Parenting and Child Motivation Rules
Quote: Originally posted by KittyCarey
I was thinking about this earlier, and wondered if anyone else has personal rules for how you play? And are they the same for every neighbourhood, or do you have different ones?
I used to play way too many sims couples who were best friends as children, had their first kiss with each other as teens, got engaged at uni and then got married as soon as they finished - and it was boring. So now I have a rule that at least one person from every couple has to have at least dated someone else at some point in their life. I do have a handful of exceptions - I assume anyone I haven't played before adulthood has dated someone else as a teen/YA (that "mystery sim" in their memories), and Johnny and Ophelia have never dated anyone else and (assuming they live a similar length of time) probably never will. But it does make my sims' lives more interesting.
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I'm very curious about this idea, how exactly do you implement it in your hoods? Do you just have sims go out on multiple dates until they meet the right sim to commit to, or is it more serious wherein sims will have at least one committed relationship before settling down?
I've got a system down to determine how and if parents will teach their children toddler skills, or help them study homework, because my sims almost never roll wants to teach their children anything, and if I follow by the toddlers wants they'll always grow up well. I find this boring and silly, so my system works as follows:
A sims' Neatness + Active levels, minus their Playful levels. Depending on that final number, they will be a parent with Low Motivation, Average Motivation, or High Motivation.
High Motivation sims (Final score of 9 or greater) will always teach their children their skills, regardless of if they roll wants or not. They will also help their child with homework when asked, and if their child needs anything, they will be the first sim to attend to them. I picture these sims as super dedicated parents, and ones that want orderly households (why would a sim who is super neat be totally okay with their kids never learning to properly use a toilet, or an active sim just letting their kids crawl everywhere?). This level has a lot of overlap with SophiethePuffins' strict parent aspiration, and I follow her system for my own game.
Average Motivation sims (Final score between 8 and 5) will still take care of their children, but it's never their first priority. If they have other wants or priorities, so be it, let the kid fend for itself until it genuinely needs their help, or they autonomously decide to care for them. They will only teach toddler skills if they roll the wants for them, and ditto goes for studying unless a child prompts them with their own want. If a parent rolls the want for their kid to grow up well, they will teach a skill if it means their kid will be in gold or platinum aspiration when they age up.
Low Motivation parents (Final score of 4 or below) just suck. They will never take care of their kids unless they somehow, miraculously, roll wants to do so. I don't force them to do anything related to their child unless it's autonomous (even then I will readily cancel it if the sim has their own needs to attend to or if they want something more immediate), including care for the basic needs. Not every parent is interested or cares about their kids wellbeing or future, and I find low motivation parents are usually at a much greater risk or getting their children taken away (this is basically the only way I can play truly wants based and still have the social worker actually be a thing, otherwise she'd just sit in the default bin forever gathering dust). They will almost never interact with their children, unless prompted by the child themselves. Combined with a starting 0/0 relationship for all babies between family members mod, this can actually make situations like the Pleasant twins possible. Otherwise, parents will always be best friends with their kids even if they never interact with them once.
I don't touch nursery rhymes unless the parent or child has music and dance enthusiasm (why should that get its own special skill when none of the other hobbies have a leg up that early?). I also ignore buying child-specific items depending on the sim's motivation (a high motivated sim will buy any and every toy, low motivation sims won't bother with a crib even unless they specifically want it).
Any combination of motivated sims is possible, and in the case of mixes I always defer to the sim with higher motivation to take on the duty (or burden!) of caring for any children on the lot, and it doesn't have to be parents or blood relatives either. If both parents, for example, have low motivation, and they have a grandparent or another sim living with them that has high motivation, that sim will exclusively care for the grandchild/other child, and as a result have a much higher relationship. It can help create some more complex family dramas and dynamics than you'd otherwise get in vanilla Sims 2. Sometimes if a high motivation sim is just idling without any other duties I'll arrange for them to become a live-in nanny for any low motivation sims who can afford a higher salary.
My other rule applies to children and teens in that they only do their homework according to their predetermined interest in School (I have an age random interests mod since otherwise all children are automatically super interested in school). I will roll a die 0-10 each day when the child comes home from school, and if they roll the difference between their want and the interest ceiling, or higher, they will do their homework whether they want to or not (for instance, if Susie has a 3 interest in school, she
must roll a 7 or higher in order to do her homework). If they don't roll the right numbers, their homework will sit there until consequences occur. Kids can be taken away, teens can be fired from their jobs (unless they fear being fired), and failures will happen unless a high motivation sim helps them or intervenes.
I find that since I've adopted this system I get a lot more variety in children's personalities and family dynamics. By default, child sims always want to get an A+ or do their homework, regardless of personality or interests, while teens, unless they're knowledge and sometimes fortune sims, will rarely roll any school related wants. In the future I might further tailor my motivation system more specifically to personality traits (outgoing sims will teach kids to talk, active sims to walk, neat sims to use the potty) but for now this system is simple and easy to keep track of, so I don't feel the need to further complicate it yet even if it's more realistic.