So lately, I been having this weird ideas how you can play TS3 outside the general way of playing (create/raise a sim, get a job, then reach specific goal). I think we all done outside of box type of plays. Unlike challenge, these lack specific end goal and a good set of rules (hence not being challenging), I though it could be cool to share this sort ones here

The Exploding Kittens Sims Version (or Deadly Magic Bean:
1. Create a Household of Eight or Five Adults.
2. Lock them in a room with one Magic Bean Tree
3. Have them each eat a magic bean in consecutive turn.
4. Last Sim that remains alive wins.

The Saw House (Do you Want To Play A Game?) Sims edition
1. Again, create contestants of maximum eight Sims.
2. Build a lot, that is very minimalistic for living, with no trivial entertainment or irrelevant distractions, thats prone to all types of death:
*Fire: have a stove in a 2x1 room (or the smallest the game allows) with no fire alarm or sprinklers, but accesible to cook. Apthough, this might defeat the hunger outcome, so I would suggest installing a fire place in fire prone area instead.
*Drowning: build accesible pool with diving board, but surround the remaining edges with a wall/fence for trapping. See whos tempted to drown themselves.
*Electricity: have/direct Sims to repair broken appliance, that you cannot repurchase or hire the service to do it for you. Or set an electricity firing trap between room passagea so its foot sensifivs like a booby mine.
*Hunger: I guess if you dont give the household any form of income gain, the fridge will run out of available food that costs? Might need to mod free quick meals tho). Although I think it be simpler to just not include a refrigerator and bars on the lot
*Mummy Curse: now, if you know how to inflict the said moodlet or angry mummy to spawn (buydebug and cheats setup?), do so at the beginning for all Sims to be cursed and see if anyone dies by it first before other demises
*Thirst, Haunting Curse and Dehydration: since these ones are only possible of their specific lifestate, youll have to make a choice of either having all Sims be vampires/witches/mermaids. When vampires and mermaids deprive from their reapective source of life (plasma or water to swim in), they’ll eventually lose vitality. For witches, its a bit trickery, as you will need to deliberately level them up till you can make them repetively have a Haunting Curse duel off in some exhausting line up for all.
Burying/Watery Grave: Nrass cheat contestants to be Magicians so they receive those boxes so you command every one per day to perform suicide mission on both boxes and see if anyone fails to escape.
* Blunt Force: with Uni expansion installed, all beds on the lot can only be that of a murphy bed. After every use, they must be closed and reopen for usage. And if you want to spice it up, substitute vending machine as the only source for food
*Freezing: this one is simple criteria - leave out the ceiling, and all rooms below exposed to the outdoor elements (no roof or leave out a wall segment to let sun/moonlight in)
*Shark Attack: I can only see it doable in a houseboat setting If you planning to include this Saw House thingy. Send all contestant once per day in a shark-infested dive lot (might have to cheat their diving skill to appriopate level at start)
*Jet pack: All members are equipped with a jet pack, and these (among other harzourdous objects listed here) the object Fun-affliated objects that the contest can use to fulfill the motive.
*Ranting about death: same as jet pack idea, command all sims per day to rant about death. If a Sim gets a warning from Reaper, they MUSTA rant again.
*Other deadly-objects: include cowplant and jelly bean so Sims will autonomously use it when left to their devices.
3. To make it more realistic, cut the household off from the world via fence on the lot, or in houseboat scenario have them be stranded (only diving bodies of water visitation allowed)

Minecraft Playstyle:
Make the world as bare as possible without rabbit holes or houses/furniture) and all households start with 0 funds. Sims will only surviva off fruits and fish they yield, with no rabbit holes (shops/theaters/spas/stadiums) and cooking appliances in the world. No plumbing instead of toilet (if you have world adventures, try to find a mod for buyable shower cans). Electrical objects are out of question. Equip Sims with tents or sleeping bags (this bit only applies if you have neceasary packs, otherwise…) before you earn money back to build a house with a bed). Professiona are not allowed (exception to self-employmenr), and selling craftables that can be sold at consightment must only be done there.

Do you have any playstyles you thought of, and if so - share it with us

I had Sims eat those beans maybe 50 times and so far all made it. Some went yuck a bit but none were done in no matter how many times I tried. My Sims all have death flowers but nobody has had to use one for that.

edit: I just checked and chance of death is 1% so killing off a room of Sims could take forever.

As I recall, it's 1% per bean but the bush replenishes itself and like rolling dice each "draw" is independent of the ones that came before it. So it's reasonable to expect that it will take much more than 100 draws to get one black (death) bean, let alone seven of them. These sims will end up overeating the beans and get fat in the meantime. That's not healthy for them.

Anyway, EA's marketing department called. They are rescinding the job offer they were planning to make to the OP.

We could download or make a mod to make the chances higher

I see. Well, then I guess experimentation verdict is to play this in a normal play and see who, through the time of the continuement of the save gets to die first in the morning/evening ritual of taking their vitamina

I also have an idea of a Tottaly Spies inspired play, where I would make a list what gadgets receive (like potions, special relics, LTW reward portable and other carryable items) based on the two dice throw and utilize them in interesting way (but probably would work in a survivor manner like minecraft addition oppose to being martial art detectives that throw villians in jail or raiding tombs and trying to escape them The idea sounds fun how I thought, but it lacks useful execution to play off those gadgets (Imagines Alex using a firework indoors and Alex throwing escape/ninja dust/potion, all while flying with jet packs / hover boards

I mean there already exist quite a lot of murder hobo games.

Black Widow challenges are fun. I remember back in my TSR days (ugh memory now) they would not allow any mention of that.

The build up from scratch and the many challenges based on that premise have always been my favourite way to play- I've never really thought of describing it as Minecraft-esque, and now I'm feeling old for having played that way in this game since before Minecraft existed My favourite kind of simulation is the one with the freedom to do that, which is probably why I keep coming back to all four mainline sims games.
Playing based on other games is a great source of ideas though, there is so much content in Sims that you can really bend it to simulate whatever you want.

My personal recommendation for new fun in TS3 is to page through the wiki or Carl's guides for the packs you have- just to see if there are any features you never played fully. That's a great way to get inspiration for trying to complete all of the collections, or attain every ghost type, or get a certain career reward- because it's quite easy to overlook the existence of, or just the depth of, those details.

For a specific playthrough rec, in TS2 I played a xenophilic mad scientist who basically wanted to live like an alien ant colony by any means- his own abduction babies, his neighbour's abduction babies, or having babies the old-fashioned way with neighbors who are aliens (this takes place in Strangetown, if you couldn't already guess). All to have as many members in the household as possible that cook, clean, and raise the next set of babies. It's good micromanagement fun to start with one sim and low funds while juggling abductions, pregnancies, and work. And I find it much more whimsical and lighthearted than the popular 100 Babies type challenges.

I think it would translate to TS3 quite easily, I'd love to see others tackle it! TS4 doesn't handle overstuffing households, even with mods, which is a shame because I do like their aliens

I play totally legacy style and have very extensive excel tracking of my family for about everything. I am sure there are things I have missed to add to my checklist and it would not hurt to look at Carl's again.