BetterDeathMessages

Death messages your server reads out loud

BetterDeathMessages is a free plugin for Paper and Spigot, from 1.17 to 26.x, that replaces vanilla death messages with 113 hand-written ones, sorted by cause of death and by mob. It also announces kill streaks, first blood and the first death of the day, and can quote what the victim said in chat just before they died.

How it works in play

Death messages: 18 causes (falls, lava, fire, drowning, the void, explosions, freezing, lightning, starvation and more) and 42 mobs with their own lines. Each cause has several messages and one is picked at random.
Last words: the victim's last public chat message from the previous 60 seconds can be quoted in the death message. Private messages and whispers are never used.
Kill streaks: announced at 3, 5, 10 and 20 kills. You choose the milestones.
First blood and first death: the first PvP kill of the day and the first player to die each day get their own broadcast.
Stats on hover: PvP, Wither and Ender Dragon deaths show the victim's deaths, kills, KDR and longest streak when you hover the message.

Writing your own messages

Every message is in lang/en.yml, in MiniMessage, so you can use colours, gradients and hover text. You can put these tokens in any message: {player}, {killer}, {weapon}, {mob}, {distance}, {x} {y} {z}, {biome}, {dimension}, {last_words} and, with Vault installed, {inventory_value}.

How to use it

Install: drop the jar into /plugins and restart once. Vanilla death messages are replaced straight away. English is the default; set language: es for Spanish.
Choose what's announced in config.yml: streak milestones, first blood, first death of the day, which deaths show stats on hover, and whether messages go to the whole server or only to players within a set range.
Death sound: players within 50 blocks hear a sound when someone dies. Sound, range, volume and pitch are configurable, or turn it off.
Apply changes with /bdm reload.

Commands and permissions

Everyone (bdm.use): /deaths [player] for deaths, kills, KDR and streaks, and /deaths top [killers|deaths] [page] for the leaderboards.
Operators (bdm.admin): /bdm reload.

Placeholders

With PlaceholderAPI installed: %bdm_deaths_total%, %bdm_kills%, %bdm_kdr% and %bdm_killstreak%.

Requirements

Paper or Spigot from 1.17 to 26.x, forks like Purpur included, on the Java version your server already uses.
Optional: PlaceholderAPI (placeholders) and Vault (the {inventory_value} token).

Neither is required. Without them the placeholders aren't registered and {inventory_value} shows 0. The plugin never refuses to start because an optional plugin is missing.

FAQ

Do stats survive a restart?
Yes. Deaths, kills and streaks are saved per player.

Can I keep death messages local?
Yes. Set a broadcast radius and only players within that many blocks in the same world see them.

How do I add last words to more messages?
Put {last_words} in any message in lang/en.yml. The default PvP set already has one.

Can I translate the messages?
Yes. English and Spanish are included, with 113 messages each, and missing keys fall back to English.

For questions or bug reports, use the discussion tab on this page or our Discord.