Is generational play a thing? It should be. Generational vs legacy

I think that's also what I am, but I did start with one sim, so I'm not really sure. I play all of her descendants on one-week (sim time) rotations, so that I can follow what everyone is doing and grow the family tree. I don't keep track of points or have rules, though, and I don't have a set goal of 10 generations or anything. So I've been referring to that save as my faux-legacy.

Sounds more like genetacy style - which is kind of a legacy, only everyone must be played. That's how I play too, though S4 is not always the best for it lol. Generational works too I suppose. :)

There's many ways to play a legacy game, it doesn't have to specifically be "10 generations" and you could start with more than one sim even, provided they are all part of a single household. There is, of course, the official unofficial "legacy challenge" ruleset, but a game can be a legacy playstyle without someone following the challenge rules. You will find some simmers that tell you that "you aren't playing legacy" if you don't follow the challenge ruleset...they are just being snobs.

The term legacy as a Sims playstyle is a reference to the 2nd definition of the word "legacy" as given by dictionary.com

Legacy: anything handed down from the past, as from an ancestor or predecessor:

So any game where you follow a bloodline, specifically playing whichever descendant(s) inherit the fruits of their predecessor's efforts, would make you a legacy player. Your style of playing multiple households wouldn't be "legacy" though, as it is more than one bloodline. You could use the term "Legacies" (plural) if you wanted though assuming you are following some form of inheritance system with each bloodline. :)

If you are actively playing more sims than those which actually get anything (be it money, the house, objects, etc.) from the previous generation though, you start to fall outside of legacy play.

"EnjoyfulSimmer;d-954896" wrote:
So I thought I was a legacy player , but I read that legacies are when you use just 1 sim and create 10 generations.

Well, that isnt how I play. I play rotationally and I play with diverse families . So Im coining myself as a generational player. I want all of my sims to have countless generations of stories.

I've struggled with how to describe this in the past, too. Technically, my Sims blog is a Prosperity challenge, which was a really well-known play style back in TS2 but not so much anymore. I still label it as Prosperity because I'm determined to keep it alive, but I've noticed that not many people know what I'm talking about when I use that term. When I'm trying to explain it to someone who may not understand what it is, I often find myself comparing it to a Legacy just because that's a term that people know. The Legacy Challenge rule set has been around for a long time, so most players have at least a vague idea of what it is.

Truthfully, your play style sounds very similar to mine. I've tried playing a "traditional" legacy at various points in the past, and one of the reasons it never really worked for me was exactly what you said-I want all of my Sims to be part of the story, not just one heir/heiress. Still, I believe that there are elements of a Legacy there. I know in my save, families do pass down their houses through generations. And I do have my own version of the Legacy Challenges' "succession laws" which determine which child inherits the house and which ones move out on their own. Prosperity and Legacy also share a lot of their gameplay rules, like no money cheats, randomizing traits and aspirations, and not creating new Sims in CAS after the challenge starts. But, for all the similarities, I would never describe how I play as "legacy" because that term implies that you focus on one family/house. I guess if I wanted to, I could say that I'm technically playing 5 different legacies since I started with 5 family bloodlines...but at this point they're all so interwoven that the whole question of following one versus the other is completely out the window.

If you're not following an existing structure or rule set that you want to use to describe how you play, I think "generational" is a pretty good description.

I dont have any rules at all , except no money cheats! or skill cheats. I want my sims level of achievement to come down to success! They definitely wont stay in the same house or pass that same house down, since they start out in starter homes to tiny for a large family @purplestarz2006