"Big Brother: The Sims 4 Edition" Challenge, Explained
Hi all! So I've been playing the format of the TV series Big Brother in The Sims 4 for the past few weeks and have a pretty solid format down. I've spoken with other friends who play The Sims 4 who have been interested in how I do it all, so I thought I'd write something up and explain it out.
The Quick Notes
"What is Big Brother?"
Big Brother is a reality-competition television series where contestants ("houseguests") are locked in a house together and each week vote to evict one member of the house. There are many strategies to winning the game, but each contestant manages a few factors including their relationships with people in the house, alliances with other houseguests built on trust, performance in competitions, and managing their threat level.
Each week begins with a Head of Household competition. Whoever wins this becomes the Head of Household ("HOH"). If you are the HOH, you get a few unique privileges: you get exclusive access to your own private suite bedroom and bathroom; you are safe that week from being evicted; and you have the responsibility to "nominate" two houseguests for eviction (elimination and removal from the house/game).
If you are "Nominated" for eviction, then at the end of the week the rest of the houseguests will vote on who they want to see evicted from the house. The HOH and the two nominees do not get a vote, but the rest of the house must vote between the two nominee.
In the middle of the week, there is a "Power of Veto" (POV) competition. If you win the POV, you get a few perks: you are safe that week from being evicted and you have the ability to remove one nominee from the chopping block (including yourself). However, if the POV is used to save a nominee then the HOH must name a new nominee as their replacement.
This process continues week by week, with one houseguest being evicted at a time, until two remain standing. At this point, a "jury" of past houseguests return to cast their votes of which of the two nominees should win (always an odd number of jury members to assure no tie).
To survive to the end, many strategies are deployed. In the television series, this involves a lot of lying and deception, while maintaining positive relationships and alliances to protect you to the end as well as winning competitions and overall not being seen as a threat or target to anyone who could hold power. Big Brother is constantly playing 4D chess with human chess pieces.
The catchphrase of the series is "Expect the Unexpected" and it holds true in this format as things can change on a dime.
"How do you do Big Brother in The Sims?"
Well, I do exactly the format as above! As a sample, here is how one week may play out:
SUNDAY: Eviction Ceremony + Head of Household Competition
MONDAY: Head of Household Strategize
TUESDAY: Nomination Ceremony
WEDNESDAY: Nominees Strategize
THURSDAYS: Power of Veto Competition
FRIDAYS: Power of Veto Ceremony
SATURDAYS: Final Nominees Strategize
...and so and so forth.
What does this mean?
Head of Household Competition: The winner of this competition becomes the Head of Household and gets a private bedroom and bathroom with door locked exclusively to them and any guests they want to give access to. They are also immune from being nominated or elimination that week, as they choose the nominees for eviction instead. It is worth noting that if you win HOH one week, you are NOT eligible to compete in the HOH competition the following week (except for when it is the Final 3 HOH). I'll detail some competition samples and how they may run further below.
Head of Household Strategize: The day after the HOH Competition, I have the HOH start to decide who they should nominate for eviction. They should always nominate who is best to evict for THEIR individual game and strategy. Who is a threat to them? Who is a threat to their alliance? What are the repercussions of nominating someone? Could this plan backfire? Could your choices make you a larger target and put you up for nomination next week? There is a lot consider when making the choice. Factors to include are your alliances, your trust or relationship levels, and how well the other houseguests do in competitions. Again: This challenge format involves a strong mix of roleplay and strategy.
Nomination Ceremony: At the nomination ceremony, all the houseguests gather around as the HOH announces their two nominees. This is a short and simple ceremony.
Nominees Strategize: During this phase, after nominees are first announced, they need to work relationships in the house to build up trust and do what they can to save themselves. They are essentially campaigning against the other person nominated or campaigning to have allies in the upcoming Power of Veto competition so that the POV may be used on them. They may already have allies in this or may be locked out of an alliance pulling the strings—many situations can happen here. Once again, this phase involves a strong mix of roleplay and strategy.
Power of Veto Competition: The winner of this competition earns the Power of Veto. I'll detail some competition samples and how they may run further below.
Power of Veto Ceremony: Everyone in the house gathers for the POV winner to make their decision. They get the option to save one person from nomination—but they do not need to use it. For example, if you are the HOH or their ally, you may choose not to use it as to not interfere with the current plans or target. Or you may use it to shift your target. You may choose not to you use it as to not expose one of your alliances. This again requires a mix of roleplay and strategy. They can use it on themselves if they were a nominee, in which case they of course would or should use it as it comes with a guaranteed safety for the week. After this point, the Head of Household chooses a replacement nominee.
Final Nominees Strategize: After the POV Ceremony, the final nominations are locked in and one of the two nominees WILL be evicted that week based on a vote from the rest of the houseguests. This is their last opportunity to flip votes in their favor.
Eviction Ceremony: In this ceremony, all houseguests gather around again. All houseguests EXCEPT for the two nominees and the HOH get to cast a vote. The HOH only casts a vote in the event of a tie. Votes take place anonymously in a private room that they are called into one by one. Each houseguest should once again vote for their own individual best game. If they know the house is voting one way, should they vote with the house or against it? Are they voting independently or as a voting block as part of an alliance? Are they voting out a threat or an asset? A friend or a foe? If they vote to keep one person and eliminate another, will the one who remains target them next week? What is their best move to make it to end of the game? Once again, this phase involves a strong mix of roleplay and strategy.
The trick to fun is not playing favorites and always play to the individual houseguest's best strategy. Things can change. Competition results can be surprising. You may have a favorite houseguest, but their enemy may win the HOH and it would be the HOH's best interest to see your favorite contestant eliminated. This can happen and adds to the fun of the game.
So what The Sims 4 features are used?
The entire game is simulated in The Sims, of course. Some features I utilize heavily to determine this is:
Relationship Meters for TRUST: I use relationships to signify a level of trust in between two houseguests. Trust can only get you so far, but factors into nominations and voting to some extent. Romance can be a big part of it as well—if houseguests are in a romantic relationship they are likely to be loyal to each other. But if their relationship is known to others, it may make them a target. Romances in Big Brother can be both a useful strategy or a weakness.
Clubs Feature (from Get Together) for ALLIANCES: Get Together is not required really, but I use it for the formation of alliances. If I see a cluster of friends that might be best working together, I'll have them form an alliance with the clubs feature. Houseguests may be in multiple alliances and eventually may have to betray one alliance for another, or for their best individual game.
Skills for COMPETITIONS: While in the house, I keep Sims pretty limited on what skills they can work on. They have a chessboard for Fun need which also gives them Logic skill. They also have gym equipment and a swimming pool which gives them Fitness skill. Finally, they need to eat, so they get Cooking and potentially Gourmet Cooking skill from that. These MAY or MAY NOT factor into competitions. And how well a Sim does in a competition can mark as a "threat" (if performs well and not in alliance or strong trust) or an "asset" (if performs well and in alliance or strong trust). If you don't perform well, you may be a coaster not on the radar and thus a small target likely to be safe, or may be nominated because you're a weak link.
Autonomy should be on at all times EXCEPT for Ceremonies and Competitions. This is so that Sims can autonomously build relationships in the background even if you're focusing on just a select few at a time. During ceremonies and competitions, you want to have full control so they don't just wander away from what they are supposed to be doing.
Additionally, if you cheat for motives that is fine—however you should at least have motive decay enabled during certain competitions. More on that just below.
How do Competitions Work?
There's a variety of competitions to play out that I'll detail here. I typically have an entire "season"/runthrough of the challenge planned out as far as competition order in advance. There should be a mix of physical, mental, creative, luck, and "endurance" related challenges.
Some examples (and please, suggest more!)::
In addition to keeping track of the WINNER, keep track of the rankings for EACH contestant including the bottom place losers. This helps identify the weakest links. I often use a spreadsheet to keep track of each contestant's ranking in each competition and average that out to an overall score so that it is known who is the biggest or lowest threat in competitions.
How Do I Keep Track of This?
Between each week of the competition, what challenges happened in the past, who won, who lost, who nominated who, who voted for who, etc...there is a lot to keep track of! I use a spreadsheet to keep track of it, which I molded from the Wikipedia pages on individual seasons of Big Brother. A sample is below and I will explain it below that.
https://i.imgur.com/sFn20Vn.png
Each column of this chart represents a different week of the competition. The chart should be read vertically, down the line of each column, which follows in line with how each week plays out chronologically.
At the top is the Head of Household Competitions. I choose these before I start and somewhat randomize the order, keeping in mind what's best for an even vs odd number of players or for many contestants vs a few. I also try to keep a balance between different skills, so it's not all physical challenges or all mental challenges and even throughout.
The Head of Household is then determined and their name is entered.
The "Punishment" line...this is OPTIONAL and doesn't really exist in typical Big Brother. The TV show has "Have Nots" which get a different bedroom where they sleep on cots and don't get to eat normal food. The Have Nots are chosen in different ways. In The Sims...I choose this as "Punishments" based on the lowest-performing contestants each week in the HOH competition. They sleep and cots and are responsible for cooking meals for the rest of the house (to alleviate the amount of people using kitchen).
Nominations line is where the original nominations are entered, pre-veto.
Veto Competition is listed the next line, once again chosen in advance.
The Veto Winner is then listed, based on who won the POV.
Then the Final Nominations are listed, should the POV winner use their power and the HOH name a replacement nominee.
Finally, each contestant then casts their vote to evict. Enter the name of their vote here. The evicted houseguest is then moved to the bottom.
Elsewhere in the spreadsheet outside the chart, I do keep notes on other things in the house—it's all entirely optional information. I do find it useful to keep a log of what each Jury Member feels by the time they are evicted since the game's relationship culling may lose that data, so keep a list of how they trust each contestant before their exit as that may factor into their final vote for winner.
TWISTS & VARIATIONS
So I've explained the BASIC format of how I do it. There's a lot of twists to add and Big Brother is always full of twists. These are all entirely OPTIONAL. Some twists you may try include:
Apologies for the length of this post—there's a lot of information and it might be a bit messy. I'll try to answer any questions and happy to talk more about what I do and how I do it!
The Quick Notes
- This challenge is simply adapting the format of the TV series (US version) and putting it into the format of The Sims 4. Some knowledge of the format of the TV show is encouraged, but I will do the best to explain it otherwise.
- The format is a bit complicated. I do suggest that when playing, use a spreadsheet or something to take notes on what has happened.
- The gameplay is a mix of strategy and roleplaying.
- No mods are required. However, I do use a mod to have more than 8 Sims per household (I use 12 players). If you do not have a mod that does this, you can still do it with just 8 Sims in the house.
"What is Big Brother?"
Big Brother is a reality-competition television series where contestants ("houseguests") are locked in a house together and each week vote to evict one member of the house. There are many strategies to winning the game, but each contestant manages a few factors including their relationships with people in the house, alliances with other houseguests built on trust, performance in competitions, and managing their threat level.
Each week begins with a Head of Household competition. Whoever wins this becomes the Head of Household ("HOH"). If you are the HOH, you get a few unique privileges: you get exclusive access to your own private suite bedroom and bathroom; you are safe that week from being evicted; and you have the responsibility to "nominate" two houseguests for eviction (elimination and removal from the house/game).
If you are "Nominated" for eviction, then at the end of the week the rest of the houseguests will vote on who they want to see evicted from the house. The HOH and the two nominees do not get a vote, but the rest of the house must vote between the two nominee.
In the middle of the week, there is a "Power of Veto" (POV) competition. If you win the POV, you get a few perks: you are safe that week from being evicted and you have the ability to remove one nominee from the chopping block (including yourself). However, if the POV is used to save a nominee then the HOH must name a new nominee as their replacement.
This process continues week by week, with one houseguest being evicted at a time, until two remain standing. At this point, a "jury" of past houseguests return to cast their votes of which of the two nominees should win (always an odd number of jury members to assure no tie).
To survive to the end, many strategies are deployed. In the television series, this involves a lot of lying and deception, while maintaining positive relationships and alliances to protect you to the end as well as winning competitions and overall not being seen as a threat or target to anyone who could hold power. Big Brother is constantly playing 4D chess with human chess pieces.
The catchphrase of the series is "Expect the Unexpected" and it holds true in this format as things can change on a dime.
"How do you do Big Brother in The Sims?"
Well, I do exactly the format as above! As a sample, here is how one week may play out:
SUNDAY: Eviction Ceremony + Head of Household Competition
MONDAY: Head of Household Strategize
TUESDAY: Nomination Ceremony
WEDNESDAY: Nominees Strategize
THURSDAYS: Power of Veto Competition
FRIDAYS: Power of Veto Ceremony
SATURDAYS: Final Nominees Strategize
...and so and so forth.
What does this mean?
Head of Household Competition: The winner of this competition becomes the Head of Household and gets a private bedroom and bathroom with door locked exclusively to them and any guests they want to give access to. They are also immune from being nominated or elimination that week, as they choose the nominees for eviction instead. It is worth noting that if you win HOH one week, you are NOT eligible to compete in the HOH competition the following week (except for when it is the Final 3 HOH). I'll detail some competition samples and how they may run further below.
Head of Household Strategize: The day after the HOH Competition, I have the HOH start to decide who they should nominate for eviction. They should always nominate who is best to evict for THEIR individual game and strategy. Who is a threat to them? Who is a threat to their alliance? What are the repercussions of nominating someone? Could this plan backfire? Could your choices make you a larger target and put you up for nomination next week? There is a lot consider when making the choice. Factors to include are your alliances, your trust or relationship levels, and how well the other houseguests do in competitions. Again: This challenge format involves a strong mix of roleplay and strategy.
Nomination Ceremony: At the nomination ceremony, all the houseguests gather around as the HOH announces their two nominees. This is a short and simple ceremony.
Nominees Strategize: During this phase, after nominees are first announced, they need to work relationships in the house to build up trust and do what they can to save themselves. They are essentially campaigning against the other person nominated or campaigning to have allies in the upcoming Power of Veto competition so that the POV may be used on them. They may already have allies in this or may be locked out of an alliance pulling the strings—many situations can happen here. Once again, this phase involves a strong mix of roleplay and strategy.
Power of Veto Competition: The winner of this competition earns the Power of Veto. I'll detail some competition samples and how they may run further below.
Power of Veto Ceremony: Everyone in the house gathers for the POV winner to make their decision. They get the option to save one person from nomination—but they do not need to use it. For example, if you are the HOH or their ally, you may choose not to use it as to not interfere with the current plans or target. Or you may use it to shift your target. You may choose not to you use it as to not expose one of your alliances. This again requires a mix of roleplay and strategy. They can use it on themselves if they were a nominee, in which case they of course would or should use it as it comes with a guaranteed safety for the week. After this point, the Head of Household chooses a replacement nominee.
Final Nominees Strategize: After the POV Ceremony, the final nominations are locked in and one of the two nominees WILL be evicted that week based on a vote from the rest of the houseguests. This is their last opportunity to flip votes in their favor.
Eviction Ceremony: In this ceremony, all houseguests gather around again. All houseguests EXCEPT for the two nominees and the HOH get to cast a vote. The HOH only casts a vote in the event of a tie. Votes take place anonymously in a private room that they are called into one by one. Each houseguest should once again vote for their own individual best game. If they know the house is voting one way, should they vote with the house or against it? Are they voting independently or as a voting block as part of an alliance? Are they voting out a threat or an asset? A friend or a foe? If they vote to keep one person and eliminate another, will the one who remains target them next week? What is their best move to make it to end of the game? Once again, this phase involves a strong mix of roleplay and strategy.
The trick to fun is not playing favorites and always play to the individual houseguest's best strategy. Things can change. Competition results can be surprising. You may have a favorite houseguest, but their enemy may win the HOH and it would be the HOH's best interest to see your favorite contestant eliminated. This can happen and adds to the fun of the game.
So what The Sims 4 features are used?
The entire game is simulated in The Sims, of course. Some features I utilize heavily to determine this is:
Relationship Meters for TRUST: I use relationships to signify a level of trust in between two houseguests. Trust can only get you so far, but factors into nominations and voting to some extent. Romance can be a big part of it as well—if houseguests are in a romantic relationship they are likely to be loyal to each other. But if their relationship is known to others, it may make them a target. Romances in Big Brother can be both a useful strategy or a weakness.
Clubs Feature (from Get Together) for ALLIANCES: Get Together is not required really, but I use it for the formation of alliances. If I see a cluster of friends that might be best working together, I'll have them form an alliance with the clubs feature. Houseguests may be in multiple alliances and eventually may have to betray one alliance for another, or for their best individual game.
Skills for COMPETITIONS: While in the house, I keep Sims pretty limited on what skills they can work on. They have a chessboard for Fun need which also gives them Logic skill. They also have gym equipment and a swimming pool which gives them Fitness skill. Finally, they need to eat, so they get Cooking and potentially Gourmet Cooking skill from that. These MAY or MAY NOT factor into competitions. And how well a Sim does in a competition can mark as a "threat" (if performs well and not in alliance or strong trust) or an "asset" (if performs well and in alliance or strong trust). If you don't perform well, you may be a coaster not on the radar and thus a small target likely to be safe, or may be nominated because you're a weak link.
Autonomy should be on at all times EXCEPT for Ceremonies and Competitions. This is so that Sims can autonomously build relationships in the background even if you're focusing on just a select few at a time. During ceremonies and competitions, you want to have full control so they don't just wander away from what they are supposed to be doing.
Additionally, if you cheat for motives that is fine—however you should at least have motive decay enabled during certain competitions. More on that just below.
How do Competitions Work?
There's a variety of competitions to play out that I'll detail here. I typically have an entire "season"/runthrough of the challenge planned out as far as competition order in advance. There should be a mix of physical, mental, creative, luck, and "endurance" related challenges.
Some examples (and please, suggest more!)::
- Tournaments: You can do tournaments to compete for many different types of challenges. For example using the card table you can have a poker tournament or a jenga tournament where the house is matched up into pairs of 1v1 and winner moves on to next round until only one winner remains. If you have the right packs required, some tournament options include: Poker, Jenga, Basketball, Chess, Bowling, Darts, Foosball, Horseshoe.
- Endurance: In these competitions, it's essentially "how long can I force a Sim to do this action for before they are too uncomfortable to continue on?" Is it torture? Like, maybe? But it's The Sims. Isn't that the point? It is important for these competitions to have motives enabled so that Sims can tire out—often how well they slept, how hungry they are, or their bladder are major factors in these competitions so let these be at different levels per contestant. Again, try not to pick favorites and have one contestant more ready than others. For example, one option may have everyone run on a treadmill and continue to hop back on the treadmill and push the limits until fatigued. The last one still on the treadmill wins. Another option may just be all the contestants sitting in a chair with autonomy off—they will stand up as their moods drop to pass out from exhaustion or to pee their pants. The last one still standing wins. Some example competitions include: sitting in the chair until mood drop, running on a treadmill until fatigue, yoga until fatigue, meditation until boredom or fatigue, ice skating or roller skating until fatigue, swimming until fatigue, dancing until fatigue, wall climbing until fatigue, or reading a skill book until fatigue.
- Secret Room: This one is simple. Have a hidden room in the house that has the door locked from the moment the contestants first enter the house. Then unlock the door. In the room should be a bathtub or a shower or something for their needs—but not a TV or radio or anything that satisfies a need otherwise not being met in the house. The first Sim to wander in to the room once the door is unlocked wins. (I usually keep this as a POV competition only.)
- Luck-Based Competitions: For these, it's typically the FutureCube or the Wishing Well. In FutureCube, each Sim shakes the FutureCube (magic 8-ball). If they get a positive result, they move on to next round. If they get a negative result, they take a seat. Repeat until only one Sim remains—if everyone gets negative, then everyone gets to try again to break the tie. For the Wishing Well (from Romantic Garden), everyone makes a $1 wish for happiness. Whoever has the MOST positive result wins (flip a coin if more than one winner). Do note with Wishing Well you might want a mod that stops emotional deaths as this can kill your Sim.
- Creative Value Challenges: In these challenges, I have Sims create objects and whoever produces the most $ value advances to next round. For example, all Sims will paint a large classical painting and the Sims with the lowest $ values are eliminated, the rest move on to next round. Then they paint a medium classical painting, then a small classical painting until a winner is selected. Or I may have all the Sims build a Horse Sculpture at the woodworking table for a few rounds. If they produce a Poor result, they are eliminated. Otherwise whoever has highest skill level or finishes 3 horses in the fastest time wins.
- Racing Competitions: You can do this with the swimming pool or skating rinks. Have the Sims swim laps or skate and count how many laps each individual Sim does until they get fatigued. Whoever does the MOST laps wins. It's advised to do this with only a few Sims as it can get easy to lose track of it all, even with notes.
- Studying: In this competition give all Sims a desk and a chair and a Skill Book for a skill that NONE OF THEM have any skill level in. It should all be the SAME skill. I typically do skill books for Rocket Science as it is pretty obscure otherwise. The Sims should read the skill book until their moods have dropped and they cannot read anymore. Whoever has the highest SKILL LEVEL wins.
- Wall Climbing: I find this a fun challenge—you can have them wall climb until fatigued, but also do the challenge mode to see if they can pass the challenge. Each Sim gets up to 5 tries per level of difficulty. Whoever can make it the furthest or with the best time wins.
In addition to keeping track of the WINNER, keep track of the rankings for EACH contestant including the bottom place losers. This helps identify the weakest links. I often use a spreadsheet to keep track of each contestant's ranking in each competition and average that out to an overall score so that it is known who is the biggest or lowest threat in competitions.
How Do I Keep Track of This?
Between each week of the competition, what challenges happened in the past, who won, who lost, who nominated who, who voted for who, etc...there is a lot to keep track of! I use a spreadsheet to keep track of it, which I molded from the Wikipedia pages on individual seasons of Big Brother. A sample is below and I will explain it below that.
https://i.imgur.com/sFn20Vn.png
Each column of this chart represents a different week of the competition. The chart should be read vertically, down the line of each column, which follows in line with how each week plays out chronologically.
At the top is the Head of Household Competitions. I choose these before I start and somewhat randomize the order, keeping in mind what's best for an even vs odd number of players or for many contestants vs a few. I also try to keep a balance between different skills, so it's not all physical challenges or all mental challenges and even throughout.
The Head of Household is then determined and their name is entered.
The "Punishment" line...this is OPTIONAL and doesn't really exist in typical Big Brother. The TV show has "Have Nots" which get a different bedroom where they sleep on cots and don't get to eat normal food. The Have Nots are chosen in different ways. In The Sims...I choose this as "Punishments" based on the lowest-performing contestants each week in the HOH competition. They sleep and cots and are responsible for cooking meals for the rest of the house (to alleviate the amount of people using kitchen).
Nominations line is where the original nominations are entered, pre-veto.
Veto Competition is listed the next line, once again chosen in advance.
The Veto Winner is then listed, based on who won the POV.
Then the Final Nominations are listed, should the POV winner use their power and the HOH name a replacement nominee.
Finally, each contestant then casts their vote to evict. Enter the name of their vote here. The evicted houseguest is then moved to the bottom.
Elsewhere in the spreadsheet outside the chart, I do keep notes on other things in the house—it's all entirely optional information. I do find it useful to keep a log of what each Jury Member feels by the time they are evicted since the game's relationship culling may lose that data, so keep a list of how they trust each contestant before their exit as that may factor into their final vote for winner.
TWISTS & VARIATIONS
So I've explained the BASIC format of how I do it. There's a lot of twists to add and Big Brother is always full of twists. These are all entirely OPTIONAL. Some twists you may try include:
- Battle-Back: As seen in the above chart, two houseguests who were previously evicted made their way back. I tend to do this twice per season—first once after the first four houseguests are evicted, then a chance for the next four eliminations to return. They compete in a separate version of the HOH competition before the others compete to win their way back. Then the winner re-enters the game and joins the rest of the HOH competition.
- Vote Back: Similar to above, rather than competing for their way back, the rest of the house votes for who they want to see return. Just like other votes, this should be a strategy decision. Will they pick a competition powerhouse who will win challenges for them? Or would that backfire as a threat? Should they pick their closest friend? Or should they pick the weakest link who they can most easily work to see evicted the next week?
- Couples: I've done one season where all twelve houseguests were entering the house as six couples—thus, their alliances for the final two were made clear to everyone and they had to work double-time to save themselves and their partner from eviction.
- Diamond Power of Veto: In advance, select one POV competition that season to be for the Diamond Power of Veto. This is a special veto where they not ONLY get to choose a nominee to be safe including themselves, but they ALSO get to choose the replacement nominee instead of the HOH's choice. For example, this could be used to nominate your target instead of the HOH's, or nominate the HOH's closest ally in a week where they don't have a chance to vote to protect them as HOH.
- ...and many more! I'm always trying new twists. The TV series has done so many and it's worth looking in the history of the show to figure it out.
Apologies for the length of this post—there's a lot of information and it might be a bit messy. I'll try to answer any questions and happy to talk more about what I do and how I do it!
