I've got a situation in my BACC game in Dodge with fall coming on soon and followed by winter with it having been dry with no rain all summer long.It was a cold snowy winter for the previous year and that might not happen this time around.It might be fun to have a drought to add some drama and excitement to my storyline.I've only got two families moved in so far because the town's not very well known yet and it's isolated.

That would be a perfect situation to use the 'Water Required' mod. It uses the Sun&Moon 'Fetch water' mod.

Dodge is a pretty far out place, guess they don't deliver pizza. You gonna be having problems unless you got an arrangement with the Plumbbob people for fresh food. Rivers and ponds under Maxis conditions freeze over and plants and trees go dormant. Too bad you can't eat the penguins. Check and see, maybe you got food stored somewhere. Otherwise, you can get rich and order a new fridge and ask them to fill it with food. (Expensive) Or you can try the Pescado method and we don't talk about that .. so buy a fridge.

Plus the water mods allows you to make one or more lots not under water restrictions if you want them to be- maybe because they are greedy and piping the water secretly.

I've already got that fetch water Mod and can pull another grocery Mod out if needed to make food more expensive though they are trying to grow some crops now and have the service center under construction though it's got the override for fetch water since it's a public lot.I've got the water required Mod and have had it in for a while now though there is the override object on some lots.

Well, the drought idea sounds cool. I was trying to come up with some chances/rules around the seasons and weather events like drought for my own hoods. I was thinking that every so often I'd roll to see if there's a big storm or disaster event--like say an earthquake or a thunderstorm during spring, summer, and fall and blizzard during the winter, etc. And then I'd decide how hard each family & lot is affected. I would probably make a predetermined list of rolls, like if a family rolls a 1, the gotta replace all their flowers, and maybe a tree or two; if they roll a 3, they gotta replace some windows and some plants; a five or six and they've been hit really hard, most of their crops have been wiped out, etc. The damage scale is what was stumping me/slowing me down; trying to come up with some ideas for each level was a little exhausting.

Anyway, I personally feel that having an event like a drought hit the very year sims are just starting out seems harsh, but if you're looking for a challenge, go for it. I would think about how to implement it in a fair way or what sims can do to mitigate it. Like, does the drought mean they can only water everyday? Or do they automatically lose all their crops? Can sims travel way up the mountain to the creeks up there to fetch water? No idea what your hood looks like, but I mean it as an example of what you can do. Maybe if they have money/get a loan they can buy "drought-resistant plants" and that allows them to talk to them to keep their quality up, etc. I really don't know your hood setup and what's allowed and what's not, but in the hoods I'm planning, my sims, although they have just moved to a new place, will have a Return Point they can go to. It'll be either just an area on the map or maybe an entire subhood--haven't decided yet, but sims will travel there and back to get supplies they can't make, or to "order" things from the general store and they'll be rules about how long it takes to get there and back. New settlers/townies I introduce to the hood would also start there and I can set up things like a bank for sims to go get loans or a marketplace where sims can go sell their goods, because such things haven't been built in their town yet. Doing so allows me to have some more options for gameplay and story than I would in a completely closed neighborhood. So, to that end, perhaps the drama comes from other sims, rather than the weather. Who else is moving to the town and what are their stories? Does a sim with money come in and take over a large part of the town for his or her mining and industrial agricultural empire? Does a railroad line go through the hood and businesses pop up alongside it? Are any supernatural creatures discovered? Do they think humans have come too close to their homes and start a feud? Do rival bachelors and bachelorettes move in and start a generations-long neighborhood feuds?

...So yeah, what kind of drama are you looking for, exactly? And what are your plans for the hood?

Speaking of BaCCs, I've been making my own rules and they turn out pretty good, challenging but fun at the same time as one person said while they proofread it for me. But I've come to the taxes portion and I've been stuck on how to handle it ever since. My sims make too much money after a while despite the less money mods I have installed, so the tax system would be good to get rid of excess money. I took a finance class in high school and I forgot everything I learned so this has been kinda frustrating.

I've been reading the original rules alongside other's modified rules. Here's an excerpt from Pleasantsims from their website:



I've downloaded Monique's hacked computer but I haven't used it yet. Is there a simplified way I can handle taxes in my ruleset or should I toss this part out to keep the peace? How do you handle taxes in a non-stressful way?

What would got do with the taxes? Would you use them for buying community lots or a university?
I always found taxes to complicated (read that as I keep forgetting and lose track).

Personally, I liked ICads modified rules where community lots are earned by having more families, and demoneying Sims by having them have to move if a house is too big or too small, but they can only keep their cash and not the price of the house. And kids who move out take a lot of cash, creating richer firstborns and poorer young siblings. Having to take up loans at 6 % with Monique's Computer is also fit to ruin any Sims that don't have high paying jobs.
The complete rules are linked somewhere in the BACC thread, I think the blog was called Redmond flats.

I've been playing my own BACC challenge and taxes aren't a worry at all in the town's current stage with only two families living there so far with more coming along in the not too distant future.Taxes will start to become an issue when somebody enter a polical career or assosiated part time job in Dodge.
@Phantomknight -That drought idea is already happening in my BACC in Dodge since they've not had any rain in town since spring and might have a drier winter than usual for 1841.I'm working with the struggles of building a city and that starts with forming a farming community which becomes a small town and I'll add shopping districts to add new neighborhoods to Dodge as the population grows too large for the current district which is limited in size.I'll have some families stuggling against poverty while others are stuggling to rise out of their own poverty and build a modest fortune for themselves and their families.

There are a couple of ways to approach taxes. Some do it weekly, some consider the game's bills taxes. With the latter you can record a household's bills and/or send it to the appropriate sim. The way I usually do it, though, is once per "round" (after I've played everyone for 4 seasons). This might not work for some people, especially if you play a large hood, but it's what has worked for me in the past. It gives sims, especially the poorer ones, time to come up with enough cash, and I do everyone's taxes at once. If my sims ever need more time to pay, they can have it, and work on it during the next year, but otherwise setting aside a tax time and calculating everyone's bill at once makes it less likely that I'll forget for one family, imo. And in between rounds is a good time for housekeeping stuff--like checking up on my recordkeeping, tallying up milestones, rolling for hood-wide events, building things, or adding to the town's landscaping, etc. That's when I do all that stuff and taxes is just a part of that list so it doesn't get lost/forgotten.

Another tip though, is to have a sim hold the funds. The way I set it up in my test bacc (that I'm now realizing was ages ago, ) was that everyone sent the mayor funds. That can help with forgetfulness, if one of your regularly played sims is in charge of collecting and keeping tabs on the town's taxes. But I thought this was a little risky, as an untimely death would mean the loss of town funds. That could be good for a story, but I ultimately decided to go with a placeholder that I never play.

I do recommend doing something with the tax money, though, and also use it as a way to fund town projects in my game. To me, that's another reason why I'm less likely to forget--I need taxes to do stuff! Thus it makes sense in my head to keep building time and tax time together. In that old bacc hood I mentioned, and in the new rules I'm slowly working on, I have my sims collect funds to build improvements for the town. My rules allow sims to progress on individual household levels, but in order for the town as a whole to progress, everyone either needs to come together and build things, or a few select sims can do it for the town--and those sims have the option of donating whatever the project/building is, or keeping a stake in it, for future profits. This way, households aren't held back by others' progress (or lack thereof), and then if households are so far along they need things to do, they can do them. For example I restrict pretty much everything--running water, electricity, phones, etc. Households can unlock some things for themselves if they can, though a combination of skilling, crafting, and gathering, depending on my cc. I initially just had skill requirements, but now I'm taking the time to think about how I can incorporate some mods and deco into my play. Water is probably the best example of this; fetching water would be required for cooking, laundry, and of course, bathing. I would use Sun & Moon's Fetch Water and Laura's Out with the Bathwater mods to help facilitate this. Anyway, as sims progress, they could build rain collectors and eventually wells on their own lots. But to unlock modern plumbing, or for the town to progress, a town system (water treatment plant building or some hood deco, etc.) would need to be created. That's what my sims' taxes go towards, town improvements like that. Electrical plants, radio/cell towers, town lights, post office, etc, etc. Hmm, now that I think about it, I should also do sanitation and make sims burn their trash until a sanitation system or building is built. Anyway, if sims with more money want to donate more to the project, they can, or they can fund it all, or large parts of the project. And these sims have the option of taking a stake in the project, like I mentioned before, or putting their name on it. I'll decide this on a sim by sim basis, as different options will make sense for different sims, but basically, if a family has a stake in the project--like the town plumbing system, for example--then they get some profit for it. I view the games' bills as bills for utilities, so I'd probably either write down the amount each household pays and give a portion to the families with stakes in utilities, or just give those families with stakes a flat fee every so often. I really like this as it's a way for me to create class systems and wealth divides naturally. And then for things like college campuses and parks, my wealthy sims' names will be everywhere, just like irl. So yeah, all those wealthy sims have to find a way to reinvest their money and keep the wealth growing.

As for how to collect taxes, there are a few ways. One is as you mentioned, @Primavera, Monique's hacked computer, but Monique also has an automatic payment mod, too. That might be helpful if you're worried about forgetting to send payments. Inge and Monique both have landlord mods that can send payments to sims as well, and then there's Pescado's Money Order, Christianlov's wallet, and Simwardrobe's checkbook. I know other simmers find keeping track of all this stuff stressful, but I like the little details like that. Monique's auto payment mod might be the best way to go, though, if you're worried about too much booking. It doesn't look as out of place as the computer might, it can send payments automatically, and you can track behind payments (they get added to the household's bills).

And TadOlson, that sounds, great! I'm planning something similar (I'm a simmer that plans a lot more than I play, especially lately, ). For hoods that I start from scratch, I'll start collecting taxes once there is a consensus among the households to form a government. Households "vote" for a government depending on life events--for example, if there are fires or theft/burglaries, etc.--and sim personalities. Certain sims, Popularity and Family sims, I'm thinking, care more about establishing societal rules and order and government.

This is really in-depth @Phantomknight, thank you! And I definitely don't want to end up in a situation where the poorer sims don't have enough money to pay their taxes, the person who proofread my rules said that their sims couldn't pay the value so they had to cheat a little. So paying taxes on a weekly basis may seem too hard depending on what the dice roll gives me for the family funds. So how does this sound; I make sims pay their taxes once a sim year at the beginning of spring, much like how tax season is in April. That would give me enough time to calculate my sims' household value and send it to the Mayor (I call the sim 'Mayor-to-be' because the role has been vacant for a while with the way I set up my rules). The bills were another option I was thinking about, so maybe I can add up the amount for a household per season and that could be their tax amount? The percentages still throw me off, I was never good at interest rates.

And thank you for linking that Monique mod! I'll definitely try and incorporate that one. I'll still keep Monique's hacked computer and toy around with it, I just downloaded it last month so you can tell I have no experience with it .

Does Circe Beaker deserve a second chance?

I started playing Strangetown and am struggling with the Beakers. There was no way I could allow them to keep up what they were doing to Nervous, but Nervous wouldn't have the guts to run away on his own. He's so traumatized he would never stop worrying what would happen to him when/if the Beakers found him again. Luckily, Pascal Curious was friends with Nervous and Nervous wandered by when Pascal was giving birth to his daughter. Their friendship evolved into a romance and Pascal convinced Nervous to marry him and move into their house where he would be protected. He will never get a job, he will just stay indoors and help take care of the children.

Olive Specter has died and Ophelia wants to move out of the house now that she is an adult. Nervous has inherited everything from his mother. Since the Curious household is starting to get a bit cramped, I thought Pascal and Nervous would move to the Specter house with their two kids. Nervous is Olive's son. He's definitely not a serial killer like Olive, but he is traumatized enough by the Beakers to want revenge and to put his nightmares to a definitive end. My dilemma is whether Nervous will "kill" both of the Beakers or just Loki.

I've looked through the Beaker's photos and memories and I am unsure of if Circe is a result of abuse too. Circe dated Vidcund Curious when she was a teen and Vidcund is still fond of her. It seems that Loki threatened and fought Vidcund for Circe. Circe wasn't used as a test subject like Nervous, but she was forced to marry Loki and do whatever he said- including abusing Nervous. Vidcund tried flirting with Circe in front of Loki and all Loki feared was losing Circe, yet he is constantly attacking her. Clearly he is just trying to hold onto her because he sees her as his property.

I'm definitely killing Loki. I'm not against having a villain-like character in Sims but Loki takes it too far for my taste. I'm just confused about what to do with Circe.

You clearly have an abuse/fellow victim storyline going on with Circe there, especially with him attacking her. Why not have Circe kill him and Nervous assist her in covering it up?

A redemption arc that leads off with murder is normally a hard sell for me, but it's not my game and law enforcement is clearly crap in Strangetown, since that abusive situation went on so long. If she has to solve the problem herself, and you're okay with it, well, so be itl.

About payment of taxes-if you don't want (or don't have anyone in particular as Mayor) to donate the taxes to the town, you can use the option on Monique's hacked computer to 'donate to charity' a certain sum, which will relieve the payer of a certain amount of money.
The only problem with that is remembering to do it every so often.

One issue is my BACC town is starting to look like a construction zone with fall about to arrive and winter preparations are already taking place with the flurry of building at the service center and on homesteads as they add to homes and buildings before winter arrives.It's up to the local families to begin getting themselves ready for the upcoming winter as fall arrives.

So I'm taking a break from building and, for whatever reason, instead of going back to my Pleasantview, I'm restarting Veronaville. I like the idea of keeping the hood small and building up some lots and houses for a while. Even though I'm taking a break from building. But whatever! :P

The dilemma I'm having is how to set up restrictions on which townies can move in. I want to stick to playables for a while; I plan on playing the bin sims, which I don't normally play, and maybe adding Desiderata or playing some of the uni premades. So I want to come up with some rules on when and how townies/dormies can move in before things get rolling too far. I didn't do this in my current Pleasantview, so a bunch of sims got to move in playables just cuz and I want to avoid that this time around cuz 1. I'm a hasty decision maker and usually end up moving in sims I really don't want to play/have no plan for and 2. it's kinda a cheat to make some quick cash for my playables and then, well, number 1 happens.

So, I'm looking for ideas, gameplay wise or storywise, for what should be the restrictions on townie move-ins, besides just 'must be in love/bffs' because it's way too easy for sims to fall in love or become friends. Though I suppose I could use No Instant Love. Anyway, ideas would be appreciated; what are some of the things you do in your game? Do sims need a permit (i.e., pay a fee)? Do they need relationships with multiple people, etc.? Do they have to wait a certain amount of time, etc.?

I don't like to move townies in, so my main rule is that one of my playables must have a persistent want to marry/get engaged to that townie (no impulse to get married just from a great date). I have also moved in townies when they have fathered children and then showed an interest in being in the child's life on a permanent basis--they visit and call frequently, for instance, and help take care of the kids when they are over. I have occasionally in the past moved in a townie who fathered children just to have them meet an unfortunate accident, as well, so the children won't grow up and have a father younger than them wandering around.

I think a good restriction for the Townie move-in could be the Enemy flag. It'd be a break from the Love flag, for sure, and would encourage some of your nastier sims to be nasty as they please while making new victims or arch nemeses.
Time doesn't march forward fast enough in my own neighborhood to have to think about adding Townies to the Playables.

My rules are all more like guidelines. Perhaps the final criterion should be "I'm interested in this sim and want to play them."

How do you play out the want to see the ghost of another sim? Cassandra Goth has married fellow scientist, Sheldon, and the two reside in the Goth home. They have a toddler in addition to Cassandra's first child with Don. I loaded their lot to find that Sheldon is incredibly furious with teenage Lucy Burb - and he wishes her dead! This altercation must have happened at a community lot.. I'm so perplexed! I love playing Lucy and don't wish to harm her, and I've also noted Sheldon's 5 nice points. Still, I don't want to ignore what had developed, and I think something could make for interesting drama! Perhaps Cassandra witnesses Sheldon's anger towards Lucy and may disapprove - or not? Sheldon has also merged well in the household, becoming best friends with Ophelia (Cassandra's firstborn), but I'm not entirely attached to playing him... thoughts??

Right now in Alice Springs I've got several people who have that wish-to see the ghost of their ex-spouse.

I've armed all of them to the gills. Should the two meet, there will be repercussions, and not pleasant ones.

The scenarios end with a funeral in the cemetery.

I don't usually revert to this kind of play, but otherwise they'd be at each other's throats every time they run into one another. It is mutual, and I'm going to have to roll the die to see who survives.

Oh, definitely, Peni! It's just that I often forget that rule when it comes to sims adding to other sims' stories. Like I had my Jessica Peterson marry the landlord and move him in when she got pregnant, not necessarily because I wanted to play him, but because I thought it'd be good for her personal storyline to end up married with kids that she didn't want after all. Even though I knew I'd probably want to her to skedaddle later on and leave him with the kid(s) and had no real interest in playing him, I moved him in. I kinda do this when I need a spouse for a sim, too. Sometimes it's cuz it's hard for me to pair a sim up with another playable--the story doesn't make sense or everyone compatible is already taken, . Or sometimes it feels like everyone is dating everyone. ...Which I guess might happen in a small town. My John Burb Jr ended up being a bit of a player, for example, without either of us really intending it, because he's middle class, so he meets & mingles with everyone and probably cuz there aren't a lot of playable guys his age. He's got relationships with Candi Broke, one of Dina & Mortimer's triplets, and Sandra Roth.

ANYway, it's easier to make sense of all that with my younger sims, or the second generations, cuz then they can mingle naturally in school or whatever. But for my older premades, idk, it's harder for me to find good pairings that make sense. ...I probably have too much going on with each sim, so their stories compete, rather than complement. I hope that all makes sense.

But thanks for the feedback, everyone. And I didn't consider the enemy flag at all, Nottakenaway, so you're right, that could be a good indicator. Right now, I'm leaning towards a mix of everything: 1. The townie/npc has to have a strong relationship with 3 or more playables, where a "strong relationship" equals love, BFF, or enemy flag, BUT the love flag can't be with a Romance or Pleasure sim. (Otherwise I'd end up moving in half the town! ) 2. Persistent "wants". For the playables, they have to roll the get married or engaged want at least 2-3 times (preferably outside of the date scenario), or show a strong preference for the sim (always calling them, preferring to initiate romantic interactions with the townie over other sims, etc.) For the townie, they need to show a persistent interest--always calling or stopping by. Showing up on a community lot whenever their SO is there. Etc. And then 3. I need to have a strong interest in playing the sim, or an idea for a storyline, or the sim must fit into an existing storyline. If I wouldn't mind if my playable killed the townie off and pocketed the insurance/move-in money, then I need to rethink moving in the sim.

I'm thinking either 1 or 2 can be present, but 3 should always be the case. And to help me with #3, I've come up with: 4. Any townie/npc moving in can't have a fatal "accident" for at least 4 seasons. Real accidents are okay, but I really shouldn't be moving in sims just to kill them and steal their money. I think that's fair. 5. They/the household need to pay a fee. Let's call it applying for a visa. I always liked the idea of my sims paying for a marriage license, and I think this goes well with that idea. Townies gonna request permanent resident status, and playables need to prove they're serious about getting married and moving in a foreigner. There's been some suspicious deaths over the years and I suppose the government ought to start cracking down to prove it's serious about protecting townie lives--it's amazing how real life and sims can line up sometimes. And the sentiment syncs up nicely with my ideas for a legal system I had a while back. (That very, very long post is here: https://www.modthesims.info/showthr...811#post5522811 in case anyone is interested.) Some of the laws I was thinking of were about protecting sims, including townies, from excessive violence and this could be part of that initiative. I looked up licenses and visas, though, and apparently they're cheap (NY is $35, a US visa is under 300); I'll have to change that for my hood. Perhaps $1,000 for the visa and $500 for the license? I wonder how that'll affect poorer sims though. They should be able to get married without too much trouble... Oh, I guess if it's too much for them, I could do a tax deduction for sims in lower income brackets.

...Hmm maybe this is a good time to expand my ideas for move-outs & move-ins all together. I suppose anyone moving anywhere in the neighborhood should pay a fee, to pay the movers. Maybe $500, $300 if you have a car? And sims will need to have a certain amount of savings to move out. I was thinking about doing that in my integrated hood (if I ever get it started; I always seem to have more rules to finalize first! ) as a way to slow the expansion of households and give sims something to earn towards. I think Veronaville might be a good hood to test out the rule; the sim pool is fairly small and the Capps and Montys are clannish enough that it makes sense for extended family to live together. Let's see, maybe $3000 to move out if there's government assisted housing, where all the amenities are communal. And they'll need a car. Always a car, unless in a dense part of the hood downtown. I can't see Veronaville ever becoming dense enough for that, though I suppose I could make a walkable square in the hood. Hmm. I'll pin that idea for later. I think a sim could probably scrape by for a bit on $7000. Oh, but they need a clothes budget. Okay, so maybe $5000 and $10,000 to move out. And a car. Or two weeks' rent and furniture, if they can get hand-me-downs? ...Hmm.

I guess I've rambled on enough. If anyone's got ideas for rules for me to add, though, I'd love to hear them!

Don't forget, when they've done their bit, if they haven't engaged you, you can always turn them back into townies. Age them up when the sim they were most significant to grows to elder, then pitch all the elders into a nursing home and have a low-pressure, high-chaos, undirected household there that you can play when you feel like it, giving them all a chance to die.

I'd check if Lucy is furious as well, cause then it seems like they really had a fight over something.
If only he is furious, obviously she did something without noticing.
Is she much younger than him? I think if he were to pick a fight with a teenager, Cassandra should rethink her choices!

After all, even if Teens are really annoying them, adults should take the high road cause they (are supposed to) know better!

Is anyone friends with Lucy? If so, I'd invite her and see what happens...

I'd use one of my hacks to fix that corrupted relationship and add a few Mods that make fighting more sensible like they'll only fight a few times and will leave a community lot and go home if they got into a fight instead of hanging around continuing to fight.I'd use insiminator or Simblender to fix that relationship and also fix the persnality conflict.I make very nasty sims nicer and ones that are too playful a liitle less playful.
I've got sims in my town preparing for winter now and summer is really almost over in Dodge when sims taking cold showers are getting chilled.

I'm thinking of making a system where the laws in the neighbourhood are determined by the aspiration of the sim in change. For example, if the leader's aspiration is Knowledge then collage is free for everyone but young sims with grades below a "C" are taken away. I've thoughts of laws for Family and Knowledge but not sure what laws I should have for other aspirations.

Pretty easy for romance sim: love is free, woohoo with everyone and no jealousy.
Pleasure: all significant ceremonies and parties must be on community lot. Sims can wear whatever they want (pajamas on parties, swimming in underwear etc.)
Wealth: taxes, taxes, taxes...

@Shadow214 -I'd make bookcases being present on all community lots required by law and that some skilling career reward items must be placed on any community lots as my sims often use the charisma podiums from those to earn extra money while skilling up.Wealth aspiration sims would want high school to be tuition-free and for sims to use the best schooling options for their children to give them the best chance at getting higher grades to make it into high school.They'd also put more subsidized rental housing complexes in to help raise more sims put of poverty and want the town organized into districts.Family aprirations would be similar though more about family and would also include in laws that couples have to learn about and practice good family planning like not having babies just because you want one even though you can't afford a child yet.The big diffirence is that wealth sims might want to tax richer sims more if their income is higher and tax less wealthy sims less to encourage poor sims to rise above poverty.Family sims would want to avoid charging taxes unless it was absolutely needed to raise money for some community ammenites and they'd require all bars and nightclubs to provide toddler spaces for couples out on a date night who can't pay a sitter so they can at least keep their little one safe.

@Shadow214
Family Sims:
-.financial incentives given at weddings at to every child born.
- elders must live with a relative
- One adult must be a full time caregiver until household children are teens (can be a parent, grandparents, relative, or for the wealthy a live-in Nanny)

Pleasure
- No more police crashing parties (get a mod/hack)
- Free babysitting/Nanny services
- Must regularly host parties if wealthy
- No working or homework on Saturday or Sunday

Romance
- tax breaks on hot tubs, saunas, and other places to woohoo that aren't the bed
- Bonuses for single parents

I like this idea! I may do something similar in my game

I seriously love this thread. Little did you know it @Shadow214, but I wrote up a sim political spectrum to help me decide that very question! I guess it's time to share it. You may not agree with everything I have, but hopefully it'll spark some ideas. To sum up everything quickly I made a chart for myself; I'll share that too. As a little background, well, originally I was coming up with some ideas for my eventual BACC or integrated hood. I wanted a way to make story happen, a way to direct the future of the hood, without me necessarily coming up with a specific plotline and coming up with a specific direction. I wanted a hood that had rich backstory and ideologies that came from my sims--their aspirations, interests, and personalities would shape the town and make for a story. And from those things, I'd make the utopia, dystopia, or anything else in between, that my sims seem to demand. So, for each aspiration I tried to answer how that aspiration feels about government, money, social norms, community lots, family, otherness/outsiders, and learning (in no particular order). I didn't give too many specific examples, but rather generalities on how sims approach the world. For me, that's enough to spark ideas on what laws they'd make or proposals/projects they'd come up with. Hopefully it does that for you, too.

What was pretty obvious to me at first was that Family and Romance are polar opposites. Both aspirations just want the exact opposite of each other. I thought about why and I thought about each aspiration a bit more and eventually came to conclude that Pleasure is not only opposite to Family as well, but is the ultimate liberal. Family is the ultimate conservative. Pleasure sims require a fully free society to pursue their whims while Family sims are all about order and traditions. Romance sims would also fall into the liberal category, wanting a lot of the free society Pleasure sims need to make pursuing fun a realistic, full time goal. Popularity, on the other hand, is closely aligned with Family. They need societal order/structure to get what they care about--status. Fortune would lean liberal, because they desire financial freedom. One could argue that Fortune sims belong on the conservative side, but for me, if the spectrum was also no rules vs. rules, I'd have to keep them on the no rules/liberal side. And finally, Knowledge and Grilled Cheese sims would be neutral, but for different reasons. Admittedly Knowledge sims probably tend to lean liberal more than towards the conservative end of the spectrum, but for them, it's only about the pursuit of knowledge. They do not want to be in the weeds about everyday affairs. Plus, given enough time and learning, they could probably rationalize just about anything. Grilled Cheese sims of course, only care about grilled cheese all the time, every time. So absolutely neutral for them.

With that rough breakdown, I could then look a little deeper at aspiration, think about the potential subtle differences within each one, and think about how each aspiration might mold a society.















I hope that was all helpful; for me, that's enough to come up with rules, good, bad, or extreme, for each aspiration. Hopefully it helps others come up with ideas, too.

I have one disagreement with your chart, though-I think Fortune pixels are very conservative and like to keep their money intact by keeping power. They're usually the people who run things, and they're very paranoid with people looking to steal it from them.
I usually pick a secondary aspiration for a fortune pixel as being family or popularity-in order to keep their wealth in the family, and to build an empire.

Yes, it was very tricky for me to place Fortune sims, but I think I ultimately decided that they should be liberal because they aren't really concerned with social rules at all, nor do they really care about traditions and order, as long as they're making money. I see them as wanting freedom above all--the freedom to make money anyway--and not wanting much government at all. Again, just enough government to protect their property and investments, but otherwise, I was thinking they wouldn't want any meddling. They'd want to be free to get away with everything. Idk where libertarianism fits on the spectrum, but that's what I was going for. And since I thought economic freedom would be priority number 1 for them, I tipped them over to the liberal side.

But as I was writing the post up, yeah, I could definitely see how Fortune could also be considered conservative and could see an alternate version where Fortune is on the other side. A lot of times they seemed to line up with Family and Popularity sims. ...Idk, it made sense in my head at the time.

I think all the aspirations can have desires that run the spectrum.
Like one Family Sim might think that free Nanny/Daycare is ideal so families can have lots of kids. But another might think only one parent should work and the other should stay home.

I've had it that my family sims love the idea of birth control and wise family planning to make sure nobody's having babies when they're totally unprepared to riase the child and family sims often want to build up finances to be able to afford to raise children without needing both parents to work.They'll want there to be subsidized rental housing which can help those who might've gotten pregnant by accident before they were really ready.
Fortune sims don't like seeing babies being born to families that can't afford the child because it means more sims ending up living in poverty and more taxes for them to pay for the cost of running the subsidized rentals which wealthier sims don't need.They also want to make sure fewer unwanted children are born and that more couples are better prepared for raising children when they finally have one.They're also the ones who wait longer to start families and sometimes end up having fewer children unless family is a secondary arpiration which often happens.
Romance sims will often like romance and dating though they'll want to settle down and get married though not be in a hurry to start a family because they want to enjoy having date nights and be able to have nights out as a couple before they have a family or end up dciding to forgo kids.
Pleasure sims are mostly like hippies and want free love and are less likely to settle down to get married.They also don't want paties broken up and don't like paying taxes or having steady jobs and will often take advantage of subsidized rental housing even though they could work.

Some of my Sims are getting involved in illegal activities, and I want there to be a chance of consequences for them, but I don't want it to be something that I necessarily control. I am working on getting an asylum in town where I can send Sims who get arrested, but I am wondering how might they get caught? One of my thoughts is that Tank is the Chief of Police and perhaps if he (or anyone else in the police department) does a walk-by of the Sim's house where they have been committing crimes while I'm playing it, that might mean they are under investigation. I don't want it to be as random as rolling a die, but more integrated into the story. Anyone have thoughts?

Do you use traits? Perhaps that could be a factor in your gameplay, like 'unlucky' sims are more likely to get investigated. Beyond that, I like the idea of police walkbys meaning that the sim is under investigation. How would you play out the investigation, then? Would the police visitors have to find evidence of crime?

I don't think I have traits. I have Super Collection so no FT/AL.

Yeah, I get stuck on playing out the investigation too. Maybe they would have to see the evidence, like the grave in the backyard or the cowplant in the basement. Maybe also using gossip? When Nervous ran away from the Beakers', Loki found out about it because he was gossiping about Nervous with a coworker who I knew had just been over at the Curious house where Nervous was, so I figured she was telling Loki that. I like to use the gossip interaction because it's shorter than chat but usually gets two Sims interacting.

I think traits are a mod.

Hm, maybe if you see someone gossip to a police officer about a criminal?

And then maybe the police officer could invite themselves over (use a summoner) and talk to the sim?

After that I'd probably use a dice roll, maybe dependent on relationship points they have after the talk. If the criminal is a really smooth talker the likelihood of getting investigated further is less.
Depending on the type of crimes, the officer could also walk around the lot randomly and if they get close to something they find it? But Sims tend to stick to bath/food/fun items, so I don't think they'd randomly enter the cellar full of urns...

What I do for unattended children might give you some ideas:
If a sim leaves their baby or toddler at home alone and there is reason for a passer-by to see/hear them, and the passer-by is the sort of sim who would call the authorities about it, then I will have the child put in my orphanage.

So if someone witnesses a crime who would report it, maybe that would trigger investigation and arrest. They might report it because they're a good citizen, they might report it because they're a rival criminal. They might not report it if they would be threatened by the criminal, or if they would believe that crime is a result of society's evils. That would depend on the sim. You could probably figure out a ruleset where so many nice points or so high a relationship with the criminal means a witness wouldn't report the crime, an enemy who has lost a fight to the criminal wouldn't report it, an enemy who has won a fight with the criminal would report it, a sim with mid-range nice points would report it, a sim with low nice points wouldn't report it because they don't see a problem, etc.

What kind of laws are they breaking? If they're doing something outside, do they have close neighbors who could see it and call the police? You might want to introduce accomplices if it fits, so that Sims can turn on each other if the relationship goes bad, or inform on each other to get a lighter sentence if they get caught.

Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions! Lots of great ideas here for me to work with. The major crimes being committed at the moment are assault and murder by a werewolf, murder by a rogue scientist with a cowplant, and kidnapping by a Single White Female type. The two murderers do have graves in their yards, although the former werewolf lives in an abandoned house with no close neighbors. The scientist with the cowplant and the SWF are accomplices, so that gives me some possibilities, as well.

I had to share how so wonderful this game is at building stories just with the little things it does. The werewolf in question was Mickey Dosser, who has since "cured" himself by turning someone else, Ajay Loner, into a werewolf, thus passing on the curse. While he was still a werewolf, though, he assaulted Buck Grunt and killed a townie. Buck's brother is Tank Grunt, who is Captain Hero, and Buck lives with him. It stands to reason that Buck would tell him about the assault, and Tank would want to investigate. So Buck brought home from work none other than Ajay, who turned into a werewolf while he was at the Grunts' house and told Tank how he became that way. Ajay hasn't assaulted anyone yet, so he may just need treatment for his condition, but now Tank has two witnesses against Mickey and probably enough evidence to have him arrested. I think Mickey will be committed to the asylum rather than imprisoned or executed because he wasn't in his right mind when he committed his crimes.

I have a hack that disabled the social worker coming if a baby,toddler or child was laft home alone though I'd have rules about that only being allowed to do a quick grocery run while they have to take the little one along or hire a babysiiter if leaving a baby or toddler for more than a quick grocery run.Subsidized rentals mean sims who weren''t prepared when a baby came along can still manage though they'd have to move out of their house if they can't afford to have one parent quit their job.That's usually what hapens when couples are starting families.

So my rule with uni is that sims need to fork over 3000 simoleons to attend, so that I don't just send everyone to uni. I wanted to send Puck Summerdream as well, but the family kinda spent their money on renovation and now they don't have money to pay the bills and send him to uni. Also, I was very much relying on him going bc I had Tybalt move into a house by himself, and so he only has a few simoleons in funds now at uni. Do you think I should download the loan jar and have them take out a loan, or just simply age him up to adult? (I'm not too worried about the age difference that would come with this, they're sims, as long as they seem sorta correct I'm fine with it)

@sugiosama -I'd download a hack from here that allows the career rewards to be unlocked to buy mode and buy a charisma podium for them to use in earning more money and I usually place those on community lots and incommon areas of apartment lots.The charisma podiums pay money when a sim uses it to practice a speech and they also build up charisma skill if it's not already maxed out.They could come up with the money quickly for that expense and not owe any debt for it since it was legit earned and not cheated into the funds.

If you were looking forward to playing Puck in university, I think you should do whatever, within the realm of your playstyle, is necessary to send him there. Personally I'd be willing to use cheaty ways for the Summerdreams since they are fairies, but if the loan jar's more comfortable for you, by all means use it.

Honestly, I think I'm also gonna kinda cheat him in, if "they're fairies" can explain why they wear flower crowns all the time and why they have such a house with mediocre pay, charming (like, magically) him into uni doesn't seem too out of their reach.

The podium is a good idea too, would it not be for the fact that I waited until the literal last moment to decide on this, lol. I was hoping for Oberon to get that bunny video chance card to bring in some cash, but he didn't, so magic it is

Thanks for all the ideas for laws, I've made a list with some ideas.
Aspirations Laws

Pleasure
-All Sims pay 10% less tax.
-No working or doing homework on Saturdays and Sundays.
-If a household can’t afford any fun objects then they will be given £1000 simoleons to buy any fun objects they want.
-The Nanny service is free.
-No more police crashing parties.
-Sims can dress however they want
-Teenagers may drink from bars and use the bubble bar.
-There must be a community lot where sims can go to have fun such as an arcade, park or nightclub.

Fortune
-Wealthy sims pay 20% more tax.
-Teenagers and Elders are encouraged to get part-time jobs. (If a teen or elder rolls a job want it must be fulfilled.)
-Sims who own business pay 10% less tax.
-Burglar alarms are free.
-Sims at the top of their career, have a rank 10 business or a gold talent badge pay 20% less tax.
-University fees are cut by 50%.
-Stealing another sim’s newspaper or lawn ornaments will result in a fine of £500 simoleons.
-Sims caught counterfeiting money must pay £5,000 simoleon fine.

Knowledge
-By law, sims are required to have a bookcase and a telescope in their house if they can’t afford it then, then the family will be given money to buy the cheapest bookcase and telescope.
-University is free for all sims.
-Children and Teens whose grades fall below a “C” will be taken away and put in an orphanage.
-Supernatural sims and sims who have been abducted pay 5% less tax.
-Sims who maximize at least one skill pay 20% less tax.
-Sims who maximize all their skills pay no taxes at all.
-Children and Teens must be taught how to do their homework.
-There must be a community lot where sims can learn skills such as a library or a science lab.

Family
-Toddlers must be taught at least one of their toddler skills, failure to do so will result in the child being taken away when they age up.
-Pregnant Sims too poor to afford a crib and changing table will be given the money to buy them before the baby is born.
-Sims will three or more children pay 20% less tax.
-Elders must live with a relative if they have no relatives they must move in with a friend.
-Sims who cheat on their partners and are caught will be fined.
-Orphan sims will be moved into the house of their nearest living relative. If they have no other family they will be moved in an orphanage. Teenagers cannot live alone.
-One adult must be a full-time caregiver until household children are teens. (can be a parent, grandparents, relative, or for the wealthy a live-in Nanny)
-When two sims get married they will receive £2000 simoleons.
-Using the bubble blower is illegal.
-There must a community lot where families can spend time together, such as a park or community centre.

Romance
-All objects that sims can woohoo in now cost 10% less to buy.
-Single parents pay 5% less tax.
-Sims with ten or more romantic partners pay 20% less tax.
-Sims are encouraged to find love. (All wants to with romance must be fulfilled.)
-Getting married is strongly discouraged, those who want too cannot throw a wedding party.
-There must be a community lot where sims can meet up with potential partners without fear of being judged.
-Parents are free to give their children to an orphanage if they don’t want them.

Popularity
-All sims must visit at least one community lot per week. Failure to do so will result in £500 simoleon fine.
-There must be a party whenever a sim gets married, ages from a teenager to an adult or graduates from university.
-Sims with ten or more best friends pay 20% less tax.
-The pizza and Chinese delivery service are free. (Cheat the money back.)
-The Nanny service is free.
-No more police crashing parties.
-Sims are encouraged to live together, households with four or more sims pay 10% less tax.
-There must a community lot where sims can mingle together such as a park, town hall or a nightclub.

Grilled Cheese
-Fire alarms are free for all sims.
-On Sundays, everyone must eat at least one grilled cheese sandwich.
-Sims with maximized cooking skill or have a Golden Gardening badge pay 20% less tax.
-Everyone is encouraged to plant crops to get the best ingredients for grilled cheese sandwiches.
-There must be a restaurant where only grilled cheese sandwiches are served.
-Sims in the Culinary career pay 10% less tax.

Less of a dilemma, more of a "lunchtime poll" I guess
You win a million dollars the day aliens land and announce... lol nope

If you had Goneril and Albany divorce in your game, what was the reason that finally drove them to it? I want to make them divorce to create Drama (tm) and absolutely destroy Ariel mentally, but my plan (have Albany adopt a kid without Goneril's permission) tragically failed after Albany rolled away the baby want after locking the divorce fear.

Also, if you had them seperate, what arrangements did you do? Who did the kids stay with?

I haven't played them long enough to do this, but two things occur to me right off the bat:

Lesbian Goneril. And/or:

"You don't want to help me fill that next baby want? Fine. I'll go through somebody else."

Well, it was Albany who wanted them all!

I find other ways to add drama like having my town struggling with a drought or an abnormally long cold hard winter and threats of running out of supplies to buy before spring arrives and shipments get through.I can also have long periods of nonstop rain and pretend there's a flooding threat or a bad heavy rainstorm is threatening flash flooding in the area.I might have one partmenr die shortly after the coupld had a baby for drama and have that surviving parent struggling to manage.
I have the children of broken arriages stay with the parent who is mst willing to take them if one wanted children and the other one didn't.

But... if Albany lost custody of the kids (even temporarily) to Goneril, that could really up the drama of the split-up.

Sugoisama, do you have a child support system set up? What are your family laws like?

It sounded from your 'What's happening . . .' thread post, like Albany really doesn't have the stay at home parent side of things down either. If there's any investigation into fitness to parent, he might loose the kids to Goneril no matter what she and he want to have happen.

I've never had that couple divorce, as a fortune/family pairing they're usually all over each other with boltage for me. However, things the courts (me, the player) assess are what the sims would admit to, what the courts would have reasonable non-player-power ways of knowing, and what relationships the kids have with the parents. And there's always the potential for corruption: a judge might lean favorably on the Capp side of any issue because, y'know, Capps, right?
So are there any friends or service sims who might be called on to testify about the family's relationships? Any judges that might take a bribe of some sort from Consort? (He's the one with the money, after all.) What are the kids' attitudes to their parents? Might some kids end up with each? What would happen if Miranda, say, went to Goneril, while the younger trio went to Albany? What if Consort sued for custody of one or more of them, or if Goneril and the children moved in with him temporarily or permanently?

The other thing I do is use Inge's summoner cat to do shared custody between separated parents, when appropriate: because I play with an extended lifespan mod (Almighty Hat's proportional aging) I generally have kids live with the primary custodial parent on weekdays and the secondary custodial parent on weekends, and I play rotations as 5/2.

I would have the children going to foster care sometimes when a couple breaks up if none of them had been really ready for children or nobody really wanted to have the children.It can happen that the couple had a few accidents with woohoo and got a few unplanned pregnancies and have a few children they weren't prepared for.I had a couple almost bankrupted from this once back in my early days playing before I hacked my game out and I was trying to find a way of giving that unplanned bay up for adoption and found nothing.

That is exactly what happened: considering Albany was unemployed the court (read: me) decided that the kids would be best off with Goneril, who not only had a stable job paying more than 1k every day, but also the fortune (from the genie) to get them a nice house. Albany moved into an apartment and will probably have some young townie lover living with him as a room-mate in the future.

This also (albeit accidentally) gave me an opportunity to establish another West-Veronaville custom, which is all children sharing a room. The pre-made houses all have one bedroom, and there's not a lot I can do to make more smaller rooms, plus the kids do (sort of) fit into one room, so there's not too much to complain about. Except for privacy, of course, but eh, details, details.

@sugosisama -That's a case where the unemployed sim moves into a subsidized rental in a trailer park apartment zoned lot that was one of my own custom built apartment lots and gets subsidized to stay at home and raise their children.I wouldn't have them go with a parent working full time if any are babies or toddlers because babies and toddlers are too young to be left home alone for an entire workday.

Subsizedd housing is available in my game though my own custom scratch built apartment lots in options ranging from rooms for rent in boarding houses to apartments,townhouses and condos or trailer units in trailer parks.These not only provide cheap affordable rental housing for my sims,but the subsidezed ones also allow newcomers to work on skilling before getting jobs and young parents with babies or toddlers to be stay at home parents and get subsidized for it until their child is old enough to attend school or not need to be fed.

TadOlson do you not use service sims at all, then? $1000+ a day will hire a nanny very nicely for when Goneril's at work. Even if you have a mod for pricier service sims, which I do, she comes to about $800 for a full shift, and if Miranda doesn't have an after school job she can hire the nanny and the nanny only work a half-shift.

@Sunbee -There can be service sims in my game though they would be CAS created playables and teens born in the game who've left home.I should upload some of my apartment lots without CC though career rewards placed on the lots would be fine since they're EA content though not usually unlocked.I've got subsidized apartment lots through having green energy sources placed on the lots.I might start with a CC -fre version of my trailer park with career reward items on the lot and recommend you downloaded it and installed it.I also use that trick on my residential lots and also have career rewards placed on those lots before sims move in and also place them on community lots for sims to earn money while out.I don't use any Mods to raise the service NPC prices and use one to eliminate rental deposits and cut rents in half.

I hope it's okay to revive this thread to ask for advice on a plot point.

In my Pleasantview, I had Darren and Cassandra adopt/foster the two children of Kaylynn Langerak and Daniel Pleasant (I didn't change family relationships, so the children still know who they are biologically related to). Now the children are starting to get older, and when they become teens, I want them to seek out their biological parents through adoption records, and their youngest daughter will probably choose to move in with one or both of her biological parents. I'm trying to decide which parents to bring back--they have both been out of play for a while: Daniel Pleasant, who is now an elder and abandoned Kaylynn; Kaylynn Langerak; or have Daniel and Kaylynn get back together. Mary-Sue, Daniel's ex-wife, is currently living with her daughter Angela and her son-in-law Dustin and meddling in their marriage. Lilith Pleasant is about to discover she is pregnant by Dirk, Darren's son, who is having an affair with Angela and isn't sure he wants to marry Lilith.

So which parent should come back:
a) Daniel
b) Kaylynn
c) Daniel and Kaylynn together

Thanks!

I vote for B, but then I've always hated Daniel.

I also vote B.

Daniel is very much an abandonner.

Go for drama!

The teen/ teens seek out both parents... who who they get along with better. Maybe have the teen feel like she can help 'save' Daniel ... maybe now in his golden years he realizes what he's missed out on seein as how none of this other children want anything to do with them.

I made a post about these recent events in another thread, but I am in a dilemma about where I want to go from here.

In short, John and teenage Lucy died in a fire. Lucy had a cute romance going on with Beau, who is now in aspiration failure, because of her death.

The dilemma is should I find a way to resurrect Lucy somehow before Beau goes to college and they can go together, or should I go the realistic approach and keep her dead? Maybe either have him brood for a few years, or just find a romantic prospect in college.

This can go many ways...

You have so many options!

In my game, Beau and Lucy were never close, but when his best friend, Alexander Goth, died unexpectedly in a fire while they were roomies in college, he spent the next few years becoming part of the secret society to bring him back.
Later, his wife (Elysse, the adopted daughter of Mary-Sue and wife Gretchen) starved to death while pregnant and he begged the Grim Reaper and saved her. Now he's pursuing a career in the Paranormal as he is convinced he has power over death.

As my game is generally less supernatural, I sometimes consider that rather than dead, Alexander was just in a coma that no one thought he could recover from - so if you want to save Lucy, maybe she's just "mostly dead".

I do enjoy the goal oriented, seeking to save love of his life, driven Beau.

It's sad about Lucy, but I think I would take the realistic approach. It could become part of Beau's story--can any girl measure up to his memory of Lucy?

I think you should think about what you could do with either situation, and choose whichever is more interesting. I'm a huge fan of unnecessary drama, so maybe I'd revive her, have Beau immediately marry her in fear of losing her again, then find out they aren't perfect for each other, and have a tense, affair-filled, loveless marriage. But if you want to play like a sane person, I'd say he should mourn her for quite a while, then maybe at uni move on. Of course, if he's still a teenager, he obviously must have a very dramatic and black mourning phase where he doesn't talk to anyone and makes it his entire character.

As much as it pains me to say this, I think I'll go the realistic route.

Beau will go through a rough patch in his life; his first love, the woman he had made many plans with, including marriage and babies, is gone now. He doesn't even have enough finds for a perfect resurrection, though he did have friends willing to lend money. There isn't even a Resurrect-O-Nomitron readily available, so I doubt she'd be resurrected in time. In addition, Lucy and Beau will have quite a large age gap, as she would be reset to the start of the teenage lifestage.

He's fallen into despair, but those close to him will have to keep reminding him that there will be light at the end of the tunnel. His mother, Brandi, and step-father, Darren, would know better than anyone in Pleasantview having lost their first loves, but they found each other.

I hope Beau finds love in the future and moves on. This boy needs a hug.

{{{hugs}}} to Beau and I hope he does find love again. I have a soft spot for all of the Broke boys (Brandi has never had a girl the third time when I've played Pleasantview and I usually name her third son Bobby). They and the Grunt boys are probably my favorite playables.

The drama reminds me of playing that town back when I was just starting out with the game though I ended up moving on to playing empty terrains and adding my own sims because playing an already loaded town seemed to be more confusing and I wanted to practice building my own community with my own stories.
I'll be very excited when I can finally see that kind of drama showing up in my BACC one day when it's a bigger town with multiple neighborhoods and a campus.It's a very small trading post with two couple living there on their homesteads now so I have to be very creative with stories and will play out the theme of settlers struggling to survive and to manage to grow successful crops on farms as others take up homesteads and also start farming the land.

When I read what had happened I cried for Lucy. And I cried for Beau. As John Donne nearly said, every Sim's death diminishes me, even when it's not in my game. "Send not to know for whom the bell tolls . . ."

Famously (or infamously) I've played so carefully, and with so many mods to protect my Sims, that I've never had a Sim die in my game. I've never seen the Grim Reaper in my game. And I'm in no hurry to meet him! But if and when I do lose a Sim in tragic circumstances (and I fear it's more likely to be "when" rather than "if") I think I'll probably go the "realistic" route, albeit unwillingly, and with tears. After all, I can't bring Real Life friends back, much though I'd love to. I suppose as a Christian (a bad one!) I have to believe in resurrection, but I really don't like the way it's done in The Sims. Maybe it's too much of a "game", when I feel it's really a matter of life and death. (Of course The Sims is both at once.) So, when I do finally lose a Sim that I love, I think I'll lay them to rest, reluctantly and with tears. And then, as in real life, I'll try to move on. And help my remaining Sims to move on too.

Actually that shouldn't be a problem. You can easily subtract (or add) Days Left with the Sim Manipulator, to put them back more or less where they were before. I'm pretty sure Imsimenator of the SimBlender can do the same too.

I've no experience teenagers coping with this sort of bereavement -- fortunately, at least where I live, teenage death is very rare. But I have seen older men, after a long and happy marriage, remarrying with what seems almost indecent haste. It's not a sign of lack of love for their recently departed spouse -- it's more an indication of how much they miss her. So don't be surprised if Beau seems to find new love quickly. It doesn't mean he's not grieving for Lucy. Rather it means her death has left a gap in his life that just has to be filled. Of course filling the shoes of the dead can be hard -- it needs a brave woman to take on the task. Did Lucy have a best friend? That's often where bereaved males find solace; they can grieve together for somebody they both loved.

For myself I've never regretted putting in Squinge's No More Fires mod. There were just far too many serious kitchen fires. I burn my Real Life food with great regularity, but I've never yet set the kitchen on fire. Far less killed myself. In the unmodded game there were far far more fires than in reality. You may not want to go down the No More Fires road, but I suggest you make a habit of placing a fire alarm and/or a sprinkler above every stove and fireplace. Your Sims will thank you for it.

Actually, you can send a teen to university at any time, so if you don't mind Resurrected Lucy going to college without having time to rebuild her relationships and skills that isn't a problem at all.

Despite Lucy losing her relationships to everyone except the one who resurrects her, rebuilding the relationship with Beau shouldn't be a big problem. When Spring Thyme, who died in a fire on the day before she would have gone to college, was resurrected by her sister, she not only lost her relationship with her high school sweetheart Tommy Ottomas, she was a different age stage - because I didn't resurrect her until Tommy had gone through a full grieving arc, met someone new, recovered, married, and had a child. I even changed his name to Tom to reflect the huge amount of maturation he had to do during that period. But losing her relationships did not cause Spring to lose her memories or her Wants and Fears History, and Tommy was all over both, so she almost immediately started rolling wants about him. I don't remember if they occurred before her family invited him and his wife over to see her - which they did almost immediately - so I don't know if those memories were spontaneous or needed a trigger, but she was far more likely to roll wants for Tom than for boys her own age - and her a Family sim! I never did get to finish playing that arc out and have no idea where it would have wound up. Spring was a Scorpio, so she might have been pretty ruthless about pursuing him once she finally finished growing up. We'll never know now.

One thing to be prepared for when sending teens with dead friends to college - the want tree does not exempt dead teens from the selection of teen friends students will roll "$Subject comes to college" wants for. Tom and her sisters rolled those wants for Spring till the day they graduated, which I found touching, and interpreted as indicating regular thoughts about how Spring was supposed to be there with them for these experiences.

Yeah, I cried for the pair, too. They're both young and in love.

I was playing with an idea in my head to have her resurrected and leave for college straight away with Beau. However, I thought about the narrative significance and came to the conclusion that this could be a time for growth for Beau.

I don't play with mods to protect my sims from disasters, as I find it interesting when spontaneous death occurs. It's rare anyway unless I force it for narrative purposes, and since with my Pleasantview I'm letting the pieces fall where they may, allowing my sims to create the story themselves, I've found that less death occurs, unless it's old age.

So this was a sad, yet welcome, spice. I doubt that made any sense.

It's never fun to watch a favourite sim die, and then see how that affects the rest of the sims.

People play the game in different ways, which is what makes this board fun and interesting. Every simmer has a different approach; some hate tradegy and go out of their way to prevent it, others welcome it, some just play and see what happens, and some just make big family trees. There are more ways to play than listed, such as challenges and legacies.

I don't really find the age gap a major issue, just trying to find a way to justify my decision. If I was going to resurrect her, I was going to just send her straight away with Beau, thus making them the same age. However, I thought about funds (they didn't have enough) and the world bhilding, if you will. There wasn't a Resurrect-O-Nomitron on hand and it's not realistic, which was how I was playing Pleasantview, before I added a certain subhood...

Since this dilemma, I had added Strangetown so that I had a logical reason (in my mind) to add La Fiesta Tech, just so that Alexander had a chance to get with Stella Terrano. It's gone well, two bolts, and they're in love. This makes me wonder... I have aliens running around, but I rule out resurrection?

I've begun playing ping pong in my mind, as to what I should do. Half of me wants to keep her dead for narrative purposes, combined with trying to keep death permanent as in real life (that's never the case in my custom 'hood, my favourite sims always get revived), and another part of me wants to cheer Beau up, but at the same time it's not like in real life a watcher is going to bring your loved ones back, because you cried enough, even though that would be nice.

What rules do people have concerning resurrection? Maybe that could give me some ideas.

Aliens and resurrection have nothing to do with one another. Logically, if there's intelligent life on one planet, there could be on another. Death, on the other hand, is the shadow of life.

My own rule is, What's the most interesting thing that could happen here?

My rules (or guidelines) concerning resurrection:

I play Strangetown and Pleasantview separately. Pleasantview is strictly realistic: no supernatural creatures, no pleading with the Grim Reaper, no resurrection. In Pleasantview, dead is dead, and dealing with death becomes part of the characters' stories.

In Strangetown, anything goes, but it generally has to align with the characters' wants and personalities and make sense for the story. My last Strangetown playthrough, Vidcund died; I had Pascal resurrect him because someone in the household had a want for him to be resurrected (Lazlo) and because it made sense that Pascal would pursue the Paranormal career and get the bone phone, since he was already a knowledge Sim in the science career; he basically just switched departments. In my current playthrough, Olive is a witch and has the bone phone because she knows the Grim Reaper personally. Nervous died (like the very first time I opened the Beaker house), and since she had a want to resurrect him, that worked out nicely; he "lives" with her now, although he's pretty much immortal unless he moves out of her house, as is she. This hasn't happened yet, but if someone did want a loved one to be resurrected, they would have to suck up to Olive to make that happen and pay for it in some way (unless they were in a position to pursue the Paranormal career themselves). So resurrection is possible, but it's not easy, which I think is how it should be. Magic should have a price of some kind.

I do have one steadfast rule about resurrection, which is that elders who die a natural death cannot be resurrected. They have gone on to what I hope is a better place, where there are hula dancers, beautiful sunsets, and endless mai tais.

While begging for a Sim's life is always allowed in my game, resurrection definitely has a different story arch.

I mentioned above that the only time I've allowed it so far was when Beau resurrected Alexander. Both were at University when the fire destroyed their shared house, and Beau succeeded in becoming part of the secret society and using Alexander's own money to bring back his friend. Narratively, Alexander is reported as being in a coma and Beau brought him back, rather than being fully dead.
Also, as a result, Alexander underwent a personality change. He rerolled with aspiration (now pleasure), and got a random personality. It definitely affected his responsibilities as heir, where he's more concerned with fun, and always annoyed about having to make important decisions. Usually, he talks to his step-mother Dina to decide what's best, and he and his husband Jerry have a live-in housekeeper to manage the day-to-day and child rearing.

Beau is now on the paranormal career path; he's going to start some kind of cult which may involve resurrection, but again on a short term timeline.

So my rules are:
1 - resurrected sims have an aspiration change
2 - resurrected sims have a personality change
3 - sims can only be resurrected within a time limit of 10 days (or one season in my game)
4 - sims have to have access to $10 000 to pay the Grim Reaper - I do not want Zombies!!

Resurrection does not exist in my game. Not for the fact that it's unrealistic, I play with a male pregnancy mod after all, but to curb my own playing tendencies. Then again I've yet to have a scenario where I felt that it would even be justified in. I think if I do get there I would do something similar to Coriel though and have it affect them profoundly.

A bit undecided what to do with the Capps. I started Veronaville over, as a break from my building & renovatinating Pleasantview. I want to make my plays of the Capps and the Montys unique, but they're turning out very similar. I haven't played the Montys yet, but I'm leaning towards playing them as a strict, penny-pinching patriarchy--only boys inherit. Either only boys or just the heir goes to college. Everyone cooks. Lots of restaurants and OFB businesses. Etc. And then I'll have Romeo and Mercutio rebel in various ways against that to build some family wealth. I think I read somewhere that someone made them a crime family and I like the idea of Romeo dabbling in that behind his grandfather's back.

The Capps, on the other hand, aren't squeaky clean either. There's more of them so Consort is getting into debt trying to keep up appearances. I finally figured out how they'll earn money--mostly real estate "fraud", selling to townies and what not, and farming. And to build up power in the town, I'll have different branches on the family go into different career fields. I'm thinking Albany will go into Law Enforcement, since he's family, and Regan and Cornwall will start a law practice. I haven't decided who will go into Politics yet. Anyway, I'm a little torn about heirship here. For the Monty's it's clear that it's Benedick. Straight patriarchy rules, and he's young enough that moving back in with his grandfather will be a significant part of his life, and his grandfather can try to mold him into a "proper Monty." And his only real rival is Mercutio, since Romeo is Romance and I can't see a strict patriarchal figure upending their will & inheritance to make a Romance sim heir. With all that in mind, I don't have qualms about giving heirship to Benedick. Which brings me to the Capps...

Well, first let me say that the way I always see the family tree is Goneril is the oldest and Cordelia is the youngest. And because the Capps are a matriarchy, Miranda is technically the heir. But, oh, does this cause problems. First, she's living with with Goneril and Albany, outside of the legacy lot. And she's a teen; while she's not as old as Tybalt, she'll definitely be off to college soon. Not really enough time to soak in the family traditions, even if I did move her back to the Manor, you know? And then she's Romance, and like her cousins, she flirts with dating the dreaded Montys. Tybalt, on the other hand is Popularity, a much better aspiration for an heir, and is highly skilled (ten body points is nothing to sneeze at) and has already taken up the family feud, which I'd like to continue, at least for a little bit. Even discounting him, there's Hermia and Juliette, who have the benefit of living on the legacy lot and being Family. And then there's Consort. I had been playing by motivation rules, but never did I ever see such a unmotivated bunch, including Consort. I had to institute a new "legacy heir" rule so that anyone currently the heir of a legacy can be considered motivated, as only Albany and Cornwall are motivated according to my formula (which actually makes a lot of sense, when you think about it). Anyway, I thought Consort might be another meddling grandpa, determined to puff up his legacy, especially since he's Fortune. But I can't decided what he'd do about heirship. Does he keep his promise to Contessa and make Miranda the heir, despite her mom moving out in defiance? Or would he screw tradition and make Tybalt the heir? Or Hermia or Juliette? Or maybe since Miranda grew up off lot, one of her kids would be the next official heir? I can see him as someone who tries to hide the fact that the Capps are a matriarchy, and tries to make the family into a traditional patriarchy. But I can also see him as someone who loves his wife and wants to honor her family traditions. Not sure which way to go on this one and am looking for ideas.

@Phantomknight
I want to turn what you are saying on its head. The Capps are a matriarchy, so Consort and Tybalt should definitely be meddling. Why take a direct route, when someone like Miranda would clearly be uninterested in the responsibility of being heir and would likely love the mantle while the real power is held by others in her family.

Consort sends Tybalt to university to befriend Miranda, have her rely on him as one man in her life who can truly be a friend and not a conquest. Then, the only concern is ensuring she meets a weak-willed husband who can be disposed of once a daughter is born, and Consort will have so much influence over this baby girl

With the Capps, since I do not accept the "youngest daughter of King Lear is the eldest" thing as canon, I decided to make up reasons as to why Consort (Maybe Contessa? Don't really know her since she's kinda dead) disinherited the older gals and their families as a consequence. For Goneril I went with them simply disliking Albany (unemployed and uneducated), Regan straight up not wanting to inherit (bio), and Kent being male.

Also, about uni, what I usually do is make the two families opposites in what they make their kids do: the Capps value money and business, so they send all their kids to uni so they can get qualifications for the best jobs, and if all else fails, they can still get a low-level position in the family business, while the Monty family (Montys?) wants the kids to start working and have a family immediately, without uni. Basically scholarly nobles vs agricultural lords, but with cellphones and milder teenage drama (Juliette should definitely be cheating on her suitor with Romeo)

I did this, but it turned out to be Kaylynn. She was just so interested in her kids. So she and Ashlyn have moved into a trailer together. They don't have much money--that's one source of drama. The other source is that as Darren has gotten to know Kaylynn, he really likes her--more than Cassandra. Kaden stayed with his adoptive family, because he loves them and they can provide better opportunities, but he is still getting to know his birth mom.

Daniel is hopeless, although he is interested in his grandchild (Angela's son).

Thanks Coriel_Muroz & Sugoisama! That does help a bunch.

So I was going to take Consort and Tybalt, Hermia, and Juliette on vacation, so that Tybalt can skill up a bit before going to Uni. (I have strict rules on who gets to go to the Academie, and Tybalt is missing a few things in his portfolio/application. Even after I used Age Correct to update his time left to match my modified lifespan, I've only had like a week with him and I feel he deserves a bit more time.) I've decided that all the grandchildren will go on vacation now--Ariel just aged up, too, so that's perfect. And it's while everyone's on vacation, away from the adults in the family, that Consort will make his move. I reason that he's able to prove legally that Regan and Goneril each gave up their rights to heirship when they moved out, considering that one of the oldest and most enduring rules of a legacy is that the heir has to live on the legacy lot and may not leave unless going to college. Thus Consort is the current heir now, no question; I'm considering that case settled. With Miranda, Consort could argue the same, that Goneril gave up Miranda's (and any other descendant's) claim, but any good lawyer could counter-argue that Miranda was a baby and had no say in the matter. It'd be a long, public trial at least, and Consort (and I) don't want any fuss and prefer to make things as clear and unquestionable as possible. So! While on vacation Consort will get all the grandkids to sign some documents. He'll say that he's old and wants to make sure his will is uncontested, that all his grandchildren get something. The documents will clearly spell out everyone's inheritance--that the Capp fortune will pay for school, however much it costs, and that everyone gets a lump sum starter fund. I guess I'll give everyone 20,000, since I use No 20K Handout. What the kids won't realize is that the documents also say that they give up their right to contest heirship and that they are empowering Consort to choose the next heir. Also, there will be strict requirements for anyone--the grandkids and all future descendants--to inherit: they have to graduate a university, they can't marry a Monty, and, if the heir requests it, they have to work in a family business. And in order for the heir to inherit heirship, he or she has to graduate from the Academie and the current heir (in this case Consort) must approve of his or her spouse.

Consort will let everyone know that he's considering Miranda and Tybalt for heirship, but just won't tell them that technically it belongs to Miranda anyway. He'll say it's cuz they're the oldest. He'll give the both of them the chance to go to uni, skill up, and find spouses. If Miranda manages to look respectable and find someone suitable, he'll name her heir--but in name only. Her contract will be special and stipulate that if she is named as a successor, she relinquishes any heirship rights to her future kids. Basically, only her kids can inherit, since she did not grow up on the legacy lot. Consort will remain the legal heir until the next heir comes of age and he can name a stewart, too, in case he dies. This way, he's honoring Contessa's memory, and the legacy line will remain unbroken, but he can still hold on to power for a long time. And, if he doesn't like the way Miranda's behaving, and decides she doesn't deserve it after all, he can just give heirship to Tybalt and no one can do anything about it cuz they gave him the right to choose. I like this route because I don't have to decide anything just yet and can wait and see how everyone's wants roll in college. Plus if I do give heirship to Tybalt, I've got the potential for a family feud if someone finds out what Consort did.

And I like the idea of the Monty's starting their families earlier, Sugoisama! I still want heirs to get a degree so what I think I'll do, at least at first, is play around with college in the main hood. It'll be like they're going to the community college while the Capps go to the prestigious university. That way heirs can start a family easier, with everyone around to help. Monty girls will remain at home until married and help around the house or with the business. Monty boys can move out (except the heir of course), but if they want inheritance, they have to work in a family business. Their inheritance will be a monthly stipend, to keep them tethered to the main family. They'll also play by Family Values/Squeaky Clean rules and if anyone is caught sleeping around by the heir, or if they get pregnant, they have to get married.

This really isn't a traditional dilemma, because I know what I'm going to do (probably), but what I don't know is how to explain why.

I had a well thought out plan for Veronaville too maximize the drama. Eventually I strayed from this plan due to the irresistible opportunity to make ships canon (and keep genetics like Tybalt's extra gorgeous jawline <3), but that complicated things I still want to happen.

Basically, my plan was to get Juliette and Romeo married, then Romeo would become a slipper husband (basically simp), while mean girl Juliette cheats on him with Puck, and even has a baby with him. I didn't plan whose baby she'd have first, but that's not important. What is important is that in that plan, Puck was to be single for life living with Tybalt and his kid and ex. However, I changed my plan and now Puck and Hermia are to get married and have kids sometime in the future, but this affair with Juliette is still going to happen.

Anyway, the problem is Puck is pretty much the only non-problematic person in Veronaville, and it's difficult to explain why he'd go through with something as bad as cheating. My original explanation was that he was seduced by Juliette, and it was all a mistake of the moment, or something like that. Something a bit less evil than having an affair with your friend's wife because you like it. However, in the current situation their affair might just overlap with the HermiaxPuck thing, and I absolutely cannot see Puck cheating on her.

Tl;dr: Puck is supposed to have an affair with Juliette (who's married to Romeo), maybe while he's with Hermia. How would you explain that someone as kind as him would do this?

Because like in real life, nosim is perfect.

There are tons of reasons for someone sleeping with someone they shouldn't/wouldn't normally.

Maybe someone Puck loves dies, and Hermia is not there but Juliette is and they spend one night together because of all the intense emotions.

Or it's his bachelor party, and people get him really drunk and he wasn't even sure who he slept with, or if he did sleep with anyone.

Or Juliette is awful, and tells him she's desperate to get pregnant but Romeo just can't have kids, and who does she trust except for Puck and he could make them so happy! And only after does he find out she just wanted to see if he would sleep with her.

Or he and Hermia have a fight, and he ends up making a big mistake, before they reconcile.

If I can't explain something in character terms I just don't do it. But that's me. If you're going to do it anyway, why do you need an explanation? This isn't a novel. It's your game. Who is the explanation for?

I usually know what I'm going to do, but I never know for certain what my Sims are going to do!

In our Veronaville I think Puck is the only pre-made who is cheating! He is going steady with Hermia, and he tries to stay faithful to her, but when he gets together with gay Romance teen David Cornton, "Stuff happens." (As one wonderful American politician put it a few years ago.) (It's really my fault for letting David seduce him with the aid of a Christianlov Easy Bed quite early in my game.) Puck knows that Hermia is right for him, that she can give him the love and constancy that he needs. He equally knows that David can't. He also knows that he's not really gay. But when David and he get together, the kissing and flirting starts -- every time! The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

Some people call it hormones.
.

Andrew, you need to sit Puck down and have a talk with him, about how bisexuality is a legitimate orientation but it does not exempt him from expectations of faithfulness, and he needs to sit down and have a talk with Hermia and let her decide how she wants to proceed, which will influence how he proceeds. Anything else is just asking for trouble (and incidentally letting down all the rest of us bisexuals who have to fight the Promiscuous Bisexual trope, though I hate to load a teen with responsibility for that).

I would explain it as they both got so drunk that they both made a terriable mistake and slept together while intoxicated and woke up to make the horrifying realization that they made an awful mistake in getting so drunk.I'd have it end with them not wanting to drink for a long time and even when they do they tend to be overcautious after that.I'd have also had it that their partners were also drunk at the time and it made everybody realize that they needed to be responsible about drinking.

A bit of a late reply, but you have a point actually. Aliens are basically just sims with unique visual characteristics, who just so happen to hail from a different planet. No different from Earthlings.

I guess I just put them under the 'occult' umbrella, so placed aliens and resurrection in unlikely possibilities, if that makes sense.

I do also go with the mindset of 'if it's interesting do it,' but the issue with me is that I'm indecisive. If two interesting outcomes stare at me in the face, I get stuck.

I'll stick with keeping Lucy deceased, as again, it opens some character development for Beau and Jennifer, too. Who knows, with Ophelia now being single in my game at the moment (don't know what's going to happen there), her and Beau could start something after the grieving process with them both being Family sims.

Just depends on what happens with chemistry and other events.

I think this is what is interesting when you have an unexpected death in the game: It opens possibilities for storylines that you may not have considered before. It takes us, as players, out of our predetermined boxes, so to speak.

It's why I love having a balance of what determines what happens in my game:
- random chance
- ACR
- Wants-Based play
- Having people vote for which scenario I should follow
- More autonomous interactions (via mods)
- Chance based on dice rolls (D4, D6, D8, D10, D20, D100)

It unlocks the creativity!

Do you have a list of chance events that you roll for? I'm always looking for ideas to introduce more unpredictability and shake things up.

The ones I consistently use are regarding death or aspiration failure.
If something happens that could harm a sim, I roll to see if it's sever, which can kill the sim (even if the original event didn't), change their aspiration (which I also dice roll to determine, although secondary I usually choose based on their personality or leave blank), cause a change of fertility, limit their body skills, or do nothing.

Risk of Death or Injury

Should an incident risking death or injury occur, roll the designated die.
The results are as follows:
1 - Death
2 - Maximum Body Skills = -2
3 - Change in fertility level
4 - Aspiration change

D4 Lightning
D12 Fire
D6 Electrocution
D20 Frightened by Ghost
D8 Elevator Crash
D12 Murphy Bed crash
D20 Miscarriage
D20 Alien Abduction
D100 Bee attack
D12 Chance Card accident
D8 Heatstroke/Frozen
D100 Fight

Mental Breakdown

Should a sims suffer aspiration failure, roll a D6

1 - End a relationship
2 - Quit job/school
3 - Maximum Logic Skills = -2
4 - Move out
5 - Go on a vacation
6 - Get a pet

@Coriel_Muroz

Cool. So by your method, my newlywed on her honeymoon that was struck by lightning in the hot tub could potentially have a major aspiration change which certainly could affect her marriage. If it was death would you just wait till the vacation ended? Do you allow for the grim reaper begging in these situations?

Poor Kiera thought it was bad enough she peed herself in public. :D

Really great ideas, I'm definitely stealing some. I've always thought there should be some big effect from an aspiration failure--that the Sim would want to make a radical change because something is clearly not working in their life.

I do allow begging in my game, as it has a random 50/50 chance of success. I that I would try to summon the Grim Reaper on Vacation; so far I have had more than 4 sims struck by lightning but all have survived. Of course when Dirk got struck and it signalled an aspiration change, he rerolled Fortune, so it all stayed the same.

Both major health events and aspiration can majorly change a character's path.

Take Derek Dreamer (youngest of Cassandra and Darren's kids). He was popular until a lightning strike. Now he's pleasure and so much less interested in graduating from university or findings a single romantic partner to be with. Or Sam Thomas, who also was hit and switched to Knowledge. She and Derek had at least two bolts before, but now have none.

So even more impactful for those who insisted on 3-bolt marriages.

I will roll for chances of new families arriving in town when it's time to bring newcomers in.I also have been working on my BACC rules and including a guide for playing it to make sure I don't stray from story events that might not work at that stage of the town growth.

I've always assumed it was a "very bad thing" for a sim to die on vacation or that they couldn't. I don't know this for sure at all just my own assumption based on the nature of vacation hoods. I guess you could send the grave back to the home lot. Does anyone actually have a haunted hotel?

Here's my dilemma.
Arnaud and Coralie Lamour-Saurel are happily married. He's 35, she's 57 (I know I said elsewhere that I dislike large age gap but simmies' willpower is sometimes stronger than mine).
She's Romance-Fortune and he's Romance-Family. They're 3-bolters. I added the secondary aspiration not so long ago.
So when Arnaud settled down with Coralie, he knew that Coralie wouldn't want kids. She made it really clear and he was agree with that. On a side note, she made it to the hood as a live-in nanny and she dislike it. Well dealing with the Desrosierses quadruplets was truly difficult.

Arnaud has siblings with kids. He always interacts with his nieces and nephews when he shows up at their house. I was not surprised he finally rolled the want to have a child.
I'd like to grant him his want but I'm at lost.
1. They could divorce due to irreconcilable differences and then he'll have to find somesim his age;
2. They're faithful despite being Romance. I can't picture neither of them having an affair and getting caught. (I have ACR and my most promiscuous sims are Knowledge and Popularity).
3. My hood has an orphanage with no toddler atm but he could adopt and after that, Coralie could left him.

I don't know yet how this story will unfold since I have some drama playing in the background.

I tried the idea of rolling after an adverse event. I really like this for shaking up the game and adding some realism. Cyd Roseland was in a cave-in (chance card) while on the job as a Spelunker. He rolled a 1, death. Certainly seems like a possible outcome of a cave-in. Poor Cyd, he had just been cured of being a zombie to be given a happy life and barely got a chance. Porthos has already moved on and adopted Ophelia Nigmos as his new master.

I can't roll every time there's a fire, though, or I'd be rolling all the time. I think I'll only roll if someone actually catches on fire. Usually, the firefighters can put the fire out and the person is only hungry and stinky afterward, but fire is a serious injury so...