Minecraft wiki entry for Multiplayer_PvP_bases, associated text: You've got your area—now it's time to secure it. There's three types of defenses: Active, Passive, and Hybrid. Active defenses actively try to kill any threats posed. This could be people in your faction defending against the attacking enemy, landmines, fall traps, arrow dispensers, etc. They are usually activated when a threat is within range and lay dormant when they are not. Passive defenses attempt to stop potential threats before they become threats. These usually are obstacles rather than deadly things. This might include iron doors, cobwebs, walls, stacks of gravel, and the location of your base if it is somewhere hard to get to. Sometimes active and passive defenses come together to form Hybrid defenses, which are, as you might have guessed, a combination of active and passive defense. This could be lava inside a wall to flow out when someone tries to dig through, checkerboarded holes with landmines inside, and many other creative combinations. When designing your defenses, strive to have mostly hybrid defenses, and have a good balance of active and passive defenses. A base with fully passive defenses will eventually be gotten through, and if your base has only active defenses it will be so easy to get into that the attrition of enemies will eventually exhaust your active defenses. This isn't to say that all your defenses should be hybrid, but most of them should be.