Avoiding (ultimately) “cookie cutter” Sims…

I will say this - in Sims 2, I always had a "deviant" save. One where everything wasn't sunshine and rainbows, sims weren't always working at maxing skills or careers or legacy sims. I let them live out their aspirations, or had a black widow, or whatever floated my boat - but it was so much easier then. A mean sim was MEAN. Enemies galore, and often started fights whether I was playing them, or in the background of a community lot. A sim with a romance aspiration started trouble often, either by wooing the wrong person or wooing someone in full view of 5 other girl/boy friends. It was alive in a way that Sims 4 isn't.

It's a lot harder to do in Sims 4 - mean sims aren't mean, evil sims aren't all that evil, and almost no one starts fights even with sworn enemies. Flirting in front of your beloved means nothing. It's almost impossible to get away from sunshine and rainbows, unless you actively use your imagination. Which I'm not against using, but this is a game - I'd like mechanics to actual mean something as well, you know? Oh, this black widow just killed off her fourth husband, no one cares....and that is the tagline for Sims 4. No one cares.

I definitely autopilot toward happily ever after. Even with the way I always randomize traits, it's too easy to fall into success and happiness. This is a major reason why I play challenges so much, it forces me out of the groove. I was playing the Aspiration Legacy Challenge and I had a character who had to complete the Lone Wolf and Public Enemy aspirations. Very different from my default way of playing and I loved it, but it would never occur to me to make a character that goes around terrifying people otherwise.

@WildIrishBanshee your comments about Sims 2 and Sims 4 personality setting reminds me of an episode of Dr. Gluon I watched last year. He took one of his characters from the Sims 4 and recreated him in the Sims 2. The Sims 4 version was a bit of grump (i.e. Hot-Headed trait), so he set him to maximum mean, not realizing how strongly Sims 2 traits impact the game. It was hilarious.

"Eleri;c-18281699" wrote:
I definitely autopilot toward happily ever after. Even with the way I always randomize traits, it's too easy to fall into success and happiness. This is a major reason why I play challenges so much, it forces me out of the groove. I was playing the Aspiration Legacy Challenge and I had a character who had to complete the Lone Wolf and Public Enemy aspirations. Very different from my default way of playing and I loved it, but it would never occur to me to make a character that goes around terrifying people otherwise.

@WildIrishBanshee your comments about Sims 2 and Sims 4 personality setting reminds me of an episode of Dr. Gluon I watched last year. He took one of his characters from the Sims 4 and recreated him in the Sims 2. The Sims 4 version was a bit of grump (i.e. Hot-Headed trait), so he set him to maximum mean, not realizing how strongly Sims 2 traits impact the game. It was hilarious.

Can you link this video please? I'm curious to watch it ?.

I'll begin by saying I am a "happily ever after" kind of Simmer. I enjoy happy endings in general; there's very little that's dark or brooding about me. The fact I (re)discovered The Sims during the pandemic has undoubtedly added to my desire to have chill, stress-free Simworlds.

I like what @mightysprite said about making decisions that are true to the Sim I'm controlling. It's so easy to make the Sim I'm controlling into a Competent Man/Woman who can pretty much do anything and everything. My daughter and I will sometimes let a d20 decide what our Sim is going to do next. Things they like to do have a larger chance of happening than other things, and some activities aren't among the choices at all. That can stop the Sim's progress toward being a master of all things.

In our current save, a couple who are good friends with our lead Sim divorced, and one of the partners is now in a relationship with someone else. That's added an interesting element to the game, as our Sim is working out whether or not he'd like to remain friends with both halves of the former couple and what he thinks of the new pairing.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=3MOIrzLezc4
Here you go.

In the game I'm playing now in Strangervill. Roswell and his wife came to stay, (after a day, I sent them home) they were always fighting. My sim got dazed making a video game, she's broke and really needs the money. She's also clumsy , which adds comedy to her every day movements. Since I've added clumsy along with the social awkward trait she has a harder time. All my sims are neat so they can find the dirt and clean it.

I have a lot of Sims who are artists, and for a while I tried to do other things, but if I enjoy watching them paint and play the guitar, there's no reason not to let it happen. As for giving them happy, stable lives, plumbob yes I do. I've seen plenty of divorce and unemployment in Real Life™ so my Sims are going to do something different. They are different by being comfortable and happy. #Motherlode Lol.

I too tend to create the same happy sims life. If I ever start to get bored, I change things up by playing challenges, and I don't mean legacy challenges. I'll do simple ones like the asylum challenge, black widow, or big brother challenge. It pushes me out of my box and helps me try different things that I normally wouldn't do.

I'm not one to give game playing advice as my main focus is always world obsessively perfect save file/world building and because of this I have chronic restartitis.

However, as I download almost everything (with the exception of pre made makeovers, which I choose to do myself sometimes, all my sims and builds are downloaded from the gallery), I often find real inspiration in the builds and families I download in terms of storytelling.

Here's a recent example: I downloaded a messy apartment that PlumbobKingdom built using the basement kit heavily. I also had a three person family waiting in the wings that I'd downloaded. They have a Jewish surname, and the woman's traits include materialistic, so it gave me a fun idea for a story: this apartment has been passed down generation to generation since the family left Eastern Europe many years ago. They have it on permanent rent control, but the wife, who is married into the family, REALLY wants to move to a standalone property upstate (in my game, Upstate is Copperdale). The father is really attached to the apartment and has hoarded a bunch of keepsakes throughout the years. This has led to a lot of conflict and squabbling even though deep down the family loves each other.

Basically what I'm saying is that sometimes giving up some agency by downloading lots or families can act as inspiration or story prompts. Some very talented simmers that focus on CAS even have built in stories in their family descriptions that are full of drama. You can use that description as a starting point. You can go even further by downloading really dramatic save files. I plan to do this myself, I just am waiting for my two favorite save file builders to be "done" with their files.

@phantasmkiss You've peaked my curiosity. I don't think I've heard of Real Life™. Is it an MMO? Is it one of those things where you have to pay every month? Does it push you toward divorce and unemployment or are those just options you can pick if you feel your plot line isn't dramatic enough?