Show me your current Sim Families!

"Duvelina;c-17650782" wrote:

"GlacierSnow;c-17650775" wrote:
@Duvelina Thanks! I'm glad you like them. :smiley: I'm not sure how to explain my answer to your question though. :lol: It has to do with what interests me. Most of my life, even as a kid, my main way of "playing" was just to make up stories, and often to try writing them down. In the sims, as in my story writing, developing whatever plot or character arc I find in my imagination is what I get excited about. Once that reaches a conclusion story-wise, I either have a new plot idea for something new that could happen to them, or I just move on and play with a different story. That's why I have so many.

For some reason, the more common approach to the Sims game, of raising kids, having the kids grow up to have kids, and those kids grow up to have kids, and so on, isn't a story I am very interested in for its own sake. If you think about it, a lot of books are just a small slice out of someone's life (even if that life is completely fantastical). They don't necessarily keep going on forever and ever showing you all of the hero's grandchildren and great grandchildren and great great grandchildren. There is a main set of characters, and eventually their story ends. And that's how I play. When I first started playing the sims (Sims 3) I was dismayed by the aging because it didn't let me linger in the story details as long as I wanted for one set of characters. It wasn't until I learned that it could be turned off that I started having fun.

I often admire the amazing multi-generational family trees that other players develop by playing with aging on. I'm truly impressed with some of long legacy families that people create. But doing that myself just hasn't ever really appealed to me. I'm kind of that way in real life too. I get more fun out of exploring a broad range of things, moving from one thing to another as I get new ideas, rather than dedicating myself to one thing for a long time.

Oh no, I totally understand your approach! I just meant that if you never age anyone up, their stories aren't 'epic' or continue over many years if you know what I mean? Or do you age them up when your story calls for it or does that not happen?

@Duvelina Ah! Good question! If the story calls for them aging up, yeah, I'd age them up. But none of my stories have called for that so far. The stories take place at a certain point in their lives. Every so often, I think I'll try a story that includes sims growing up or growing older, but those are the stories I lose interest in the fastest. So I guess the best answer to your original question is "I don't continue it". I play with them in a certain stage of their lives, creating stories for them at that stage. I'm trying to think of a good analogy, but not knowing what books or movies or shows you like, it's hard to know what you would relate to. But there are lots of series where the characters just have adventure after adventure after adventure, and they never actually get any older. I play like that.

I do sometimes create "backstory" for some of them by having an alternative duplicate save where I actually age them down (using CAS) so I can create "memory" screenshots (for my written versions) or family pictures to go on their walls.