Manhunt

One or more Speedrunners race to kill the Ender Dragon. One or more Hunters, armed with a tracking compass, try to kill them first.

Data pack only — no mod, no plugin, no server software. Minecraft Java Edition 26.2. Works in singleplayer, on LAN and on a dedicated server.

Install

1. Drop the manhunt folder into your world's datapacks/ directory.
2. Exit the world and load it again. Not /reload — the settings and role screens are dialogs, and Minecraft only builds those when a world loads. Using /reload instead makes every screen look broken while the rest of the pack works fine.

Nothing in your world changes until a match is started.

Optional: the companion manhunt-lang resource pack translates the mode into 12 languages. It is never required — without it everything reads in English.

Running a match

Everything an operator does lives behind one command:

/function manhunt:admin/panel

Each button is also a plain function under manhunt:admin/action/, so a command block or another pack can drive the same thing.

Picking who runs

The usual flow is two clicks in Roles:

1. Everyone unassigned to hunter — sweeps every player without a side into the hunter team.
2. Pick a random runner — takes one hunter at random and makes them the runner.

Because step 2 draws from the hunters, the previous runner stays a runner across a rematch. For a clean redraw press Clear all roles first, then repeat both steps.

To set one specific player instead, skip the panel:

execute as <player> run function manhunt:roles/api/set_role {role:1}

0 unassigned · 1 runner · 2 hunter · 3 spectator. Any number of runners and hunters is supported; the runner side loses only when all of its players are out.

Spectators are a real side, not a courtesy: they are put in spectator mode, never appear as a compass target, and count toward neither win condition. That is the role for a camera account.

What a match looks like

Lobby — everyone with a role is penned inside a small world border, in adventure mode and immune to damage, while the room sorts itself out. Set the duration to 0 to skip it.

Head start — the border opens and the runner leaves. Hunters are frozen in place and their compasses hold the position from the starting whistle, so nobody can watch the runner move away and pre-aim.

The hunt — tracking goes live. The match ends when the dragon dies (runners win) or the last runner is eliminated (hunters win). A dragon kill and a runner death on the same tick always resolve as a runner win.

What players do

Nobody but the operator needs a command, with one exception.

Hunters get a compass automatically and never lose it — drop it, die with it, or fill your inventory and it comes back within a second. To choose whom to chase:

/trigger mh.menu

That prints a list of living runners in chat; click a name to lock onto them, or click Nearest runner (auto) to track whoever is closest and let it re-target itself. A locked target holds until you change it or they are eliminated.

Read the compass by its name, not just its needle:

• live — the needle is pointing at the runner's real position right now.
• last seen — the runner is in another dimension. The needle is showing where they were last seen in your dimension, which is normally the portal they used. Follow it and you will find the crossing.
• no data — the runner has never been in this dimension. The compass is not pointing anywhere and says so.

The compass needle spins in the Nether and the End in vanilla no matter what it is targeting. That is why the distance and direction are also written on your action bar — in those dimensions the text is the reliable channel, not the needle.

Runners are told how many hunters are tracking them, and get a sound cue when one gets close.

Settings

Everything is in Settings on the panel, and it persists. The ones that change the game most:

What it does not do

• Change any gamerule without being asked. keepInventory is yours; only instant respawn is touched, and only if you turn it on — it is saved and restored.
• Touch your items. The only item it manages is the hunters' tracking compass, matched by its own tag, so a compass you crafted is never destroyed.
• Force-load a single chunk, or create a single entity. There is nothing to leave behind if the server dies mid-match.
• Regenerate the world between matches. Reset restores pack state, not world state — blocks you broke stay broken.
• Prevent anyone from reading coordinates off F3. Manhunt has always been trust-based.

Rough edges

Known, and worth hearing before you run this for other people:

• The panel needs operator permission. Players reach their own controls fine, but match control cannot yet be handed to a trusted non-op. Every panel button also asks for confirmation on a second screen, which is the same cause.
• The settings screen is taller than the window at some GUI scales; scroll to reach Apply.
• Custom dimensions are ignored — the pack knows the Overworld, the Nether and the End.
• One match per server.
• There is no uninstall function yet. Deleting the folder is safe and leaves nothing running, but the scoreboard objectives and teams it created stay until you remove them by hand.

Credits

Created by Rogal.

The original 1.21.1 manhunts prototype informed two techniques carried into this build: per-dimension last-known-position tracking, and writing dynamic compass targets through a macro and the lodestone_tracker component. This is a new implementation, not a port.