Regular townies turning into spellcasters?

So, I forgot that they get silly outfits in the Magical realm... which, as I'd mostly just randomized the names, made it difficult to track said newly made spellcasters.

Still, it looked to be about half to two-thirds my seeder spellcasters and the rest randomly pulled and/or system created. However, at no time was there more than maybe ten spellcasters in the realm, at least that I saw. So I'm not sure why it was drawing from the general population.

Now, I was in play for almost a week and a half sim-time before I sent my girl there, so it's possible that the game had already flagged some of the rest of the population as spellcasters.

Edit - I don't plan to go back to the Magical realm for a couple of sim-days (and possibly not until tomorrow real time) but I think maybe I'll go change all of my sample caster's hair to bright blue or something, so I can track them easier.

I don't mind occult showing up in the real world from time to time, alien abductions and vampire breakins. However, I don't want my existing townies and premades becomming spellcasters. It's the same with situational outfits. I make all of my townies, and I don't want to see their personalities ruined by them using magic or dressing in a wrestling mask. The game should spawn new spellcasters just like every other occult. They wouldn't get away with randomly turning pre-mades into vampires, so why is it okay with witches?

I just started a new save because I just want a world with more occult sims of my choosing, but almost every normal sim has turned into a Spellcaster. I think, like GF, there should of been a “game option” in turning off spell casting for the general population. I think, like many others on here, that it should be something that we decide. And because of the push of random spell casters, I had to download a bunch of witches/wizards from the gallery and place them just to stop the insanity of generation and assignment...Bob pancakes, Katrina Caliente, Mortimer Goth, Jasminder Beheeda, and many others all became spell casters....And let me tell you, it’s quite a hassle having to go activate every household to remove that trait.

I don't mind having spellcasters in my saves but I don't like having the pre-made townies becoming spellcasters because even though they don't autonomously practice magic outside the realm, they will have the occult status and I have my MCC settings set so that my townies get married and have children, it's annoying when Bob and Eliza suddenly have a spellcaster child and I can't change them back to normal sims because Sims 4 doesn't allow me to change a sim from an occult into a normal sim in CAS .__. I hope that when MCC eventually gets updated with ROM it will bring some sort of solution to this :/

Update (ish) on my experiments with Spellcaster townies.

After two more trips into the Magical realm - it still looks to be about 60% pre-designated spellcasters and 40% drawn from existing sim pool. On the second trip, I thought maybe it wasn't drawing any more than it already had (all of the names of sims without bright pink hair looked familiar, like I'd moused over them before) but there were two or three new ones when I went in on the third trip.

My next step is going to be to edit any seemingly random spellcater in the magic realm in CAS to have solid pink hair (or at least as solid as whatever their hairstyle allows), but I'm going to need a day when 1) I don't have other plans for my sims (which will require about 2 sim weeks, or about 2 - 3 days of play) and 2) I can start it early, as this is not a small save file and it takes it's sweet time with the loading screen, and the longer I play, the longer it takes. But this should help me find them in household management and also track if there are new sims pulled or created. Of my npc's only the Sages, the Charm household, the Amicable Acolytes (which MCCC has split) and the family I added for story will keep their designated hair colors.

(I ultimately decided to use the pink because I'm not a fan of the color and have yet to make a sim who would have pink hair, and as far as I can tell, randomly generated sims have "normal" hair colors.)

"DaWaterRat;c-17255647" wrote:
Update (ish) on my experiments with Spellcaster townies.

After two more trips into the Magical realm - it still looks to be about 60% pre-designated spellcasters and 40% drawn from existing sim pool. On the second trip, I thought maybe it wasn't drawing any more than it already had (all of the names of sims without bright pink hair looked familiar, like I'd moused over them before) but there were two or three new ones when I went in on the third trip.

My next step is going to be to edit any seemingly random spellcater in the magic realm in CAS to have solid pink hair (or at least as solid as whatever their hairstyle allows), but I'm going to need a day when 1) I don't have other plans for my sims (which will require about 2 sim weeks, or about 2 - 3 days of play) and 2) I can start it early, as this is not a small save file and it takes it's sweet time with the loading screen, and the longer I play, the longer it takes. But this should help me find them in household management and also track if there are new sims pulled or created. Of my npc's only the Sages, the Charm household, the Amicable Acolytes (which MCCC has split) and the family I added for story will keep their designated hair colors.

(I ultimately decided to use the pink because I'm not a fan of the color and have yet to make a sim who would have pink hair, and as far as I can tell, randomly generated sims have "normal" hair colors.)

Thanks for doing all this @DaWaterRat it sounds like you have a decent system going. I hope the whole world doesn't change, but I had to laugh the other day, I saw a sim swimming in the water just a sulani townie, and he waded out of the water, got on his broom and fled lol. I thought what the? :D

"Ceres_Meiriona;c-17254233" wrote:

"fullspiral;c-17239614" wrote:

"WolfNate;c-17239605" wrote:
Nope started playing 4 last year and didn't hang out with community again till this pack

It's a ton. People who don't want occults but want the packs rule and get their way and things have changed so much in the game from the original intentions of the packs. Those of us who want the weird and wacky and pay full price for it based on a promise of delivery have been shafted when those things get "tweaked" because of doll-housers. It's been happening since GTW and aliens.

You know what is hilarious about this, simmers DO want occults, it's just the portion of the community that is anti occult is simply more persistent about whining until a SimGuru's head explodes, and they get their nerfing muggle way. On the 20th of March, SimGuruLyndsey released the pack statistics based on how many people used them the first year they were out and Vampires was #2 out of the 7 Game Packs that were then available as choices. Strangerville had only been out for a month at this time, but that was the only game pack that wasn't getting the fair year shake. For me, this definitely indicated a market for occults in the game. I hope she does another breakdown after RoM has been out for a little while, because I think it will do extremely well, too.

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I've put up with so many inconsequential packs by this point, that people whining about occults does push my buttons. I have rolled with this painfully dull creepy Stepford Wives version of The Sims since release, and I think I have been a down right stellar champ about being constructive with my criticisms. It's getting better, it really is, but it has been a painfully slow ball to get rolling. I've let other people have their fun as world after world was rehashed with various versions of white picket fence modern day era living over... and over... and over... and freaking over again... I was patient... and they finally tossed me a bone with vampires, I was ecstatic. I waited patiently through that rage induced debacle as people voiced their rabid prejudices against vampires, and now that we have casters, here it comes again. For the love of pink plumbobs, calm your Crumplebottom shoe laces. You have a million other neighborhoods to choose from, seriously, skip the dang pack if you are really that anti-caster. It's like buying red stilettos and then complaining the heel is too high. No... really? You think?! It's even in a llama loving Game Pack, so it's not like you're missing out on a major Expansion Pack. Who orders steak when they're a vegetarian for the side of salad? How much sense does that make? Seriously, skip the dang pack like I have skipped countless packs that came before this one because they were not what I was looking for! I'm not normally one to argue that angle, but I can't turn off cats and dogs, I can't toggle off toddlers spewing forth their never ending paint and powder all over my house, but I don't complain and try to ruin what gives other simmers happy rainbows and fuzzy feel goods. I don't pee on your parade, stop peeing on mine!

Now, there are legitimate complaints here. As far as the weird situational outfits in The Realm are concerned, I agree those are rubbish. I don't see why on earth the outfits I dressed my sims in, or the outfits the townie sims are already wearing, aren't good enough to pass go through the magic portal. That is silly, and I agree on that front. I don't really care if premades cycle in as spell casters, but I can see how that might get people's goats, but if you stay out of the RoM portal, you're never going to see your precious premades casting spells. I've dueled Bella Goth in RoM at least 10 times now, but when I have seen her at San Myshuno festivals or elsewhere in the world, I have never seen her cast a spell... not once. She doesn't even cast spells when I invite her over for dinner. So to me, this plays into the secret society hidden spellcaster thing that I have going for her. However, if you never went to RoM, you wouldn't know she was into that sort of :gasp: occult lifestyle choice. The only thing that breaks my immersion, is the horrible outfit she wears in RoM where we duel. lol That being said, I can see value of being able to disable any sims that exist in your neighborhoods from being part of the RoM spell casting crowd unless you designate them as a spell caster. Options are good, and while I don't need this, I can see how a little more control here would be helpful for players.

I do wish Maxis would implement an occult toggle, just so I wouldn't have to read people's blind prejudice and hate speech against occults, but as it stands, that's not an option yet. So unless your complaint is one of the two above, you can go stick your head in your Laundry Stuff Pack dryer and select hit high heat.
https://66.media.tumblr.com/25f5aab96ed3146dac9f3e5353f4254b/tumblr_py32cn8vqJ1vorh5do4_1280.jpg

I'm literally one of the biggest fans of occults, I've loved them since sims 2. It's why I got into The Sims series.

Why is it so wrong to not want randoms to become spellcasters without me having any control?

You say they don't cast spells outside of the magic realm, but they are still spellcasters. They will join any magic clubs you have, call you about spellcasting duels etc.

Your solution is to just avoid the magic realm, aka the whole gimmick of the pack.

Why should.i have to avoid it just to prevent random townies from becoming spell casters. Why can't the game just generate NEW ones?

"CorkysPetals;c-17254079" wrote:
There is SO MUCH INFORMATION here. I'm confused. Maybe someone could answer this question.

If I load an old save (pre-ROM), and I never visit Glimmerbrook and never go to Manage Households to delete anyone, will townies be turned into spellcasters?

I think the way the devs have described it how it is meant to work is: if you never visit the realm (that is never go through that portal for the first time) your game will not produce spellcasters. It is only when you travel to the realm, the game is drawing the spellcasters needed so the realm doesn't feel empty when you are there. This is when they are created. That is how it is meant to work. I cannot confirm this as I have not tested with another non magic save as yet. Maybe someone else has?

Okay, final report for today.

By the time my eyes started to glaze over from all the randomly generated outfits, I'd discovered a total of 13 unauthorized Spellcasters (this includes the 5 I mentioned previously). 6 were clearly computer created - homeless, single person families with no names I recognized. They were also all clustered together when looked at by "last edit." One more might have been part of this group, but I'd found her earlier so I'm not positive. The others were "born" into various households (Remember, I'm 5 generations into my legacy family with this save, so my premades are few) and then made mages when the computer needed them - Six or seven in all, depending on the status of the one I'm not sure about. Interestingly, no actual premades - of the few still alive, mostly from City Living and Get Together - had been turned into casters.

Age distribution was:
1 teen (female, "born")
7 YA (2 female, 5 male. 3 "born" 3 generated, one unsure)
3 adult (2 male, 1 female, 2 "born", 1 generated)
2 Elders (both female, both generated)

However, we need to take that age distribution with a grain of salt, as a sim who was an adult the first time I saw her in the magic realm had aged up to Elder by the time I did this. (She's counted as an adult on the age distribution above) And I think one of the YA's I'd seen in the magic realm labeled Teen.

I'll admit, I skipped over the clusters that appeared to have been created as vet clients, or for my sims' trips to Selvadorada (as well as known vampires). But as I said, my eyes were starting to blur. So it is possible I missed some.

Also of note - by this time in this save, Minerva Charm had apparently died (She wasn't in the Charm household, and I didn't see her anywhere else, so MCCC didn't move her.) Which may account for the odd number.

My conclusions?

Beyond the Premades, you need at least 30+ spellcasters, and some should probably be single person households, rather than clusters of unrelated spellcasters. This may also reduce the number of spellcasters you need. You probably won't prevent the computer from generating new Spellcasters, but it might reduce the odds of it pulling from non-spellcaster premades.

In no case did I come across more than one "born" spellcaster in a household, and I rarely saw more than one spellcaster from a given household in the realm at any one time. Which gives weight to the idea that you shouldn't cluster your spellcasters into a few households.

I'm tempted to go look through my test save and see how many spellcasters I can find there, or alternately start a brand new save and see who gets pulled and who gets generated. But my eyes are blurring, and I've probably put more effort into this than I actually needed to. So unless I notice something more worth reporting, I think I'm done with this experiment.

That and I'd be interested to see other people's data on this, if they're willing to go looking.

Thank you sooo much @DaWaterRat you have put so much effort into this and I appreciate you doing it, must have taken a lot of time out of your play. Big thumbs up!!!