of pixelated drawing with crafting materials. No actual labor required. Even complicated items like a clock can be made by merely putting the materials together in a vague clock-like shape. Averted in the console versions, as you don't need to draw the materials in, as long as you have them. And the newer versions tell you what you need.

* HauntedTechnology: Although most of the music discs are alright, there are three of them that are somewhat... unnerving when played: The "13" disc plays haunting sounds when played, and looks damaged to the point of being unplayable, yet works fine anyway, showing its paranormal nature. The "11" disc, meanwhile plays back the sounds of a person fiddling with a flint and steel, coughing, flicking through a book and then the sounds of him running almost as if he's being chased by... something, before it abruptly cuts out. Similarly, the "5" disc needs to be reassembled by the player, and also plays the sounds of someone being chased by a warden.

** Continuing the proud tradition of fishing rods in this role is, well, the [[ShapedLikeItself fishing rod]]. [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Normally, it's used for just that]]--casting out into a body of water and flinging in a fish when it bites (or, if the rod has the Luck of the Sea enchantment, maybe something else more valuable). Most players wouldn't even bother using it for anything else. But suddenly, a whole new world of possibility opens up when the astute player realizes that it doesn't just reel in fish, it reels in ANY creature. With practice, a player atop a wall can heave up monsters into sword range and with a quick switch, slash the unfortunate on his way back down to fall-damage town. The cherry on top? Even ghasts are affected, which can be used to pull the elusive flying buggers closer so they can't avoid your hail of arrows.

** The random biome generation will do this occasionally (although it tries not to), leading to deserts beside tundras, or frozen oceans in the middle of regular ones. Mods turn this up to eleven, occasionally generating volcanoes in frozen wastelands.

*** The fishing rod is taken UpToEleven in multiplayer: if two or more fishing rods are reeled in at the same time, the victim gets the full momentum increase from both rods, catapulting them up several times the height of the wall. As Grian [[https://youtu.be/S8M_akvDTNE?t=171 discovered]] in [[WebVideo/LifeSMP Double Life]], this can [[https://youtu.be/S8M_akvDTNE?t=266 kill a Warden]].

*** The fishing rod is taken UpToEleven in multiplayer: if two or more fishing rods are reeled in at the same time, the victim gets the full momentum increase from both rods, catapulting them up several times the height of the wall. As Grian [[https://youtu.be/S8M_akvDTNE?t=171 discovered]] in [[WebVideo/LifeSMP Double Life]], this can [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8M_akvDTNE kill a Warden]].

*** The fishing rod is taken UpToEleven in multiplayer: if two or more fishing rods are reeled in at the same time, the victim gets the full momentum increase from both rods, catapulting them up several times the height of the wall. As Grian [[https://youtu.be/S8M_akvDTNE?t=171 discovered]] in [[WebVideo/LifeSMP Double Life]].

* GainaxEnding: After killing the Ender Dragon, you're treated to a wall of scrolling text depicting a discussion between two [[SentientCosmicForce Sentient Cosmic Forces]] discussing '''[[BreakingTheFourthWall you]]''', the player of the game. [[http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/End_Poem The discussion in question]] implies that the entire game was AllJustADream, life as we know it is merely an even bigger dream, the many mobs we fought in the game were the darkness in our hearts, and humanity's entire existence is a quest to understand itself.

* GenderInclusiveWriting: Since the person playing Minecraft can be either gender, [[https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/End_Poem the poem]] that is revealed [[AWinnerIsYou after defeating the Ender Dragon]] avoids using gender-specific pronouns of any sort when referencing them.

* HolidayMode: In Java Edition on Halloween, zombies and skeletons may spawn wearing pumpkins on their heads. During Christmas, chests and large chests [[https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/File:Xmas_Chest.png have different]] [[https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/File:Xmas_Large_Chest.png appearances]].

* InUniverseGameClock: [[http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Day/night_cycle One complete daily cycle, from sunrise to sunset to sunrise]], lasts for 20 minutes. This means that time is compressed at a 72:1 ratio (72 Minecraft days equals one real-time day). The time of day has dramatic effects on gameplay: nighttime is when the monsters come out. Daytime is when they burn. As you can imagine, being several miles away from your house at sunset is not a good idea. There are also moon phases; while mostly cosmetic, the odds of slimes being able to spawn in swamp biomes at night are greater the fuller the moon is, with a full moon guaranteeing a large number of them.

* LethalChef: Players can potentially do this to themselves (or possibly to another player) with [[https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Suspicious_Stew suspicious stew]], which is a normal bowl of stew with a flower added in. Players jumping in blind run the risk of having said "stew" inflict negative status effects depending on what type of flower you used. Suspicious stew found in chests... well, better cross your fingers and hope you don't almost die from poison.

** In the Nether, gold is the global currency for bartering with piglins. Just try not to do the same with baby piglins and piglin brutes.

* GlobalCurrency: Emeralds are accepted at all villages, which is odd considering how emeralds are only found in extreme hills biomes, where villages do not generate. Where did they get them in such large quantities?

** Enchanting. You place an item and are given three lines of gibberish representing your options, with only a single enchantment being known to you. [[note]]Well okay, it's actually English written in the [[VideoGame/CommanderKeen Standard Galactic Alphabet]], but the sentences are just [[WordSaladTitle word salads]].[[/note]]The more levels you spend, the better the enchantments may be. Adding bookshelves (to a max of 15) raises the level requirement but also improves the enchantments you get. However, the basic mechanics aside, the actual ''results'' can vary from awesome to extremely disappointing. You can put in one item and get three nice enchantments, only to put in an identical one and get a comparatively useless one. You can't control what enchantments you get, only increase the likelihood of said enchantments being ranked higher. This is even worse with enchanted books, as they can have any enchantments on them, even ones that can't all apply to the same tool or piece of armour. This is a big reason why many players ignore the enchanting table as soon as they find a village where they can buy books.
** Trading with Villagers: Depending on how Lady Luck favors you could end up with a bunch of Villagers offering some terrible trades, some decent ones, and some really good ones (items that are otherwise very rare)... or just a bunch of terrible ones. Some get a Cleric to start selling Eyes of Ender after only a few trades, some have 8 Clerics running around their village that still don't offer the darn things. You can change a villager's trades, but only before you've actually traded with them, so any higher-level trades are purely random.
** There's no telling where your Nether Portal can land you. Your best estimate is your coordinates -- Nether Portal destinations are a function of your X and Z coordinates and attempt to spawn you on as much solid ground as possible, but as long as you're traveling into uncharted territory, you won't know if you're spawning right into hostile territory or over a lava ocean, for instance.
* LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe: Shields are fairly useful, as they're relatively cheap to make, and unlike swords, BlockingStopsAllDamage when shields are in play (provided the player is facing the source of the damage and actively blocking.)

** Every block in the game is destructible except for bedrock, which forms the indestructible bottom limit of the game world, and top limit of the Nether. But just because it's supposed to be indestructible and there are few reasons to want it destroyed (you can't build hanging constructions below the bottom of the world -- the game makes building there outright impossible, with any placed blocks vanishing instantly; however, you can build constructions above the Nether, and breaking bedrock allows easy access from the normally accessible section), [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL1swlfzXzo people have figured out how to destroy it]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8BNbDI8a2I despite the developer's continuing attempts to prevent the exploits]].
** The Minecon Live 2020 demonstration showed that the new Warden can 2-hit kill players wearing complete Netherite Armor and gets more aggressive as it's attacked. Coupled with no drops or significant XP and enormous health, it's meant to discourage players from killing it. When it made its debut in the 1.19 snapshot, ''everyone'' started to test various methods of killing the Warden.

** Netherite falls under this. There are no primary source for it, and the only way to get some is to dig up some rare "ancient debris" blocks at the bottom of the Nether and mix it with gold to form an alloy.
** While not technically "lost" considering they're easy to reproduce on the surface and using materials from most upper levels of the underground, in the Ancient Cities there are some functional Redstone circuitry set up in what appear to be laboratories, suggesting that the previous inhabitants were intelligent enough to make Redstone circuits or were researching them.

** The Woods map setting in Indev generated a world with dim natural light and covered in dense trees, with lots of mushrooms on the ground. Likewise, the Forest and Taiga biomes in the Alpha version of the game.

** The Update that Changed the World of 2013 introduced, among others, the dark forest, which produces dense stands of giant Black Forest-inspired oak trees with thick trunks and broad canopies with almost no gaps, little sunlight on the ground, giant mushrooms, and even a haunted mansion. While regular forests provide some cover for monsters in the day, the dark forest is so, well, dark that monsters can actively spawn at all hours of the day.

** Continuing the proud tradition of fishing rods in this role is, well, the [[ShapedLikeItself fishing rod]]. [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Normally, it's used for just that]]--casting out into a body of water and flinging in a fish when it bites (or, if the rod has the Luck of the Sea enchantment, maybe something else more valuable). Most players wouldn't even bother using it for anything else. But suddenly, a whole new world of possibility opens up when the astute player realizes that it doesn't just reel in fish, it reels in ANY creature. With practice, a player atop a wall can heave up monsters into sword range and with a quick switch, slash the unfortunate on his way back down to fall-damage town. The cherry on top? Even Ghasts are affected, which can be used to pull the elusive flying buggers closer so they can't avoid your hail of arrows.
** Snowballs can be thrown at mobs to knock them backward, but don't actually deal any damage, except against blazes. However, they can be immensely useful on certain challenge maps that consist of nothing but an island or two in the sky. Throw a couple, and suddenly that creeper's plunging off the edge to its death. Chicken eggs also provide the same effect as the snowballs, minus the ability to harm the Blaze.

** Hoes, especially Diamond and Netherite hoes become this down in the horrible depths of the Deep Dark, being the tools most suited to scraping out the [[MeatMoss Sculk and its sensors and shriekers]], which also gives it double duty in quickly destroying the sculk for experience and revealing any more valuable ores and minerals that the sculk may be hiding.

** Experience gained by killing mobs gives experience levels. Although these are pointless for the first part of the game, once the player obtains diamonds they can make Enchantment Tables. These allow weapons, armor, and tools to be enchanted with special abilities, such as reduced damage from use, extra damage when attacking monsters, protection from certain types of damage (explosions, fire, water, fall, etc.), and increased item drops. The problem is that experience gained from monsters is worth much less at higher levels, and dying makes the player lose almost all their experience. As a result, even with structures built specifically to spawn and damage mobs automatically, it can take days to get enough experience for the best enchantments. Made worse by the RandomNumberGod deciding what enchantments are received, which can absorb large amounts of exp only to give a common, less useful enchantment or even ''ignore up to one-quarter of the experience'' (but still take it) when calculating which enchantment will be given.

* LevelMapDisplay: There's a Map item which you can craft to keep track of the world you explore.

* LightningCanDoAnything: Lightning will turn pigs into Zombified Piglins, villagers into witches, toggles Mooshrooms between red and brown variants, and massively powers up the explosion of a Creeper. It also creates portals to the [[FireAndBrimstoneHell Nether]] if it strikes a gateway of obsidian, but so does fire.
* LikeCannotCutLike: Singular example: Golden Pickaxes cannot mine the overworld's Gold Ore -- all other non-wooden pickaxes can mine the ore they're made of, but gold, true to RealLife, is exceptionally weak. It can mine the Nether's gold ore, however.

* LivingShip: Well, a Living Boat in this case; the Strider is a passive mob that spawns walking on top of the lava lakes of the Nether, which can be ridden like a pig. It was added to act as the Nether's equivalent to regular boats. {{Lampshaded}} by the "This Boat Has Legs" advancement.

** Village population counts, prior to the 1.14 Village and Pillage update, depended on how many houses (with doors) a village had. Since the game defined a "house" as a door exposed to sunlight that has the interior (the side the door leads into) one more block covered than the exterior, you could just place a door then a block of dirt on its interior side and [[ArtificialStupidity the Villagers would treat it as a house]]. The population count since 1.14 now depends on the number of valid beds within the village, but the beds are not required to be within a house.
** Iron Golems are coded to attack players that harm Villagers using anything that's held in the hand, including bare fists. However, this doesn't include Villagers hurt by "natural" causes, so it's possible to just kill them by suffocation, drowning, or falling without repercussions from their protectors if you want new Villagers for their offers ([[VideoGameCrueltyPotential or just feel like being a terrible person]]). This also protects the player's "reputation", which sways the available trades and prices.

*** If you're looking for something faster, consider the Monster Spawner block. It'll [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin spawn enemies]] within a certain radius, as long as it's dark enough and there's enough space. Again, build an area for monsters to spawn and a trap for them to fall into, and now you've got an even faster method to get monster drops, except this one can provide experience levels to you in a convenient way as well. This can only be done with certain mobs, however, since monster spawners can't be created or moved and you have to work with what the game generates.

*** Villages are considered by the game to be locations with plenty of Villagers and houses. [[note]](houses are determined by the number of valid doors [pre-1.14] or beds [1.14 onwards])[[/note]] If a village has a sufficient number of Villagers, Iron Golems will spawn. The thing is, Villagers and houses can both be created and manipulated by the player, so if one has enough time on their hands, they can build an Iron Golem farm to automatically kill off the spawned Golems and take their iron.

** [[GiantSpider Spiders]] can climb up vertical walls, but any overhangs can stop their progress. Ladders, which barely have any width at all, can block a spider's climbing as well as a 1x1x1 cubic meter stone block can.
* LamarckWasRight: With dyes, you can color sheep and receive wool of different shades from them. Breeding two sheep will either produce a lamb colored with an additive result of its parents colors[[labelnote:*]]for instance, breeding a red sheep with a yellow sheep will produce an orange lamb[[/labelnote]] or just one of its parents colors if the combination does not produce another color.[[labelnote:*]]for instance, breeding a black sheep with a pink sheep will produce either a black or pink lamb, and breeding two sheep of the same color will produce a like-colored lamb[[/labelnote]] This means you can use one piece of blue dye to create an entire flock of blue sheep since Minecraft animals [[OneGenderRace have no set gender and can reproduce with any other animal that isn't juvenile.]]

* LavaIsBoilingKoolAid: The game has lava flow much more slowly than water to simulate its greater density. Lava's not fatal if the player can escape quickly enough, but it is ''very painful.'' However, more pain occurs when one dies in lava: everything you had on your person[[note]]Except Netherite[[/note]] is [[ContinuingIsPainful irrevocably incinerated.]] It also causes any wood in short distance from it to start burning and ice to melt, but it can (or at least could) be blocked by using snow blocks. It provides natural light as well. If you've drunk a Potion of Fire Resistance, you can actually swim in lava safely. It behaves like red water in that case, only with much poorer visibility. You can climb out of lava as you would a pool of water, but the fact that lava continuously sets you on fire interrupts your ability to do so.

* LawOfCartographicalElegance: It's a flat, square-shaped world but is notable in the fact that's the current map format makes usable maps out to the tune of 8 times the surface area of the earth.
* LawOfChromaticSuperiority: Anything that glows Blue and Purple is a sign that it's powerful. Rare and Epic items also have Blue or Purple name text respectively.

* LeParkour: The only way to reach the top of an End City without the help of Shulkers, or making your own stairs.
* LethalChef: Players can potentially do this to themselves (or possibly to another player) with [[https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Suspicious_Stew Suspicious Stew]], which is a normal bowl of stew with a flower added in. Players jumping in blind run the risk of having said "stew" inflict negative status effects depending on what type of flower you used. Suspicious stew found in chests... well, better cross your fingers and hope you don't die from poison.

** The Endermen, sometimes. Its ability to pick up certain blocks means that eventually you will find one carrying a flower. With both hands, like it's afraid it'll damage it. Just don't look it in the eye...

** The ''Flame'' enchantment for the Bow utilizes this, as it allows you to shoot FlamingArrows at your target.

** Flint and Steel can ignite enemies. If they were already damaged or not near water, they will more than likely die. If you want to kill non-hostile spiders without them retaliating, you can ignite the ground below them, and they'll take damage without recognizing you as the source. Fire as a whole is more or less lethal, unless you conveniently dug into water and lava at the same time.
** The Ghast and Blaze will kill ''you'' by shooting fireballs.

** If you have to deal with an Enderman, setting them on fire is one of the best ways to get rid of them.

** Endermen are, in addition to fire and lava, weak to water. Leading them to a pool of water or exposing them to a rainstorm will damage them, though they're not stupid enough to keep standing thereafter taking one hit.
** Prior to 1.8, this was the standard way to farm slime balls; since slimes couldn't swim, a drowner trap was very effective against them.
** Also four doors arranged around a block of water suspended above a stone pressure plate, topped by any solid block. Mobs walking on the plate will cause the doors to lock them in. Trapping them with their head in the water, unable to get out. Once they die the pressure plate is released and the trap reopens to visitors. Doesn't work on undead mobs, unfortunately, since they don't drown.
* KingMook: The Elder Guardian is this to the Guardians.
* KleptomaniacHero: Being a game with similar gameplay mechanics to ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'', it shouldn't come as a surprise that stealing whole structures is doable here. Certain blocks can only be obtained through either Creative mode or mining them from pre-generated existing structures.

** A small amount with every hit from a weapon. A large amount if you were sprinting. There's also an [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin appropriately named]] enchantment to make it even greater.
** Iron Golems produce this in ''spades''. Anything they hit is flung into the air high enough to take fall damage, in addition to the heavy damage the attack itself does.
** The Ender Dragon herself can cause quite a bit of this if she comes into contact with you, often enough to send you into the void.
** Hoglins have a similar attack to Iron Golems, although it's a much weaker attack.
* KryptoniteProofSuit: Most variants of zombies and skeletons are [[WeakenedByTheLight allergic to sunlight]] but if they're spawned wearing a helmet, they'll be immune to it.

** And of course, normal agriculture; planting crops and reaping them when they mature. Pistons can be used to automate melon and pumpkin farms, while farmer Villagers can collect everything else.

* JackOfAllTrades: The player character. Players have proficiencies in mining, cooking, architecture, swordsmanship, archery, crafting, carpentry, painting, parkour, circuitry, alchemy, and magic.

** For the longest time, the Diamond Hoe was considered to be one by the player base. Nobody has the need to till 1561 dirt blocks worth of farmland that its durability provides, and creating one means you're diverting precious diamonds to create something that is nigh useless. The developers caught on later, providing an advancement for creating a diamond hoe and completely exhausting every last one of its aforementioned 1561 uses, and it pokes fun at the player.

*** That said, the Hoe is less of a joke item as updates, starting from the Nether Update, allowed the Hoe to break certain blocks faster than other tools, most notably leaves and the Nether's fungal equivalents. That doesn't make it any more commonly used -- the Serious Dedication advancement now requires the player to invest an incredibly rare Netherite Ingot to make a Netherite Hoe, lampshading the tool's very limited scope of use.

** With the enchantment system, you can turn any item into a LethalJokeItem. Want to attack zombies with raw fish enchanted with Smite V? You can.
** The golden sword and golden armor set play the trope straight; the gold sword isn't any stronger than an iron sword and the gold armor isn't any stronger than iron armor, but the gold counterparts wear down twice as fast as leather armor and wooden swords. They, however, are the best for enchanting purposes. Also, wearing gold armor in the Nether pacifies the otherwise hostile Piglins.

* JungleJapes: The Jungle Biome.

* InvisibleStreaker: [[StatusEffects Invisibility]] is useless if the player insists on wearing their armor. While undressing from armor may not be a problem for a player, some mobs have [[http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/File:Invisible_sheep.png natural "armor"]] that makes them visible whether they are inflicted with the status effect or not.

* InvulnerableHorses: Horses are no less mortal than any other mobs in the game. They can easily fall from too high places, stumble upon cacti, fall into lava or get in the way of exploding Creepers. Good thing they have RegeneratingHealth though.
* ItemCrafting: With a drag and drop inventory, and a 2x2 or 3x3 craft slot depending on how you're doing it, you spend pretty much 11% of the time doing this. The recipe book helps speed it up, however.

** Monsters that die in proximity to a Sculk Catalyst will turn compatible blocks into the experience-granting Sculk, allowing players to essentially build farms that let them collect experience points they'll be able to harness whenever they need.
** Amethyst Geodes generate a special block type, Budding Amethyst, that slowly grows Amethyst Clusters on its surfaces. If players want to farm Amethyst as fast as they can, they'll need a farm with a bespoke design, as the precise Budding Amethyst placements within any geode are randomized.
** The villager trading system. Villagers can sell better weapons and tools for you for Emeralds, you get Emeralds by trading items to them or mining. Wheat, paper and charcoal are the easiest to farm emeralds from, as they are derived from renewable resources.

* InstantRoast: Any chicken, pig, or cow will become one or several cooked pieces of the appropriate meat if burned to death.
* InsurmountableWaistHeightFence: Fences and walls are the same height as a regular block, but you can't jump up on them without first using another block as a step. That's because they count as being 1½ blocks high in character collision checks (yes, that also means you're half a block above the fence if you're "standing" on it), and you jump just less than that. Mostly for keeping things ''other'' than you from getting over them.

** Putting a pumpkin on your face does this by restricting your view of your surroundings to only the eyes and mouth on the pumpkin's face, and blocks off the rest of it. It makes for effective protection against Endermen - it mostly stops you from looking directly into their eyes and angering them.

** In the Nether and The End realms, clocks will just cycle through day and night really fast due a lack of daytime cycle, and compasses will just have its needle spin around erratically due to a lack of spawn point (unless bound to a lodestone). Maps will also not work in the Nether, although they do work in the End.

* InUniverseGameClock: [[http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Day/night_cycle One complete daily cycle, from sunrise to sunset to sunrise]], lasts for 20 minutes. This means that time is compressed at a 72:1 ratio (72 Minecraft days equals one real-time day). The time of day has dramatic effects on gameplay: nighttime is when the monsters come out. Daytime is when they burn. As you can imagine, being several miles away from your house at sunset is not a good idea. There are also moon phases; while mostly cosmetic, the odds of Slimes being able to spawn in Swamp biomes at night are greater the fuller the moon is, with a full moon guaranteeing a Slime Hunt Night.
* InventoryManagementPuzzle: The player has 36 slots for items (27 inventory slots, and 9 hotkey slots), plus four for armor and one for an off-hand item. While this may seem generous, you'd be surprised how quickly that gets filled during mining expeditions and such: since they're slot-based, every different item you find will take up one slot even if it's something as small as one piece of coal. Other items, notably Redstone, will likely take up 3 or 4 slots since finding hundreds of the stuff isn't uncommon and you can only hold 64 in one slot. Furthermore, part of your inventory will be dedicated to necessary survival equipment (food, light, crafting material, tools, etc.). A properly managed inventory can mean the difference between making safe trips back to base and finding yourself fighting off a horde of creepers and zombies with your bare hands.

** For [[PlayerVersusPlayer PvP]] servers, invisibility also hides your name tag, making sneak attacks much more effective. And yes, you can also use the splash version of the potion on a Creeper for an invisible mad bomber.
** Invisibility acts strangely on certain animals and monsters. Invisible Spiders and Endermen still have visible (albeit translucent) eyes. If a sheep turns invisible, the main body disappears but the wool coat doesn't.

** There are glitches and hacks that let you place two separate types of these. Invisible blocks work just like any other block, but you can't see them, playing the trope straight. ''Intangible'' blocks, on the other hand, only interact with other blocks while the player passes through them just like air. The second block type is very useful for making elevators and other special Redstone machines the player must pass through.
** There is also a "Barrier" block, a completely invisible and indestructible block as a tool for mapmakers.

** ''Anything'' you pick up can be used as a weapon, even blocks of dirt and pork chops. Anything that isn't a tool or weapon does 1 heart of damage only (same as fighting barehanded), but you can still kill any enemy with any item obtainable in the game. This includes blocks of stone, blocks of dirt, blocks of sand, blocks of ''wool'', flowers, hunks of grilled pork meat, [[WithThisHerring fish]], doors, ladders, furnaces, minecarts, glass, mushrooms, diamonds, eggs, paintings...

** All types of Zombies have a chance of being able to pick up any objects floating on the ground to use as weapons. That piece of Rotten Flesh you threw away a moment ago? Another Zombie's here to bludgeon you with the flesh of his former comrade.

** ''Minecraft'' uses InexplicablyPreservedDungeonMeat as detailed below; the only eatable item in this game that has reached any sort of expiry is rotten flesh, obtained from either the undead, or the implied bodies of whoever was buried in pyramids and jungle temples. Outside that, you're free to drink milk that has gone weeks without refrigeration and eat bread you threw into swampwater and picked back up.
** The king of this trope in the game might be Chorus Fruit. Chorus Fruit's first purpose is to be consumed, healing a below-average two full pips of hunger with an inconvenient side effect of also randomly teleporting the player. Its second purpose is to be popped in a furnace like popcorn to turn it into a completely inedible brick-like material used to build End Cities.

* InfernalRetaliation: Burning Zombies will set the player on fire when attacking.

** A Netherite sword with Sharpness V, Looting III, Fire Aspect II, Knockback II, Unbreaking III, and Mending. You'll need to throw yourself through some RNG-induced flaming hoops and a ton of experience grinding to smith it all together, but with it you can pretty much one-hit every basic enemy in the game.

** A Diamond Sword will typically be the strongest and most consistently reliable weapon the player will acquire. An argument can easily be made for the superiority of a Netherite sword or an enchanted Trident, but both of those weapons require the player to go well out of their way to obtain them.
** Iron tools are a step below Diamond tools, but it's much easier to find iron than diamonds.
** While golden apples are the best combat item, golden ''carrots'' are the best actual food source in the game. While not as insanely costly as golden apples, only requiring eight gold nuggets[[note]]slightly less than ''one'' ingot, only about 1/9th of a golden apple[[/note]] to craft, using them as a consistent food source still requires a crapton of gold -- necessitating a gold farm in the Nether - and carrots, one of the rarer items. The saturation given from golden carrots is the best in the game, bar none.

* HydraProblem: Slimes and Magma Cubes will split into many smaller versions of themselves when killed. Thankfully, the smaller they are, the less damage they deal.

** Any player can build a portal to "The Nether", a hellish underworld where every step you take translates to eight steps in the normal world. If you enter through one HellGate and leave through another, you'll find yourself displaced eight times further than you traveled within The Nether. It's a very useful shortcut if you don't mind the fact that the place is full of cliffs, lava lakes, and [[EldritchAbomination ghasts]]. Where the terrain isn't covered by lava it consists of either a red rock that readily catches on fire, the jagged remains of volcanic eruptions, or a quicksand textured with ''screaming faces''. Most of the dimension is inhabited by tribes of piglins, neutral endermen, the Nether's equivalent of slimes, and flying jellyfish who spit exploding fireballs that tear up the landscape and set the rock on fire.
** In strongholds, you can find a portal different from the Nether's which leads players to another dimension called "The End", a dark world which consists entirely of a FloatingContinent suspended over an endless void, inhabited solely by Endermen and a single Ender Dragon. The outer islands can be accessed via an Ender Pearl after defeating the dragon, and there are all kinds of loot there... and more enemies.\\\
However, the End becomes a lot less scary once you realize that 1) a simple bow with a sufficient quantity of arrows will keep you safe from the Dragon as you gradually reduce her health, 2) Endermen are effectively inert if you're wearing a pumpkin, and 3) you can farm them in very efficient structures that'll level you from zero to level 30 in less than a minute.

* ImAHumanitarian: If you're really desperate to restore your hunger bar, you can ''eat the rotting flesh of slain zombies''. It'll give you food poisoning, but it could still save your life.
* ImmuneToFire: Mobs native to [[FireAndBrimstoneHell the Nether]] (aside from unzombified Piglins and Hoglins) cannot catch fire or take damage from it. The player and other mobs can gain such fire immunity temporarily by drinking a potion of fire resistance.

* ImplacableMan: As long as its healing crystals are intact, the Ender Dragon is unstoppable. If placed in the Overworld, it can fly right through and destroy anything that's not Obsidian, End Stone or Bedrock. Still feel secure in your cobblestone home?

** When zombies were first made, they dropped feathers when killed. This drop was replaced with Rotten Flesh, but later updates allowed Zombies to have a rare chance of dropping carrots, potatoes, or iron ingots, which makes a bit more sense if the zombie is an infected villager.
* ImprobableAimingSkills: Shoot a Pillager and he'll instantly return fire with an arrow perfectly aimed at you, even outside his aggro range. He'll only miss you if you're standing still in case you're at very long range, such as 30 blocks or beyond.

* ImprovisedGolems: The game allows players (and sometimes [[EldritchAbomination Endermen]]) to build Snow Golems out of blocks of snow and Iron Golems out of blocks of iron, topped off with pumpkins for heads.

* HumanPincushion: Arrows will persist in your character for a while. Fighting against groups of [[DemBones skeletons]] or Pillager patrols will often leave you looking like a pincushion.
* HumanResources: The game has a subtle example: Zombies and Skeletons both drop useful items. Skeletons in particular drop bones, which are useful as fertilizer, while Zombies drop Rotten Flesh, which is less than ideal for proper meals but is useful in a pinch, and can also be sold to cleric villagers. Both of these are implied to have once been human, especially the Zombies, which have an appearance that's almost identical to the default character skin. Additionally, Rotten Flesh [[HorrorHunger gives the player a temporary Hunger effect]] when eaten, but can be fed to dogs without ill effect.