I play pretty realistic, but I also delve into fantasy if the game throws it my way. For example, one of my teens rolled something to do with occults for his trait when he aged to teen. So now he's going to dabble in it and maybe even discover a whole new world depending on how deep he goes. I'm not opposed to occults being in the game, but they're definitely not part of my main game, as in, only sims who seek it know about it. The others are always clueless and usually think of those occult sims as weirdos.
I definitely don't use cheats or potions or money trees or anything that would not be available in real life. Most of my sims have ordinary jobs, they cannot progress in their careers past a certain level unless they have the appropriate degree, they have to actually go shopping for things like groceries, etc.