Put a "Stop Generating Random Townies" Button in the settings
Random townies in the sims are very annoying, i don't like ugly sims and it keeps crashing my game.
Forum Discussion
The "generate random NPC" would not be necessary if it the game was properly designed. If i have 200 unemployed sims already in my game, why does the game generate a new horrendous random NPC to fill a mixologist job? Why on earth does the game not use one of my hundreds of unemployed sims to do that job? If i already have 20 DJ NPC in my game, why does the game generate a new one every single time my sims go to a nightclub? Use one of the already existing sims! Random sims to hang out on bars?! Why!? I have 400 sims in my game, use some of those instead of generating more and more new useless horrendous NPCs!
It is a horrible lazy design, completely unnecessary if they had programed it well.
So, this is a known thing. The game needs random Sims to fill NPC jobs. There are roles that aren't playable jobs, and for whatever reason the game generates a new Sim for those nonplayable jobs rather than using, say, Bob Pancakes as your stall vendor. (Eliza seems to show up a lot in the science career in my saves, though, for some reason.)
There are a couple of things that people recommend, but they're all mods.
1. There's a mod that is behind a permanent paywall that people frequently recommend but I'm going to not do that because I've never used it--I don't use permanent paywall mods. You can find it if you want.
2. MC Command Center has a feature that imports random townies from your tray. I use this a lot, and semi-regularly go to the gallery and download cute Sims to spawn in as townies. This completely ignores their skills and traits, though; it just uses their appearance. This is mostly good enough for my purposes, as I just don't want a lot of hideous fashion disasters walking around my game. You can also go out of your way to download diverse Sims to put in your tray, and I highly recommend this as well. The game doesn't always do the best job of generating minority Sims, in my opinion.
3. Zero has a mod called "Assign NPC Role" and I've experimented with this. Once you do this you can't play them, of course, but it does work. I created Sims (well, tray Sims, see above) and assigned them NPC roles in the acting career, and when my actress showed up on set they were the director, producer, etc. Then I went to the park and my assigned gardener showed up to garden there. I mean, it's hilarious that Guillermo de la Cruz from What We Do in the Shadows always ends up the costume guy on set and Parker from Leverage always ends up the gardener, but... This might be more than you want to do, but I did it as part of setting up my starter save. It's really nice that the mother of one of my townie teens is an NPC gardener, and I enjoyed setting up a household with a Nanny mom and a DJ Headliner son...
Between 2 and 3, I'm mostly satisfied. If someone is generated in that's too hideous, I just delete them and let MCCC spawn in someone from my tray.
Sadly, for console players, I think you would have to just give fashion makeovers to all those Sims as they spawn in, yikes. ☹️
