I just start creating drama or create a personality or storyline based on how I have been playing. I think I am on the 6th generation of a family. The last generation I got super overwhelmed because I was trying to play each child (3) from the previous generation and their lives. The actual "heir" I didn't give a lot of time to. She wasn't interesting to me when she was younger because her older sister had a really bad relationship with their dad and their mom died when they were young. The older sister got kicked out and disinherited when she was a teenager, and her struggle to make ends meet with her farm and farmhouse were way more interesting. She couldn't be the heir though because she wasn't living on the lot and I wanted to keep the family house, so I had the younger sister be the heir. She developed the irresponsible trait, so I couldn't get her a job. At this point, the family (who has roots as a crime family) had slowly lost the fortune their founder and first three heirs had made. Their "property taxes" were too high and they were only staying alive because the current heir (father of the irresponsible girl) was a hall of famer. After he died, she made ends meet by writing books. Since I was playing both her siblings households too, I kind of just had her get married and have a kid and didn't play them. By the time her son was a teen they had no relationship and barely any family pictures, so now in my story he didn't have a very happy childhood. Now he is my current main character because all his cousins are boring haha. So now I am trying to create a good storyline for him.
ANYWAYS TLDR. If you stray from your main heirs, it's still fun to play other people in the family until you get inspiration! I just like to make up stories that don't always translate in the game but in my mind there is a lot more going on!
