How Much Personality Do You Give Your Sims?

@Sindocat That is so interesting. Thank you for sharing that. I love the concept of discovering who your sims are.

I give my played Sims a bit of backstory to start with, then I play them as closely to their aspirations and traits as I can. I use a lot of imagination, my Sims are like a "soap opera" cause I eventually add their friends into my rotation too. I'm pretty micromanagey, but I do " try" to give them a little leeway to act on their own, to keep things spontaneous.

idk i think its like

25% CAS
25% House
25% Uncontrollable stuff
25% Random inspiration

how i choose what the sim is gonna be

like example:

CAS - Pretty sim -> possibly occult -> possibly immortal all knowing goddess

House - a castle cause she fancy, ah yeah she loves the color blue because this blue carpet is pretty and i want to use it everywhere

uncontrollable - shit vlad came over for a drink is he a bae or arch enemy

random inspiration -aight she is gonna have 100 husbands and feed them all to cowplant starting with vlad


and so on
i just make it as i go and traits are often rather basic

Most of their personalities simply lie within my thoughts. I like to have a backstory in my head when I'm making a sim, and I try to make the traits and appearance fit that story as much as I can. But in-game, I don't really go out of my way to play out a story or to be true to a sim's "personality." I just kind of do whatever.

i use the in-game features (traits, aspirations, clothes) and my imagination to create a sim's personality. everything i do with them has to fit into their personality in one way or another, otherwise they won't do it. if the sim was born in-game, a lot of their personality gets developed during childhood. if i feel a sim's personality is a little one dimensional, i'll give them a new skill to take on as theirs to conquer.
for example, i had a sim named Roxana who was very typically feminine. she wore lots of makeup and girly clothes. but i didn't have anything for her to do. so, on a whim, i decided to get her into video gaming and programming. she ended up maxing both skills and completing the computer whiz aspiration. when i started with her i never would've thought that's where she'd end up

specific example: i had a sim named Kenzie that i raised from a baby (she died from old age yesterday, rip. also she was Roxana's daughter). her traits were slob, self assured and music lover. i decided on these traits during her childhood. i chose self assured because she had confident decor in her room and was therefore confident a lot. i chose music lover because the stereo was always on when she was a kid and i figured music would therefore be an important factor in the rest of her life. i don't remember why i chose slob, but i'm sure there was a reason.
her initial aspiration was joke star, just because she seemed like a happy-go-lucky, fun sim and it seemed to suit her. when she completed the joke star aspiration, she moved on to musical genius because of her music lover trait. everything always comes full circle

sim personality deciding can go 1 of 3 ways for me:

• the way it went for Roxana: she had only a basic personality from traits and CAS but no real hobbies so i gave her one on a whim which then became the dominating factor in her life
  
• the way it went for her daughter Kenzie: the personality slowly developed during childhood, one trait at a time as she got older
  
• the way it's going currently for Kenzie's grandson Zaiden (so Roxana's great-grandson... my brain hurts): one little thing, no matter what it was, inspired me so much that by the time he was a toddler i already knew everything about him and what he'll become
  

while the in-game personality features are lacking, it doesn't bother me too much because my imagination always comes in clutch

"QueenofMyshuno;d-967317" wrote:
How much personality do you give your sims within and outside of the game's limits? And how do you do it?

For example, things within the game limits would be assigning traits and hobbies or getting reward traits, either by earning them or using a cheat. Things outside of the game limits would be using your imagination while you're playing to pretend like they have different motives, needs, goals, etc.; using poses and screenshots, or writing stories about them.

To give you an idea of what I'm asking, I'll tell you how I go about it. I like all of my sims to have some sort of defining hobby or concern that may or may not be part of the game-assigned personality. Like so:

Fidelia: Her defning quality is that she is a heterosexual girl who does not especially like frilly or feminine things. From there, I decided her hobby would need to be rock collecting. From there, I decided she would be adventurous, which will affect the man she marries, as I will probably have her marry an adventurous man.

Ulysses Meryweather: His defining concern is that he is afraid that his son is gay. (My game takes place in a time when men could be executed for being homosexual, so it's a big concern for him.) This leads to Ulysses' personality being very conforming to the ideals of masculinity of the society he's in, to him snooping around his son's room, to him being in a bad mood a lot because he's worrying so much, and to some funny moments where he's trying to ask his son about his preference without actually coming out and asking him.

I use stories or blog posts to fill in details about their personalities and what they're doing. I also like to take screenshots and build stories off of them that may not pertain to what they were actually doing at the time. Like if they have a certain facial expression, I might make the story out to say they were thinking a certain thing that doesn't match their actual emotional state in game.

Please tell me about how you give your own sims personalities, or if you don't give them any added personality beyond what the game assigns. Examples of specific sims welcome. Screenshots also welcome.

I have similar 'head canons' about my Sims. A techie Sim is generally not going to be into herbalism. Indiana Primley, the Sim who was tasked with finding all the collectibles from IL, wasn't going to wear short skirts.

I always have my toddlers talk about their favourite colours and animals. That inspires me when I go into CAS and decorate their rooms when they age up - a tot who likes butterflies and the colour green will get lots of butterflies and green. (My current tot, in my RoM save, likes orange and snakes. She's not getting either one.)

Actually, speaking of headcanons, I just realised that I'm referring to my toddler as a girl, but she's a boy. I wanted a girl, and had her mother listen to loads of pop (we couldn't find any strawberries), but a boy it was. I've been giving her longer hair and using those non-gender wrap skirts from IL - she's obviously headed in a non-binary direction. I think she'll get a little more boy-girl balanced once she hits her teens, and I'll start thinking of her more as a boy. (Hormones, you know.)

@invisiblgirl
i love the idea of having toddlers talk about their favourite colours and animals. i never thought of it before. i'm gonna start using that if you don't mind ;)

i've got over 200 sims with their own unique personalities and quirks. Due to the limitations on traits ans aspirations, i can't fill out the characters the way i like so i'm left with what is there in the base game. All of them are based right off the base game.

A few notable character i have, and i'll try to be broad about it:

Tobias Lancaster: Very cheerful, will chat with anyone and always be positive about, he is a bodybuilder. He is completely hetrosexual and has a great desire for Summer Holiday because she ticks all his boxes, including being active and a happy cheerful spirit who doesn't mind chatting to everyone.

Gerard Tormen: He is a 4th generation product of incest, and like his sister, he is one of the lucky members of the family to have a father who isn't from within the family, even though he never married Gerard's mother, Alexandra. A lot of the Tormen family are inbred. Gerard is now old enough to follow his own path and he chooses his sister all the time as his preferred wife, so he is hetrosexual. Outside this, he is doesn't really care to socialise, but it doesn't mean he is shy about it.

Devin Ganton: Devin has a toddler son who is starting to show the same types of behaviours found in Devin. Devin was a part of a motorcycle gang, peddling blackmarket stuff, illegal goods as well as influence to other gangs and against local law enforcement. Devin was on a shipment to a friendly gang across state lines when his gang was taken down hard by law enforcement, a lot of cops and gang members were killed in a shootout, but some survived and got locked up, none of them were part of the inner circle. Devin was the only member of the inner circle of leadership to not of been caught. Devin found out and sold the shipment for himself and then fled with his son across the world. Devin's wife was murdered by Devin when she attempted to turn her husband in, no longer fearing retribution from a gang that no longer exists. Devin for the most part is just pure evil when any siims gets to know him.


Jasmine Calipsa: A foreign girl to new lands. Jasmine is a cheerful spirit who enjoys being creative about everything she does, from cooking meals, to playing the piano all the way to writing books, which is her preferred desire in a career and hobby means. Being Hetrosexual, Jasmine isn't as tightly wound as other young women, she prefers an honest decent guy who has a love for life.

Sandra Matthews: She is a loner, she prefers being that way. all she cares about is making a life for herself and she is extremely controlling about it. Every detail in her life is carefully gone over by her and events in the future as well, an example would be when she plans to have children and the setting she plans to raise them in, getting all the kit needed, a place for the child, the whole works. Sandra is no geek, but she is a bit strange as a sim when other sims get to know her. She'll never accept to a relationship or marriage, but she will accept to the occasional woowho with a random guy so she can have her children, but then she will do everything to keep that guy from knowing anything more.

Cassandra Foster: Cassandra for as long as she can remember has always been homosexual, she seeks other women to spend her time with. Despite that point in her preferences, Cassandra is a no-nonsense sim who wants direct results to inaction, while not overly controlling, she does make a point of steering the direction of things if they do go off track. Cassandra is a business woman.


I could name every sim and their personalities. but in effect those are from the bullet point summaries of those sims i do have stored.

I give them a light backstory plus the most fitting traits and look to where it develops

Ivan Ivanovic, who was my first Sim ever in the Sims 4: He immigrated from some opressed country to "Sim City" after his parents died in an accident (or was it?) dreaming of living a better life. He rented the smallest suburban house he could find in Willow Creek and started off as a dish washer.
Being a total stranger to this country and his society but trying to fit in, he first got the traits loner, ambitious, and self assured.
He ended up meeting and marrying Liberty Lee (totaly went for her first name, and loving that she's such a goofball) and having the Twins Ivan Jr. and Ivana (both a little spoiled brats) and making career as an author (first for bad action movies, later for historic war documentations)

Dexter Bleak: I pictured him coming from a small village in the countryside, smarter than is good for him (probably being bullied for it at school) wanting to start off as a scientist right after university (happy to leave the backwater town, and his frustratingly simple parents behind)
He got the traits Genius, Geek - and Evil. (he just despises people for "getting bullied all the time because he's smarter than them - or calling him egghead.")
Somewhere along his career the Game made him meet a flirty, almost clingy alien female, who got pregnant and made him move into a house with a white fence, flowerbeds and everything else that yells happy little family (except the small secret basement laboratory behind double steel doors, where he can get some evil genius peace).

in the past I could only play live mode sims for so long before i became sooooo bored. i dont think anything i did ever gave them personaliy and the kids dont act diffflerently than adults. even trying to set up movie night turns into a mess because some sit some stand some finish eating popcorn before the others are ready ugh.

then once i discovered pose player my sims lives changed. Using a combination of imagination, screenshots, slideshows, music, hair, clothes and a bit of live mode they all have their individual personalities. I don't write anything down because im already writing a novel. But in my head I create their back stories, while their personalies and wants/desires form naturally as I play with them.

and since I only use two main households apart from side characters they really feel like fully developed sim characters now and not Cardboard robots who never listen and play pc all day lol.
I would post screenshots if I ever learned how ugh.
But ever since I've been playing this way I just dont get enough of playing. I have to limit the hours I play. :D