Neighborhood stories are too intense

I have Neighborhood Stories disabled. Nothing happens without my say so.😄

I play with aging on only for my Sims and their families. Then those households are also the only Sims that have neighborhood stories on. For those Sims, I customize it and then I turn on and off certain parts of neighborhood stories by household. So if a household just had a baby, I would turn off that part of it for a while but keep it on in the others. 

I totally have Neighborhood Stories turned off, as well as Burglars.  I wouldn't be able to keep up with my regular Game Saves of Ancient Times to Dark Ages, Medieval Age to Renaissance, Georgian to Guided Age.                                                                                           Plus my most recent Game Save made from one of my old Testing Game Save called Jazz Age to Futuristic Vintage.

I also have a Game Save just for Challenges like the Rewards Event, or when I can't figure out how to put them in my Timeline Game Saves.  I called it Unlinear Game Save, because I didn't want to call it Whatever.  Lol.                                                                                         

I have it turned off as well. I like the sims in the world to always be there when I need them. I prefer to have control over the characters in my story. I just prefer to play without neighbourhood stories. 

The system is quite flexible. It is possible to have it on in general and then have different settings for specific families. So you could choose to keep your favourite families safe and let the rest of the world suffer the effect from neighbourhood stories. Perhaps I will one day try this possibility, but not for now. 

I always go through and set some ground rules.  No moving out and no adopting horses for a start (unless the household is on a lot suitable for horses).  Certain sims aren't allowed to change jobs or move in, either.  

Now, I only play a single household in a given save, so whatever happens to the rest of the sims, I usually just roll with it.  But there are certain traits that make some households more inclined to contribute to the baby boom.  Specifically family oriented and Domestic.  I rarely release a sim with those traits into the wild unless them having a ton of kids is part of my intended epilog for them.

I can't recall ever having a 90% die off in any of my saves before, but I know it can go in streaks and seem like a lot.  Especially combined with a bunch of the pre-made townies dying of old age.

I disable some rules (adoption, horses, moving out for premades). And sometimes I will disable babies for households that I care about more (or sterilize one of the parents in CAS).

The deaths might occur in batches though because they are tied to the game's culling mechanisms. It's common that nothing happens for a while but then death seems to strike everywhere. 

I wish though that the settings would be toned down a bit. Doesn't make sense to get as many babies as the household size can fit all of the time 😅