So Um....

I play with all the premade families. The main reason I do this is cause each household is varied and a different experience.

If you start a brand new game save you get an option to allow the game to help you out. You answer a few questions and then it generates a Sim for you, giving them a few skills to start out with. You are free, of course, to change the Sim in any way you desire, as in looks, gender, etc. You may wish to give it a try. :)

I am a rotational player so this doesn't happen to me much. I also rotate between saves to avoid getting burnt out on one sim or one sim type.

I would grab the first NPC I see, not change anything in CAS except perhaps adding more outfits, and then enjoy trying to learn to know this character that was not created by me. More fun would be to grab TWO single NPCs and start a family from there. If you adjust as much as a nose, you have lost - but makeup and facial hair can be changed if you can't play them as is ;)

There is an option in cas to download a random sim off the gallery that may be an option for you to spice up your gameplay as it may generate a type of sim you wouldn’t think of creating or playing.

I've never paid attention to it before, but I've found the randomise from gallery feature pretty useful. It generates random sims who I wouldn't usually have chosen and because they're from the gallery they have individual looks and don't look like ugly townies

Onverser, is that image in your siggy a sims image? Wow, that is beautiful!

I just ask myself what is their role in my game. That's my number one rule, All sims have to have a purpose to exist in my world, and interact with my characters. Once I cover that I open CAS and begin, mess around a little.

I've used the randomizer. Sometimes I pick a random number to be the number of times I'll click randomize. If I am not clicking with the sim, I keep randomizing until I see one that I find interesting.

I've also made a brief of details I'm looking for and viewed the sim production as a casting call.

Many times when I get a new pack, I will make a sim or household that fits the pack. For strangerville I made a military sim with military hair cut and clothes, gave him traits and aspirations to fit him. For realm of magic I made to 2 twin spell caster sister, but one with white hair the other with black, one with a dog, one with a cat, one spell caster,one a potion maker, gave them a special house.

Make a back story for you sims. Are they rich or poor, smart or goofy? What town are you going to put them in, has their family been there for 200 years or are they brand new to the town? Are they going to be a famous musician, or a Doctor, or own a special business? Decide before playing what kind of skills they are going to build. If all your sims cook, make one that goes to the grocery store and buys ready made food, orders pizza, or eats cereal, or better yet goes to all these ready made food places and takes out orders. Are they going to be an extrovert going to all the festivals, or a loner who prefers to stay home? Rotational play is fun for me.

Or take a look at the sims you have, and then choose a different facial and body features than the ones you currently have. Give them traits you wouldn’t normally give them.

Make a different household type than you have... a 3 -4 generation family, a single parent, a grandparent with grandchild, (make the parents then, delete them or put them in s separate household as townies, put them in a house if you don’t want to lose them). Think of a different cultural type than you have, make them according to that.

Watch youtube videos of people making sims or households. I learned features that were in cas I either didn’t know were there or had forgotten existed.

Use the randomizer till you find a sim you want to tweak, one that looks different from your other sims.

Sometimes I even find a townie I want to be mine, give them a make over ( look at their traits and make my own back story for them ).