At present, this forum contains a lot of stuff which really shouldn't be here (and possibly shouldn't be anywhere), so these rules are intended to help you figure out whether or not your thread should go here.

Is your thing a contest?
If you want to run a competition where other players build houses, make sims, take pics or do something else simmy, submit entries before a set deadline, and then you and/or a group of judges give them scores and eventually announce a winner - that's a contest. Please post your contest in the Sim Contests forum.

Challenges should have
Sim challenges are a way of playing which is a bit different from normal play, which present a set of interesting and unusual challenges, and which you can do well or badly at.

We don't have "requirements" for challenges, so if you have a challenge which is missing one or more of the following elements but it still works as a challenge, that's totally fine. However, most challenges will have the following:

• A backstory, or a specific set of circumstances which your sims must contend with.
  • Examples could be that a nuclear/zombie/misc apocalypse has occurred, and your sim is the only survivor; or that your sim has been brought up in a strict culture with certain rules which limit your sim's freedom.
• Rules or restrictions that players have to follow.
  • For example, sims can't buy any food and must live off the land, only one member of the household is allowed to spend any money, you are not allowed to control certain sims, etc.
• Goals or a self-scoring system.
  • For example, you gain 100 points for every generation of kids who all go to private school, you lose 50 points for every sim who dies of anything other than old age, your sim family must build a business empire of at least 10 owned community lots/rabbitholes, or your sim must reach the top of a certain career.

Some examples of great, very popular challenges could be the Legacy challenge, the Apocalypse challenge and the Asylum challenge.

You don't have to follow that format exactly, but any challenges which are patently not challenges will be archived.

A challenge is not a story
Challenges give the player a scenario, some rules to follow, and something to work towards. How the player and their sims get from scenario to goals is up to them. If your challenge is so specific that you're telling players what their sims should do, in what order, who they should interact with etc. - that doesn't belong in this forum. If you're enjoying the story in your own game, why not take a few pics to narrate it, and post it in the Sim Stories forum?

Other stuff
We do have a few other rules which you should bear in mind:

• No atrocities. So it's... pretty sad that we have to say this, but: no challenges which focus around rape, child abuse, or anything else patently horrific. If you suspect your challenge may be patently horrific, consider whether telling your non-simmer friends about it in the pub would lead to bored looks, or to repulsed ones.
• Age Appropriate. MTS is a 13+ forum. Challenges must be appropriate for the younger users as well. Topics that are exclusively 18+ (for example, drugs, drinking, over sexual, etc) will not be accepted as a challenge.
• Credit adaptations. If your challenge is an update or alteration of an existing challenge, be polite and link to the original.
• Type Intelligently. Please don't post in ALL CAPS LOCK or Like A Headline, l33tsp34k, lik u tink ur on ur cel fones txt msging, lIkE yOu tHinK tHiS lOokS cOoL, wildly abusing smileys, or with excessive punctuation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With that said, enjoy!