Set a household free to do what they want but not be culled

Yeah, though with the ageing I like to do it at top level like that so I can turn them all on and off together. So it would be jolly handy to know what the game options actually mean! :/

So you want them to age with the unplayed households? Because if you want that then ones you set them as unplayed they will do that. And with the heart they are safe from culling.

Edit: 'cause I'm stupid and i didn't actually answer your question... the green plumbob marks the household as played or unplayed. The heart makes household your favorite and that makes them be safe from culling. That's what those mean.

I wonder how the MCCC "do not cull" flag reacts with the EA non-culling for My Households. I'd guess that EA would not cull a sim in a My Household even if the MC flag was not set, and that if a sim was not in a My Household but had the MC no-cull flag set, it too would be spared.

That just leaves one last complication. A lot of MCCC settings are enabled/disabled for played or unplayed households. But during MCCC "story progression" actions, sims can move between households. So a sim you thought was spared from whatever due to being in a played household may suddenly find herself in an unplayed household and therefore getting up to all sorts! (Or vice versa)

No you *did* answer my question and explain the difference between heart and plumbob. What I meant by my next remark was what it actually does to the game, which I wouldn't expect you to tell me.

Your guess on the flagging is right, that's how it works.

The second part i don't know what you mean... if you disable something from played household it's going to be disabled meaning no played sim will move or marry off or anything...

What I mean is it's the household that's marked "played", not the individual sim. So if a sim that was in a played household and therefore protected from one aspect of story progression marries into an unplayed household then that sim won't be counted as "played" any more so will get story progression applied along with the other sims in her new unplayed household. I might have allowed played sims to move out and marry but not have allowed them to age or change jobs, for example.

Oh yeah your right (sorry i didn't understand you). But you can flag different things with mccc, like 'never break up', 'no affairs', 'no offspring'. But ofcourse you can't control everything with flags either.