Do you create stock characters / custom NPCs/"townies"?

I made a sim self to begin the game, I was in a hurry to start the game, and am no artist, so it’s not very accurate, lol. I downloaded a few sims off the gallery to play as well as I like rotational play. I have seen very interesting sims on the gallery that I would love to use in my game, but so many simmers don’t want you reuploading their creations, that I have just decided to use my own creations after the initial downloads of the first year or so. I hate to put so much work into skilling, job promotions, and such, and then not be able to reupload my sims to the gallery in case something happens to my laptop. I began making a new family or so with most Expansion packs, and some game packs. I use a few premades, the Goths are my favorite premades as they go back to the beginning of the Sims 1. Mortimers parents have graves in his yard and Cassandra owns a Siamese cat like her Grandmothers cats. I also will take many townies into CAS and make them over. Some townies /premades will become part of my families. Some townies, I delete if I don’t like them. Some premades I will boot out of their homes, but I never actually delete premades that were put into houses that the sims team put into the game, I will just evict them if I need space. I play with aging off most of the time so my sims live long lives.

Yes, The majority are real life celebrities that I added from the gallery. I recently added some fictional TV sitcom characters like Steve Urkel from Family Matters and The Roper's from Three's Company. I wanted Mr. Roper to be apartment landlord.

I have another method: University Dormies.

I started making over dormies when we got Discover University because I wanted to make friends and love interests for my sims going through Uni. The given dormies were usually an odd bunch.
https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/f116/cireking213/09-16-21_9-02-08_AM.png?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds

https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/f116/cireking213/10-10-21_6-49-48_PM(1).png?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds

https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/f116/cireking213/10-16-21_6-39-46_PM.png?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds

I started hanging up pictures of the students in the dorms so I wouldn't forget them.
https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/f116/cireking213/09-17-21_8-41-06_PM(1).png?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds

When my sims graduated Uni, I found myself saving these dormies and placing them in homes in the various neighborhoods so my sims could continue their friendships and relationships with them, or pair up dormies and replace a few pre-mades. They are also good for starting a new save and trying out a scenario, or testing a new pack.

I’ve given Bella Goth much better makeover, changed her last name & deleted her family. She’s now a Time Traveller NPC.
I’ve also recently gave Kyle Kyleson a makeover, changed his last name & given him a long lost twin sister named Kyla. And yes they are also Time Traveller NPCs.
??

I have a few larger groups in my save, like employees at the royal palace, military leaders and the many politicians at People Chamber. These I always create because I need them for pictures and occasionally for story telling. So, I just save them to the library and move tem in temporarily whenever I need them. I often pick just a couple sims from a household at a time, though.

I suppose you could class my aunts and uncles from my mums side as stock characters in my current save. I originally created them to fill in gaps on the family tree so it would look complete. I do switch over to their households and play them from time to time.

I've done this so many times that I finally made a single save to put all those characters in together. I originally made a new household every time I bought new expansions, and placed some of my older households as background characters. My simself and my daughter's simself would pop up sometimes as well.

So many. I delete all the auto generated townies except my butler. My library is full of "old" Sims and their houses that I made/built or found in the gallery, and I'm always adding more. They fill all the townie/NPC roles and live in some of the houses.

Right now I have:
8 of the Urbz
Gabriel Green and Chastity Gere
Orion and Kestral Teens
Loki and Circi Beaker
The Singles
The Smiths
The Curious brothers
Benjamin Long
Christy Stratton
Abhijeet Deppiesse
Andrea Hogan
XY-XY and XHT-F
Armand and Tara DeBateau
Fanny Adore and Humphrey Hawk
Turk Johnshon, Phil Phantasm, and Jessie Rose
Goopy Gilscarbo (which is funny since I hated that there was a Sim called that in Sims 2)
Chantal Leer, Larry Liu, Candy Cupp
Olrando Centowski
Marylena Hamilton
Meadow Thayer
Kaylynn Langerak
Vera Vex
Genesis Lam
Remington Harris
Francis McCullough and Phoebe Adams
Kimberly and Samantha Cordial
Oberon Gossamer, Titania, Puck and Bottom (though I changed her name to Nic) Summerdream
Randy Hart and Paisley Rainbow
Vamsi Cormier
Brandi LeTourneau
Sandy Bruty
Marissa Bendett
Remington Jitmakusol
Cara Livingston
Hannah Bell and Issac Bell
Patrizio and Isabella Monty, Romeo and Mercutio Monty
Jon Smith, Jennicor, Jennail, Nylissit, Kiernan, Kvornan, Fricorith, and Gvaudoin Tricou
Goths (sort of a cross between the Sims 1&2 versions)
Morty, Stella, Sandra, and Xander Roth
Mary Sue, Daniel, Lilith, and Angela Pleasant
Rainelle Neengia
Nina and Dina Caliente
Don Lothario
Connor Weir and Geoff Rutherford
Felicity Usher and Ossie Madison
Brandy, Dustin, and Beau Broke (and she had her baby which the game named Joyce)
Mimi and Dudley Landgraab
Consort, Juliet, Hermia, and Tybalt Capp
Darren and Dirk Dreamer (I deleted the Dirk that came with a pack)
Olive Specter, Nervous Specter (neé Subject), and Ophelia whose-last-name-will-get-filtered, and the ghosts on their lot
As well as some literary and movie Sims I created and a few of the pre-made families that grew on me

And yes I totally just opened my game so I could look in my library.

@lisamwitt woah, that is a lot!

I keep copies of sims I've played and have them as NPCs if I'm no longer playing them.

I like to add sims from TS2 and TS3, but I don't have a huge amount, maybe about 10 of my fave households. I also added some TS4 EA families like The Climates, Keye and Simmons.

I wish we could stop the random townies from generating. I just spent ages deleting about 50 of the darn things (okay, that might be a slight exaggeration but not much lol)

My game seems to generate fewer townies now; when I opened it just now there were only 5. One of those is my butler. I think one is my gardener and one is a repairman I called. And I think one is my matriarch Sim's daughter's maid. That only leaves one that seems to be completely random. Maybe it just hasn't geared up quite yet and made more, but I'm hopeful it's because there are so many usable Sims in my "other households" now. I guess I'll have to keep an eye on that and see what happens...