CAS ideas: how do you flesh out your adult sims?

Except for partners and future love interests all of my playable Sims are born in game.

When creating a future love interest or partner I usually create a sim who's someone compatible with the intended sim. 

I never use story mode. I prefer to play that sim for a while, get to know them before assigning an aspiration or career.

I like to micro manage my Sims and their storylines XD

I like to give/to do the freerealestate cheat, but no money cheats (unless removing money). Unless a senior (and even then mostly not), I really don't like giving them a leg up on skills.

My go-tos to make Sims more fleshed out/unique Sims is usually 2 things. 1) I'll add a handful reward traits to give them an edge (or add character) before grinding out skills, careers or aspirations. 2)  Locking skills (with a skill lock mod) to match their persona.

There are still plenty of aspirations to do for a stereotyped type characters—even if with the reward trait advantages. Usually, it is nice to play a Sim in a test playthrough first to see if the traits, skills and playstyle works for me and the Sim. 

Keeping certain Sims without certain skills is just nice that they don't all eventually excel at everything—are just more satisfying at what they do excel at.

Pretty much the same as simgirl1010​ 
Before I introduce them to the intended sim, I play them in a separate save. I work on skills, career to a decent level and work on their likes and dislikes by how it's going for them. No money cheats cause I like the struggle at the start .
I don't use story mode mainly because one time I've seen it ask something about liking pets iirc, and despite saying no it gave the sim the cat lover trait. So just cause of that, I can't trust it make a sim for me. 

Both of my current save are Simlit stories so I don't use story mode for creating sims. My stories are a mix of gameplay influencing what I write and using my game to stage screenshots for storylines I've written in advance.

A lot of what I do in CAS depends on whether they're going to be an important character or just an extra. If they're a main character I already have a good idea what traits, jobs, etc I want them to have. If they're going to be an extra I won't be playing that household so I just give them generic traits and just pick a random aspiration. I have a mod that gives each new household 100K, plus 15K, for each additional sim. I like it since I can put new characters into whatever lot I want, within reason. It saves time and extra steps.

For main characters I usually furnish their homes with decent appliances and furniture. Stuff that's good enough that they're not constantly having negative moodlets because of bad food or a poorly decorated home. If their backstory makes sense for them to have the best of the best I give them those items. I'm a benevolent watcher, what can I say 😁 

I love all of this! It is nice to have bare bones sims that you create 100% of the story, I've done it like that for a long time. With the dynasties I feel there is a lot more room to "prebuild" older family members especially elders. I have one family of ranchers that are two elders, they've been on the ranch their whole lives so it make since that they would have maxed their skills in things associated with the ranch. However, for their young adult daughter I didn't really give her skills, just kind of took her from another save file cause I like her so she was already had skills from when I played her before.  Playing through with infants and hitting on the milestones gets you bonus skills  so it would make sense if some base skills were given to young adult sims as a "growing up" gain. I might lower it to a D4 though for young adults. 

I don't make many sims of my own and don't really use many cheats but I do often use freerealestate when moving in sims cause I mostly have the lots built before hand and don't care to do whole rags to riches with all my households 😅

Another thing I'm trying to do now that I'm starting new save is giving all the premade sims some likes, dislikes, totos, nails... and so forth as I go and restyle them

and eventually I would like to put some sims on correct careers like for example Don Lothario and Geoffrey Landgraab being on Doctor track so yeah for that I will be using skill/career cheats to get started cause to me its like they're meant to have those before I play them

Most of my grownups are actually born in-game, and by the time they grow up they will have a decent set of skills and normally also a direction for their future. I find it interesting that they come from a played family, it adds history and even a few relatives incl photos/paintings most of the time. When I creae a new adult sim in CAS I will focus more on making some facial features bold enough to be noticed when passed on to kids. It might be something as simple that mouth lowered, eyes a tad smaller, or other details. Combined with other quite normal features, they might get an interesting look without being too special. I also know base their outfits strictly on their preferred style and color etc. Oncew in game I might cheat them some basic skills, beause it would be silly having an adult sim building skills from scratch, some times I will give them skills reflecting a hobby. I rarely cheat them a better job, though, as I don't focus a lot on careers, but I might cheat them a university degree, mainly to say somehing about their personality and interests.

Most of my adults are born in game but if I make a love interest for someone, I don't use the story mode. I create their appearance first and then decide what traits I think they might have.  Like Simmerville​ I do try to make a facial feature that might be passed down genetically. I have a lot of sims with lavender eyes because that got passed down from a sim I created. I keep trying to get freckles, but that must not be that strong genetically.  I don't try to match the traits with the sim I am creating them for (mainly because I don't remember what that person's traits are and I'm too lazy to stop and go check). I don't give them any skills or money or degrees or likes or dislikes. I usually use the randomizer for a name until it stops on something I like or don't have someone already named that. And I don't do the free real estate unless I would have to for some reason. They will marry into money so they go in a small house to start out. 

Fun thread. Unless I have a specific idea I tend to open CAS and click the randomizer 3 times in all areas. That gives me a base sim. I sometimes just scrap the whole thing before I'm through. LOL. I will always start with free real estate. I will cheat money if I need to. I don't change any of the relationship stuff., just watch to see what the leanings are. Pets and kids are decided later on. I do tend to move people into the houses rather than the apts. Maybe I'll make a random bunch of sims for the apt  buildings.

It really depends on why I'm making the sim

If I'm running a pack test or other short term save, I'll generally start as the game intended - young adult sim, 20k simoleans, no skills.

If I'm starting what I plan to be a longer, more invovled legacy, I'll give my starting young adult sims what I like to call the "high school bundle" of skills - Charisma, Logic, Programming, Writing, Painting and Photography all at 2, and if it suits them, Acting, Archeology, and Selvadoradan Culture.  These are the skills that your sims will develop if you have High School Years and actively attend every day for all 15 days your sim teen would be going to school, though I think only Charisma, Logic, and Writing actually reach 2 if you don't work on them otherwise.  Without mods, I can't seem to cheat on a skill at level 1.

If I'm expanding family of either my own starter sim or an existing sim, I'll give them whatever skills, aspirations, and resources feel "right" for the storyline.

For premade sims, I usually don't change too much, as I only play with them if they end up joining my household for some reason, but I do have a long list of planned adjustments for my planned starter save (a very long list.)

For sims born in game, I usually try not to modify them too much, but if they logically should have higher skills (such as an adult with several kids via Neighborhood Stories) I'll sometimes cheat those on.