I keep all of the sims I mentioned, including the mermaids and Father Winter, in My Households to protect them from being affected by the Neighborhood Stories. Right now, all told, I have around 25 NPCs in My Households. I've always kept them there, even before the Stories. And the reason is pretty simple why I started doing that years ago, to protect them from me and from the MCCC story progression when I was using that. Periodically, I will do an NPC purge and delete every sim in the Other tab of MH. That way I don't accidently delete those I want around forever when I do that. Purging the NPCs like that forces the game make new ones but depending of where I'm playing, it might take a while for the game to generate them. I started doing that because I wanted to find out if I could force the game to use my played sims for most of the walkbys, gym patrons, etc. (Not the bartenders, stall vendors, etc.). It's been partially successful but as the number of NPCs grows, the number my played sims I see out in the world when I go bowling, to bars, to the City Life festivals, etc. goes down and the NPCs sort of take over again. Then it's time for another purge. Although, with NS, I may not have to anymore since it keeps killing them off (I think they might have overdone that one a bit).
On the mermaids, under which tab you want to keep them is up to you. It all depends on what you want to do with them. I want to keep the original group in my game forever as they are. So, I made them immortal and flagged to not age. I keep them in My Households along with the rest of the NPCs that I want to keep forever. I let mine die off once and missed them so I brought them back and decided that's not going to happen again. While they were gone, the game did make new ones but I didn't like them (you know how awful looking some the game generated NPCs are, right? 😃) so I brought them back, gave them a makeover and I'm happy with that and intend to keep it that way.
On the Sages, I did makeovers on the ones that were added, what I call the 2nd shift Sages. If I see them out in one of the worlds, they are wearing what I gave them in CAS. But at Magic HQ, they always revert to what they were wearing when they were generated even though those outfits are no longer on them in CAS. The same goes for any NPC that gets generated when you are at Magic HQ. I think that's due to a change made after RoM was released. Originally, the game generated sims you saw at Magic HQ were dressed randomly using items from all packs and they just looked awful. Then there was a change a short time later that started giving them random hats which was just as bad. Another change and for the most part, NPCs you see there now are only wearing RoM CAS items for the most part. And if you see another playable Spellcaster there (which is rare now) being used as an NPC, they aren't wearing their assigned outfits either, just a randomly generated RoM outfit. My guess is that the last change forces all sims, except the active you are playing, to dress that way.
Like what happened for @xochiquetzl_xkvn MCCC story progression, when I had it active, grabbed Simeon and married him off and put him and his family on a lot. By the time I caught it, he'd already had 2 kids. So I had to undo that. Wasn't hard, just had to take the household to CAS, delete the wife and kids and them move him back to not in world in MH. Btw, I did forget one thing on the Sages but @xochiquetzl_xkvn mentioned it and jogged my memory. The Sages don't have jobs originally, but if you ask them about their career, the game will give them a random one. In Simeon's case (everything happens to him for some reason), the Simeon in my main save is a bartender. What surprises me is that he's the bartender in many of my bars all the time. And he's still a Sage and shows up at Magic HQ. I'm not going to mess with it since I want to keep him a Sage.
@xochiquetzl_xkvn Baby Ariel - you might be better off in that the game killed her off for you. She's been a problem since she got added because she has no last name and because she is a hidden sim, you can't normally edit her in CAS to fix it. She causes a lot of errors or at least she used to. I haven't seen a post concerning her for a while so it might have been fixed by now. Not sure though.
Hope this helps.
@CGrant56 Thank you for clarifying about where you keep the mermaids & Father Winter - Based on the info you provided, I plan on keeping them in My Households as well, just "not in world."
Periodic NPC purges sound like a good idea.
I have read a lot of complaints about the RoM Magic Realm situational outfit nightmare, and once I am done building my Save File, I plan on adding in a mod I found to try to help with that issue. I don't understand why EA thought situational outfits in the Magic Realm (or anywhere else, mind you) were a good idea. It seems like most players hate them, and their are countless mods to address the issue. I know MCCC has options to edit & control situational outfits, but unfortunately their isn't a category for RoM/The Magic Realm, so I had to look elsewhere.
It's interesting that asking a Sage about their job gives them some random job, but that they still keep their Sage role.
As to Baby Ariel, I've made her mortal with MCCC, but I didn't know that there had been issues with her due to how her name is structured. She does show up in the My Households tab, but I have not attempted to edit her yet.
Thanks again!
-AalyahReed
@AalyahReed You're certainly welcome!
Many people, including me, don't like a lot of the situational outfits very much just because of how mismatched they are a lot of the time and just look awful. It's been a complaint of many players since day one. I spend a lot of time and effort in CAS dressing my sims and I don't like it when they don't wear the clothes that I chose for them when they get used as NPCs in some circumstances. I just want them to look like I want them to look, that's all. And I want them to show up out in the world instead of the game constantly creating new NPCs for no other purpose than to serve as background sims. You can control it somewhat with MCCC by forcing sims to wear their own clothes for some things but not all like, as you said, the Sages and in the Magic Realm. Other places too.
The problems with Baby Ariel stems from the fact that she has no last name, only a first name. If you give her a last name, as far as I know, the problems go away. But she died in my main save a long time ago so it's not an issue for me and I don't intend to bring her back like I have other sims.
How we play the game is entirely up to us players. No two people play the game exactly the same way. Whatever works for one player, works for one player. Others do it differently and it works for them. I just described what I do just to let you know that what you were thinking about doing is possible and how to go about it if you haven't already figured out how to make it happen. So, I'm glad you think it's helpful.
Hope this helps.
Yeah, I also hate situational outfits. I recently installed Bienchen's mod to deal with them.
Without the mod:
1. Boy, what are you wearing? Because I've moved a family to Sulani (because the father graduated Uni and got a conservationist job), when I see the child in the world he's wearing a sarong with a mismatched open shirt. Okay, he lives there? but he just moved there, and also the color combo is UGLY and also it's just not the outfit I chose.
2. Girl, what are you wearing? My elegant classical musician is traipsing around town in a trucker hat, 70s unibrow shades, and mismatched clothing.
3. Mortimer Goth has been dressed as a hot dog for weeks... (because he was a walkby at GeekCon)
4. Boy, what are you wearing? The Sulani boy's older brother is wearing a durag and shades despite being kind of a farm boy. (We moved their chickens to Sulani, too.)
5. Girl, what are you wearing? It's summer, you can take off the Winterfest minidress and Santa hat...
@xochiquetzl_xkvn Mortimer Goth trapped in a hot dog suit - now that must be a sight!
Situational outfits are so frustrating! I'm going to try to control them as much as possible with MCCC, but I am aware of Bienchen's mods for situational outfits, too. I hope they work well for you! I use a lot of her other mods - I love how modular they are and how they offer so much customization over so many different aspects of the game (both features and bugs!)
Thanks again for answering my questions!
-AalyahReed
@CGrant56 I, too, spend a lot of time in CAS. Building this Base Custom Save, for example, I am editing every single Townie with 5 outfits in every category. It is going to take forever! And then I'm going to create my own characters, too, and do the same thing. And I know I will feel compelled to fix every random ridiculous Townie and NPC that the game spawns (although I will only give them 1 outfit in every category, I think). I don't understand why EA ever thought situational outfits were a good idea; like you said, they have been disliked by the community since day one! The whole point of this game is customization, and situational outfits completely go against the control most Sims players like to have over their game.
Thank you for answering my questions so thoroughly - it is very helpful! Happy Simming!
-AalyahReed
