Trodden

The ground remembers where players walk.

Grass that people keep walking on turns to coarse dirt, then to a dirt path. A finished path gives a small speed boost. If nobody uses a path, it slowly grows back into grass. Nobody builds these trails. They show up where people actually go.

What it does

• Trampling. Grass, then coarse dirt, then a path, after a set number of steps. You set the thresholds.
• Regrowth. Abandoned paths go back to coarse dirt, then to grass.
• Stone aging. Stone grows moss near water or in rain and cracks near lava. A brush cleans it.
• Leaf litter. In autumn, leaves pile up on the ground under trees.
• Mud. Dirt paths turn to mud in the rain and dry out again.
• Snow tracks. Snow keeps footprints.
• Mounts. Horses, donkeys, mules and camels wear the ground too.

Each part can be switched on or off in config.yml.

Claims

Trodden never changes ground in a claim unless its owner allows it. Players switch trampling on or off in their own claim with /paths on|off|state.

Plugin	Status
HuskClaims	Tested on a live server
WorldGuard, GriefPrevention, Lands, Towny	Supported, not yet tested live (beta)

With no claims plugin installed, wear applies everywhere.

No world scans

Trodden never scans the world. It only reacts to player steps, to a few random spots near online players (the same idea as vanilla random ticks), and to blocks it changed itself, and only in chunks that are already loaded. That makes it safe for small servers and hosts with tight memory.

Languages

English, Ukrainian, German, Spanish, French, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified).

The language follows each player's client locale. You can override any text with your own file in plugins/Trodden/lang/.

Supported versions

One jar runs on Paper 1.21.4 through 26.3, on Java 21 or newer. Paper forks such as Purpur should work, but only Paper is tested. Every release is checked automatically: it compiles against each Paper API line and boots on a real server of each version.

Autumn leaf litter needs 1.21.5 or newer. On 1.21.4 that one feature turns itself off.

Commands and permissions

Command	Permission	Default
/paths on|off|state (aliases /стежки, /stezhky)	trodden.use	everyone
Toggle trampling in other players' and admin claims	trodden.admin	op

Origin

Trodden was built for Matsuri, a Ukrainian Minecraft server with Java and Bedrock players, and has run there with real players since September 2026.

Source code (MIT): https://github.com/ThatHunky/trodden