I'm debating using Rodney's Death Creator to kill off Brandi Broke. I think it would be an interesting twist in Beau's story (he and younger sibling are teenagers), but in all my years of playing sims this would be the first time I've ever used the device and the second I've ever allowed a sim to die of something other then old age. You'd think after so many years of playing it wouldn't phase me, but apparently it does. Does anyone else ever get similar hang ups?

I don't kill my sims, so I guess that counts as a hangup? XD I read something recently that explained 'for non Sims players' that most players play the game to torture their sims and put them in perilous situations for the drama and I thought that I must be doing it wrong lol.

I don't think "most sims players" do that at all, though it is something that happens.

I have killed a few sims deliberately - I had to kill Angel Hart for the Widespot storyline - and I did feel terrible about it.

One thing is as normal as the other. Some people feel more empathetic attachment to fictional characters, and even to inanimate objects, than others. Many perfectly rational people feel bad about throwing away old worn out objects that have served their purpose - this is why one of Marie Condo's decluttering steps is to thank the things you're getting rid of for their service! Many perfectly nice people don't even cry when Beth March dies! AndrewGloria is not delusional for feeling responsibility for his sims as if they were real people, and my stepdaughter is not a potential serial killer for building sim death traps. It's all normal human variation.

I don't kill them on purpose, but I do have various mods in which increase certain risks so I have had a few unexpected deaths in my game. I always feel bad when a sim dies, and try to save them! But if it doesn't work, then I don't bring them back (unless it makes sense for the story).

Me too! All of my sims are a big part of the gameplay (even NPCs and hobby instructors attend parties and go to community lots, and many are good friends with playables) so I like to keep them alive and happy if I can, but sometimes death happens!

I don't normally kill sims. I even have mods that make it less likely such as less tree fires, don't walk away while cooking, mods that stop a few items from catching on fire like the train set. Yes I can see a pattern, I don't like fire. I am from Australia, we have enough fire in real life without it being in my game.

Why would you kill off Brandi? I mean its your game, do what you like, but she is a favourite sim of many. I think the last sim in my game who didn't die of old age was in my medieval save and he died by accident from bees. (Sun&Moon bee set) The chance is really really low, something like 1% and it was his first day out of CAS. I debating reloading but I went with it. But killing off Brandi on purpose? No way I like her too much. If for some reason I didn't want her there I would cook up something like a kidnapping or an extended holiday (vacation). Now if I needed some random townie dead for a story? I could if I had to but I wouldn't like it so I would be selective and kill them off quickly. Fright is quick or cow plant or something like that. I've never removed a pool ladder and would never want to.

I have sometimes killed Sims on purpose; I have a CC rifle that I've used on home-invaders (Hi neighbor, I'm back for the 5th time today to eat your food, break your computer, and watch your TV, I might even go to bed in your bed!). But I tried a mod that allows miscarriages --too sad! Especially if their are toddlers - parents burning up is horrible! And I can't stand when a couple hate each other because some stranger kissed one of them!

While Beau and Brandi's daughter (I guess because its a genetically correct version a girl was possible, really threw me for a loop) were at school, Brandi was making an omelette. They don't have a fire alarm and despite having 9 cooking points (I was trying to get a want for maxing the skill) she managed to set the place on fire. She looked so scared it broke my heart! And believe it or not I have a huge soft spot for her. I immediately reset and then I questioned the decision. It was the daughter's birthday which made it feel extra tragic, but I thought about how this could have been an interesting twist in Beau's story. I started thinking it might be worth going down that route after all, but I don't think I have the heart to do it.

If she died because she accidentally caught on fire I might or might not reload. Given how I really like Brandi I probably would reload. Now say it had been one of the ugly Capp's, probably not. I only made this Uber hood, 2 maybe 3 years ago, and its my first serious play through of the pre-mades. Now if I had played them for years like I know a lot of people do, I might have a different take. I get how if you have played Brandi 10 times already her death one time might just be an interesting variation since you know you will probably play her again. It sounds like you really don't want to kill her, so don't would be my guess. If it's more about well other people do XY and Z and I should too, I say no to that. Play in whatever way that makes you happy.

At least, M.T Pockets, in the Sim's world you can always bring them back. So long as you have sims with access to a resurrectanometronamingy (or whatever it's called). Having the bereft sim toil hard through uni to acquire the device needed to revive Brandi can add an interesting element to the narrative, if you're not hung up on realism in your game.

Edit: If a sim dies in my game, they almost always end up alive again at some point - I miss them (even the somewhat nefarious characters).

I guess I'd have to say, "It depends." I don't shed too many tears for Sims who die of old age, for example -- it's just part of the cycle of life, after all. Might shed a few more for one household in my game, when the two elders die of old age -- their adopted children will be a teen and young adult, at the oldest, assuming I did the math right. That one Knowledge/Romance Sim who used her cowplant to go Black Widow, on the other hand, I found morbidly hilarious; situations like that are outliers for me, though.

Also, while I'm generally not inclined to deliberately engineer Sim deaths, I won't go out of my way to prevent them, either -- especially if the Sim in question is doing something Darwin Award-worthy.

Before my previous computer died, when I was doing a decades-style playthrough of the ancestors, I came to the part where I needed to kill off Nestor Caliente's wife Polly (Pollination Technician 7, I gender-swapped and made him a her). I knew I had to (was also working on a written story at the time), because otherwise Nestor wouldn't be able to marry Dulcinea and have Tango, but I felt so bad about making Nestor go through that, making all their friends from college go through that, and making little baby Flamenco go through that, that I honestly grieved a little myself over it (I know, I know, pixels on a screen, but STILL).

I don't normally do that sort of thing, except for story purposes, and even THEN I still have a hard time with it, so I get where you're coming from.

I have actually probably played her close to ten times already and it does feel like it would be an interesting variation, but then this voice inside me was like "you monster!" and I've been going back and forth ever since. Part of me feels dumb for being so bothered my the idea since I know she's not real. It made me curious if anyone else has had similar experiences. Honestly, despite having sims 1 and getting sims 2 a few months after it came out I've never had much interaction with the community. I literally only learned about clean templates a year ago.

For now I've put the Brokes aside until I can figure out what's going to make me happiest. I added 7 families of my own creation to Pleasantview so there's lots to do. One family just had puppies! I don't know what I'm going to do with six dogs in one house, but it's absolutely adorable!!!!

I had the Burbs dogs have puppies. Once grown I sold them.

Moving onto another family could be a good idea. You don't need to feel bad, whatever you choose to do.

I keep Sims alive as long as possible, using the elixir of life to the max for my elders. I prefer them to die natural deaths and don't kill them, since I raise most of them since birth.

However, I may have removed the pool ladder once, around 18 years ago, while Don Lothario was swimming. No regrets.

I meant to respond to this earlier, but forgot. I haven't reached a decision yet, but I have to say I found your reply really comforting! I don't know AndrewGloria or your step daughter but you did an excellent job of illustrating that both are normal and fine. Also made me laugh, because I have soooo much clutter. I can never bring myself to throw things out unless I'm moving to a new house or something.

Glad to be of service.

I view the game primarily as a storytelling medium, so it's fairly easy for me to think of it in terms of fiction, and understand what we can do with it in the same terms. And fiction is extremely flexible! We can use it (reading or writing or watching or playing) to explore and develop our personal tendencies, work out complex moral or social problems and our relation to them, achieve catharsis, improve our technical expertise in related skills (so many people have learned a lot of computer and design skills in pursuit of a simming vision!) or just have mindless fun. The only wrong way to play is the way that doesn't satisfy you. And the only one who has to be satisfied is you.

My stepdaughter was never a big enough sim player to get on here, but if you hang out here more you will meet AndrewGloria. I'm surprised he's not in this thread already.

I'm here now!! I was very tired!!!

I've been playing The Sims 2 for over eleven years now, playing most days. In all that time I have never even seen the Grim Reaper in my game. I'd definitely feel bad if I deliberately killed a Sim -- I'd feel I'd broken the sixth Commandment. In fact I've given my Sims a constitution, loosely based on the preamble to the American Declaration of Independence, guaranteeing their inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I think that the right to life is the most important of these. In fact I think I'd feel bad if I didn't notice time (in its wingèd chariot) catching up with an elder Sim, so that they died of old age. I feel it's part of my duty of care to my Sims, to watch out for such things and keep them safe. I normally play with Aging off, but I occasionally turn it on to let a young Sim age up. And sometimes I forget to turn it off in a new household, and can play it for several days before I notice. So, while unlikely, I feel a surprise visit from the Grim Reaper is not impossible.

I do see the value of death in storytelling. I don't think Agatha Christie was a mass murderer because she killed off so many of her characters. Arguably my favourite book is Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, and there's plenty of death in there. In fact, when I was reading it, I even felt relief when Heathcliff died, even though I never completely lost sympathy for him; he was just proving such a blight in everybody else's life. But when it comes to The Sims, and I have what looks like a living, breathing human being in front of me, I just can't be the one who extinguishes that beautiful, wonderful spark of life. It would feel so wrong that I just can't do it. I suppose I just love life.

I know it sounds weird, but dying was kind of a good thing for Heathcliff. He never got over losing Cathy and his pain was just alienating all the other people around him. I firmly believe that shepherd boy really saw Cathy and Heathcliff's ghosts on the moor and that they were finally happy together. Even if it makes me sound weird to consider that a happy ending lol.

Dammit now you all made me cry, and on top of that I have an earworm.

Yes, I love the ending of Wuthering Heights, which I think is the most powerful book I've ever read. Once I got into it, I just couldn't put the book down, until Heathcliff was dead, and his death brought peace to everyone, including, as you say, himself. Once somebody here posted to ask where to bury a Sim who had had two loves in their life. Inspired by the final lines of Emily Brontë's great novel I suggested bury the Sim in the middle with their two lovers on either side, and let the three of them lie together in peace for ever. As I recall, the other Simmer agreed with my suggestion.

"I sought, and soon discovered, the three headstones on the slope next the moor: the middle one grey, and half buried in heath; Edgar Linton’s only harmonized by the turf and moss creeping up its foot; Heathcliff’s still bare.

I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."

I don't kill my sims but they die. I would feel bad for doing it on purpose. If I was really not caring for them I'd either turn them into a townie and if they were supposed to die for a story plot I'd give them a prisoner token and retire them to their own little plot of land off in a corner and continue playing them but no longer incorporate them into pictures or storytelling.

Just yesterday I was playing in a hood I'm doing casually (because I'm doing so great IRL I don't have time to play as intensely as I normally do!), in a household in which the elder male who had fathered most of the children died. I have a rule that I have to free-range the chief mourners for 24 hours after a death, to simulate the walking-around-stunned-and-processing period of immediate grief. Usually in my families this happens when there's someone in the household, usually a newly-married-in in-law, who is still controllable, who can Call to Meal and make sure pets and babies don't suffer, but this house now consisted of his wife Coyote, step-daughter Crow, and teens Salmon and Bunting. Crow, newly adult, has made friends with her biological father, but has always treated the late Aillil as her true father and has a higher relationship with him than with bio-Dad, who is in a continual state of fight-and-make-up with everyone and wouldn't know monogamy if it slapped him in the face. (Which it has, several times, actually.) And there were no babies or pets in the house, so I figured she'd have the same mourning period as everyone else.

The trouble was, that Salmon hadn't eaten yet when Ailill died, the others had eaten all the food, and he absolutely refused to go cook himself something. Instead he kept approaching Coyote for conversation and play interactions, in between waving his arms at me and pointing at his face, the first sign of starvation. I realized that he was all set to literally starve himself to death rather than prepare a meal for himself or even go stuff his face. Not only was this upsetting on its own, but it would reset the mourning clock and I'd have to free-range everybody another day - at the end of which, even if nobody else starved themself, the odds are high that Coyote will die. So I had Crow, so soon to be the head of the household, get a platter of grilled cheese out of the fridge and call to meal. Whereupon he started off to bed! I cancelled the action and had Crow call again, and this time it took, but he was down so far that even a grilled cheese made with fresh food wasn't enough to fill him up, and before the mourning period was over he started getting low again. Fortunately Bunting took it on herself to serve jam sandwiches and he went and got those on his own behalf, so I only had to break my own rule the once.

There simply wasn't any fun to be gained, and a lot to lose - I had plans for the inheritance money that I didn't feel right about implementing before the end of the mourning period - by letting Salmon be an idiot. Let it be enough that for future gameplay I will be treating him as an idiot with no sense of self-preservation and a feeling of entitlement. His little sister Bunting is far more mature!

And that's the sort of Darwin Award-worthy behavior I was talking about letting stand in my post. Yeah, it'd be upsetting (and potentially plan-derailing), but if you won't do what it takes to fulfill important needs (hunger, in this case), society's better off without you.

I have only kill a Sims ONE TIME since playing the Sims for many years. The reason and story why is that I once downloaded a beautiful female Sims.
Later I realize that it turn out she was a Vampire.

I kill her in the pool I don't play Vampire nor do I want them in my game. I often wonder why a person would create a vampire and not even tell whoever will upload it what it really is on their post. After that I am careful with downloading Sims so I play it safe and sometime make my own.