Thanks for your report.
To be on the safe side.
If the Gameplay settings had remained at their default settings, it would have looked like the image below.
If you don't want pre-made NPCs to become ghosts, be sure to uncheck "Auto Age (Unplayed Households)".
Also, if you don't want to set the neighborhood story settings individually, uncheck this.
By toggling off the Neighborhood Story settings, the behavior before the system was introduced will be performed.
AHQ also posts a lot of information about neighborhood stories, so if you're interested, you can search AHQ for "Neighborhood Stories."
It would be great if you could get good results.
I had a Sim that was alive and is in a played household but recently showed up as a ghost. She did not turn back until gave her vitality nectar and she was fine. I think she drank the Spectral drink and that’s what did it.
