Hey, lots of conservative Mormons are Family aspiration.

On a more serious note, I would have them go out on an outing to someplace casual like a bowling alley - hopefully he'd behave himself a bit better in public.

I think I've found my OTP with Mercutio and Puck -- Puck's in some sort of relationship with pretty much every teen of a suitable orientation in Veronaville, except -- for the longest time -- with Mercutio. It was a slow build-up, made of tickling, noogies, and enough pillow fights to keep Bluewater Village's bedding stores in business. Meanwhile I just watched. They finally kissed. Puck started it, because shy or not, he's more forward than Mercutio will ever be.

That would be fantastic, except I've just sent Mercutio to Uni. Puck will remain a teen for another couple of days -- an eternity in Sim terms. I usually don't allow romantic interactions between adults and teens, but I'm really tempted to make an exception for these two. I don't mind young adults and teens being together... but if I set it to yes, it's a free for all. Young adults, adults, elder. Which I'm not so happy about. Unless I only turn it on when they're together? But then that'd mean a lot of micro-management. I don't know what to do.

I take it you must have ACR and that allowing romantic interactions between teens and adults must be an ACR option. Myself, I don't use ACR, but have had Jenflower's Woohoo Teens for over a year now, which does allow them. I must say I've never seen any autonomous romantic actions between adults and teens with it, unless perhaps the romantic relationship is already well established by me telling them to interact.

In your case I think I'd just turn the option on, and play the Summerdreams' lot until Puck goes to University too. Then you can turn it off again. One alternative could be to use the Sim Manipulator to age Puck up to an "Independent Teen", which means he looks like a teen, but acts like an adult, but you'd have to age him back down to an ordinary teen if he's to go to university, and of course (since they're really adults in all but appearance) Independent Teens don't go to school. So I think my first option is the better one, if you can make your rotations flexible enough to allow it.

Puck and Mercutio? That's an interesting idea. In my game Puck is trying for the second time to make a go of a steady relationship with Hermia Capp, but he's still holding a candle for my gay Romance boy David Cornton too. Mercutio, quite remarkably, isn't in any romantic relationship at all. As I recall Puck and Mercutio get on quite well together, remarkable since Mercutio once thought that Puck had "stolen" Hermia from him. (For her part I don't think Hermia ever had any interest in Mercutio at all, and she certainly wants nothing to do with him now.)

You can send Puck to University any time you want. It's not that hard to find a story excuse for it; or even to declare him older than he appears.

Two years needn't be such a terribly long time, either. If the relationship is as strong as you think, it'll deal with the wait.

So I've given it a try -- Mercutio invited Puck over to his dorms, and I allowed adult/teens interactions while Puck was on the lot. It worked, within reason; they did all the usual light kissing and flirting (feather touches, always -- and that's why, imho, they work so well). They can kiss while standing, but can't cuddle on the couch. And I won't allow them to go further than that while Puck is a teen anyway... I'm not comfortable leaving it on all the time, so I might send Puck to Uni a bit earlier, as Peni suggested.

I'm not concerned about Puck flirting with others. He does that anyway! It's just that my poor Mercutio feels very lonely without Puck.

@Andrew: It's funny. Puck and Hermia get along well enough; but Hermia promptly forgot she wanted to go steady with Puck the minute she saw Romeo. So I'm thinking, very first crush and some nice memories, but that's it really. And Mercutio doesn't roll many romantic wants. I don't think he even rolled the first kiss want.

It's funny, I have somewhat similar dilemma. Romeo Monty and Tyabalt Capp are enemies, but there is... tension. At Summerdreams' party Romeo first showed attraction for Tybalt and then went and just attacked him for no reason (I guess, he was angry that Tybalt is hot and messes up with his head).
Romeo has no bolts for Juliette and pretty much ignores her. He spent all the time in her house stalking Tybalt! Who felt somewhat uncomfortable about it, but that might be because Consort was near, and Consort shows up in community lots and argue with gay sims, and Tybalt rolled a fear to become enemies with him the moment he first felt attraction towards Romeo. Anyway, when Tybalt went to sleep, Romeo followed him in the room, stared at him for a while and then turned on TV. Tybalt, of course, woke up, and they spend a while watching movie and talking. Enemy status went away. Good. Tybalt rolled a want to apologize to Romeo. Nice. Romeo accepted. Great. Then Romeo slapped Tybalt. Ok...
Rotation in Monty household, and Romeo thinks about Tybalt, wants to kiss Juliette, flirt with Hermia and apologies to Tybalt. Done, done, done. Then he attacks Tybalt. Then he talks about him with everyone who is ready to listen. Even Mercutio, whose reaction is to attack Tybalt.
So there seems to be interesting story going, and really, really, really want to know where Romeo and Tybalt will take it. I don't care if they end up together or not; I just want to follow their wants and autonomous actions. But Tybalt is 4 days from becoming adult, aka time for college in my game. I don't have any mods that allow romantic actions with teens for older age groups, and I don't really want one. Of course, Tybalt could stay at home, his lifetime want is to become hall of famer, no need for college diploma. But there is so much more to do in college, and I don't want to take it away from him just because I wanted to know about his relationships with someone.
Then there is fact that I have been thinking about installing ACR for a while now, and, if I understand right, I could turn on teen/YA romantic interactions just for one household with it (right?). Could work, but how much ACR changes sims' autonomously? Because I want them to figure it for themselves and I fear that ACR will turn Romeo much more open to things than he is now. He is romance sim after all.

If you're not ready for Tybalt to go to college, turn aging off in that household till this has resolved to your satisfaction.

Although, college is a great place to find yourself...

But that will change their age difference with the rest of 'hood, won't it?

That depends on how you do it. You can turn aging off everywhere; or you can play a lot of days in a row in the aging-off household while only playing the others once. Either will maintain the current relative ages.

I do this a lot in my challenge hood - I can't stop myself from playing rotations, so I'll play one aging day in the challenge household, then turn aging off in that household and rotate through the other households that affect them, one day each except for pregnancy and University households, bouncing back to the challenge household in between those rotations to deal with anything that's happened that should affect them. Aging is also turned off in pregnancy households and they get played three times during that rotation, while University households are played at a 1 college year = 1 aging day ratio, with the college year being defined by one student who is connected in some way to the challenge household. I break up the college year in play, too. So I'll play Rhett's household once, the rest of the subhood he's in once, return to Rhett to let him and his kids deal with developments without aging, play Uni, return to Rhett, play Widespot, return to Rhett, play a bunch of pregnancies, return to Rhett, etc., until Rhett and all the households that can have an impact on him are played. Then I turn aging back on and start again.

Some households, and some periods of time, just have more packed into them than others. Playing in this way simulates that, and allows me to give the most interesting storylines and character development the game time they deserve.

Why pregnancy households must be played three times?
Anyway, this sounds very useful. I will probably do so in my game a lot - right now I just send sims that need more gametime to community lots several times in rotation. That strategy has some downfalls.

And I just finished the first rotation of Uberhood/United Neighborhoods of Simnation, so I can play Veronaville first in second rotation and figure all things out. But not tonight. Been long day, long week, and my sims deserve me in better mood.

Tonight I will backup my game, install ACR and open Testhood. If I like, great. If I hate it, I can remove it and it's like nothing happened.

Tybalt and Romeo, yes, I could totally see that.
My Tybalt is Ace, as far as I can tell (I actually haven't checked his gender prefs. He'll let me know, eventually).

ACR has a setting for it as well. I don't have InTeen.

ETA: Oh, do you mean YA only / Teens?

I play the three aging-off days for pregnancy to make the pregnancy shorter relative to the ages of other children in the house. This makes it possible to have siblings share time as babies or toddlers, and gets them more overlapping time as children, without the necessity of installing an aging mod. It's not relevant to the situation you're in, sorry if throwing it in confused you.

The main point is, that there's a number of ways to work aging-off days into a rotation schedule without throwing your age synchronization off. It's all a matter of what's comfortable for you and where you feel a need for more or less time.

Just thought I'd add that Boiling Oil has an individual aging mod over at Leefish.nl. With that you can pick and choose who you what to age and when. Helpful if you just want to stop aging on one sim. Also, you can use SimPe to set up how often everyone (regular sims, witches, and werewolves, etc.) age. Which is useful if you want witches and werewolves to have their own aging system like I do. Anyway instructions for that are over there, too.

Recently had to clean out my game.

In my new Pleasantview (ths time the fixed, clean version) Cassandra has 2 Bolts with both Darren Dreamer and...Malcolm Landgraab.

Now usually I marry Cassandra to Darren, but now I'm thinking...should I have her get involved with Malcolm this time around? I know the Landgraabs are "evil" but...wouldn't a Criminal Mastermind and a Mad Scientist work well together? Plus the Landgraabs and the Goths are both Upper Crust, it wpuld only be natural if they inter-marry at some point.

Darren or Malcolm? Decisions...descisions... what do others think of the pairings. The storyline justification for Malcolm would be that he's good looking (fixed his face a tiny bit), entertaining and Cassandra met him while still reeling from her canceled wedding (on an Outing to Downtown with Darren no less... ) Plus if Don is any indication Cassandra likes the Bad Boys...

pairing her up with Darren seems more "Hollywood Romantic Comedy" or maybe I'm just burned out on it because I always had them end up together.

Of course then there's the question of whom to pair with Darren... Brandie Broke perhaps? Would give Dirk a whole army of step-brothers hahaha

Just throw them all together and see who she goes for.

If you always do Darren, though, I think it's time for some variety.

Cassandra's great aunt Frida was disowned by her family because she refused to agree to an arranged marriage with a Landgraab (according to her TS3 bio). If you play storylines, I would go with Malcolm and squeeze some drama out of the fact that the last attempt to merge their families didn't end well.

I use an individual aging on/off mod, I just click the sim and select aging off. I think it's at MATY and MATY was down again earlier.

For pregnancy length I have mine modded to two days.

Btw I think I solved my dilemna (Mercutio YA / Puck teen) by turning it on its head. Instead of sending Puck to Uni early, which I know I'd regret because he's fantastic as a teen, I'm skipping a few rounds of Uni. Mercutio will end up a bit younger than he should be, but that's no big deal. Also -- as I've already sent Miranda to Uni (I was running out of space in her house), even though she's really young, she'll end up being roughly the right age.

Meanwhile, Puck being Puck, went steady with Mercutio's cousin, Benedick. Hermia lost the want to go steady the minute she saw Romeo, XD.

Personally I like Cassandra/Malcolm, Cassandra/Armand De Bateau or Cassandra/Antonio Monty. I've played all three. Cassandra has always been the best step-mother in my game, rolling wants to interact with and befriend her stepkids.

The "How she met Malcolm" story in my game involves too much post-breakup drinking at Malcolm's club . . . and the rest really can't be told to their children, even when they're adults!

Thanks for all the answers, I went with Malcolm.

So far it has been fun; on his first visit to the Goth Manor Malcolm got into an argument with Mortimer that ended with them poking each other and during the wedding party he insulted Bella. I can only see rainbows and sunshine in the future

Also during the wedding party Mortimer refused to dance with Cassandra and I also invited Darren... I expected more drama from that but surprisingly he took the whole thing in stride and actually got along well with Malcolm.

Not really sure what to make of that...

Oh, that one's easy! Darren was indulging in "courtly love," the idealized longing for an unobtainable woman, whose unobtainability is basically the point. That way he can set her on a pedastal and not think about or deal with her as a human being who goes to the bathroom, burps, and insists on folding towels horizontally instead of vertically like his mom insisted was the One True Way. (Seriously, they're much easier to hang up if you fold 'em long ways.) Courtly love was specifically designed to be directed at a married woman who could Inspire Art and Great Deeds and never be touched.

Oh yeah I know about courtly love. history mayor and avid fan of the various Medieval Arthur Romances, I have to admit it's an interesting way to look at the whole situation haha, as long as Darren doesn't start collecting Cassandra's hair clippings or drinking her bathwater (both thing encouraged in courtly love, I kid you not! Well it was actually the water the lady used to wash her hands in during banquets, served in a little bowl her "courtly lover" would drink from after she used it to clean herself, but we don't do stuff like that anymore, what with indoor plumbing and all)
....or going full Don Quixote and attacking the windmill in Bluewater Village in order to win her favour...

I gotta find him a new woman before he goes off the deep end...

I'm almost done Strangetown and ready to move onto Veronaville. Which side of the river should I start?

The Montys have the better architecture. Plus, on average, they look better than the Capps.

Edit: I just spent the past several hours of my free Sunday trying to build an estate in the style of the Monty lots. And now I might have to make an amendment to my previous statement:

That style is rather hard to imitate. I hope Malcolm and Cassandra will like their new mansion...or else...

Capps forever! For some reason, I was always drawn to that side the most and I definitely have to agree that their building style is easier to imitate.


I find this interesting because I'm playing him almost the exact opposite right now! I recently restarted Pleasantview and this time I played Lothario, then Dreamer, then the Goths. Now, I usually play Don first cuz I always let him sleep with everyone before the drama starts since my headcannon states there's no way he and Cassandra got to the point of engagement without ever making out or woohooing before. But I also usually play Cassandra before the Dreamers and, whether she and Don are on good terms or not, it never takes long for her to roll wants to flirt with Darren or give him a backrub and ACR usually sticks them together like glue. But this time, when I played Darren first and invited her over, she refused every single move Darren tried! He tried to seduce her (all on his own, through ACR) but Cassandra was having none of it! (Never mind that when I played her next she promptly started rolling wants to flirt with him. What a tease.) Anyway, I decided my Darren isn't taking this as gracefully as yours--he's started researching the occult and wants to become an evil witch because he's going to marry Cassandra by any means necessary!



No kidding, he and Dina just had triplets in my game. Which brings me to my dilemma: So, in this hood Mortimer was to be a true mad scientist devoted to finding Bella (not an uberhood, though, so his efforts will ultimately be in vain). He can't stand the thought of never knowing what happened to her, but also understands that he only has a limited amount of time left in his life. So, in the meantime, he would be researching ways to extend his life (elixir is restricted in my game). But just because he's all about science, doesn't mean there's no time for, uh, other pursuits as well, right? So I let him hook up with Dina, while I was playing the Calientes, thinking he'd have a girlfriend or two on the side, maybe even both Caliente sisters. But then Dina got pregnant. And yes, birth control was on. Believe me, Morty was as pissed/surprised as I was.

So Mortimer was angry, because he knows exactly what Dina was up to and isn't crazy about letting the golddigger get all she wants, but recognized that he was at fault too. And there was no way he was going to let Dina raise any kid of his. So he married her and then she promptly had triplets. So now he's upset because, even with full time help, the triplets are cutting into his research time (indeed, most of my time in the household is spent stalking the nanny and butler, cleaning up and finishing what they didn't do) and he's still a bit unsure about what to do with Dina.

I was toying with the idea of having Mortimer experiment on her, and having her becoming a test subject--which is sort of the point of being a mad scientist in my game--but what sort of experiments would he do? Would he make her test the "cures" from the Biotech Station? Turn her into a creature? Just lock her up in his lab? And should I kill her off or should she escape? Would she live in fearful poverty if she did escape, or vow revenge? I'm not sure where the story should go next. Mortimer's got so many things on his to do list--he became a witch to try and extend his life, since witches age slower in my game, but he still needs to reverse the aging process so he'll either research the elixir (by maxing all his skills or getting abducted), become a vampire, or find a genie lamp. Plus I want the Goths to have a more prominent role in the economics of the town, so I've been trying have him start up some businesses, too, to build up enough capital to become the town bank (their new $300,000+ house set them back a bit, plus I want Alexander and Cassandra to have some sort of inheritance). But maybe I'm giving him too much to do?

Anyway, I need some feedback; all ideas are welcome!

Have them get into a polyamorous--no, bad Bulbasaur. In my hood, the Beakers did an experiment on Nervous Subject by locking him in isolation with nothing but a mini-fridge. He got into a fight with the social bunny before passing out in a puddle of his own bodily waste. He did get rescued, though - I had Vidcund casually come over to see Circe, find Nervous trapped in the horror room, and get in a fight with Loki. I saved then, went over to the Curious household, and added Nervous to their family - to have him escape in the confusion.

That is an awful lot to have him do! Have him recruit Cassandra and Alexander for some of it. Cassandra can be chief baby-wrangler and Alexander can be his scientific apprentice.

And he can cut a deal with Dina - she can do the business stuff and keep her mouth shut about anything she witnesses at Goth Manor, maybe be his cat's paw for various nefarious schemes; she can take a lump sum of money and vanish forever; or she can become a test subject and never see the light of day again. If she takes the businesses deal, everything's delegated and he's free to do mad science all day, every day.

You don't need an Uberhood to get Bella back. She's in the files for Pleasantview. I believe you just have to remove a Death Token and teleport her in or something; there's whole threads about it, so you should be able to find out the simplest way to do it, when you feel Mortimer has paid enough dues to bring it about. And then she has amnesia and doesn't recognize him. And then he dies, leaving his wives and children staring at each other and wondering, What Now?

Turn her into a zombie! It will be fun. She can play shambling, smelly nanny to generations of Goths (kinda like a female Lurch)

On Darren; in my neighbourhood he is by now married to Brandi Broke and she's pregnant with his child. The family is awesome, so many children!

Thanks for the ideas!

@Peni Griffin, Yeah, as I was writing the post I was thinking I'd have Cassandra help out with the businesses. She's basically in limbo because I see her as a sim who isn't very interested in her career and more family oriented, but I haven't had her get married yet because I'm letting Don date around a bit first and Darren, like I mentioned, now has to skill up to steal his love away (he'll use extractum amorus and tabula rasa). So aside from seducing her work friends that she brings home, she hasn't been up to much. And I like @Booney's idea of her only being with Don to uncover more info about her mother and getting revenge for the disappearance. I think I'll have her be a cold and calculating business woman, who messes up Don's life somehow, at least until she gets her memory wiped by Darren. This could be perfect since I was toying with the idea of making Don a vampire for fun and I've had Don father some gorgeous alien babies in the past. So who knows? Maybe she'll borrow her father's research and use it on Don.

I've never brought back Bella before, though; I always saw Strangetown Bella as the real Bella (I know that makes no sense, but it does to me). But there's a first time for everything. Actually, now that I think about it, I have the maxis neighborhoods as subhoods (so that any hood can be an uberhood) so I can always introduce Strangetown into the mix when I'm ready for Morty to meet Bella. That'll give me some new sims to play and playables for my sims to marry, too.

As for Alexander, he's still a kid--I slowed aging down for a while to give me some time to set up storylines. I didn't have anything planned for him other than trying to skill up for scholarships and having him do well in school and uni to maintain the Goth name, but maybe he gets sucked into the science world somehow, trying to be more like his father? After all, Morty doesn't have quite so much time for him any more, what with the triplets and the researching.

And @Orphalesion, I'm not so sure I'm ready to make Dina a zombie yet, either. I have the zombie apocalypse mod from MATY so that might lead to an outbreak. ...Especially if she gets loose during the annual Goth Holiday party. She could infect half the town. Imagine, the most prominent Pleasantview residences either turned zombie or sick from infection. The military would have to be called in from Strangetown... Mortimer might be arrested. But he'd be the only one capable of inventing a cure--except for the Beakers. They might be able to crack the disease using blood from a secret test subject... Or maybe the cure has unintended side effects and turns half the remaining town into creatures. Obviously Malcolm Landgraab would have to step in and help fund the military so that they can save the town from these supernatural menaces. Naturally General Buzz would be appointed head of the new task force. And Councilwoman Mary-Sue Pleasant would be sworn in as the new mayor to replace the old, inept townie one. And she wouldn't want to align herself with the now disgraced Goths anymore, no, she'd cut her friendship with them and instead try to arrange marriage alliances between the town's money (Landgraab) and the town's protection (Grunts). She'll do anything she can to keep Angela from dating a criminal and Lilith can't see Dirk anymore, either--his father's a wizard. And considering what he's going to do Cassandra, it won't be long before the military will have to go after him--they can't let supernaturals mind control citizens. Dirk will be blacklisted by every upstanding citizen in town. And Alexander will be going through something similar, with the disgrace his dad brought to the family. It'll take all his money to repair the family image and settle court cases with sims suing for damages from the zombie outbreak. And what about Nina? How is she going to react to the news her sister was experimented on and turned into a brain-eating zombie? They didn't exactly have the best relationship, but still, blood is blood, right? Meanwhile, with all this chaos going on, it'll be the perfect time for Brandi's smuggler husband to make a play to become the local mob boss and criminal mastermind. He's already been teaching Dustin the business; they can rule the underbelly of Pleasantview together! Hmm...

Thanks everyone--that was just the spark I needed! I need to go plan out the rest the town now!

I love reading this thread! :lovestruc

So I was playing an Asylum with ACR, and for whatever reason the inmates were ignoring nobabyharrassment and that was causing massive game lag. Why, I don't know, never happened before. I broke it up early--by about $25k (Controllable had a LTW of $100k and a memory of $75k).
So controllable was Cassie, a fortune sim, who had one baby, the oldest of the bunch, Erica. Erica's dad is Chase. Erica just became a child and lives in a very minimalist but high quality home with her mother, who mostly controls her crazy (she's Captain Hero after all) but occasionally makes out inappropriately on community lots. But never where Erica could find out. Nanny Karen is Erica's right-hand woman in childrearing, and Erica is a very well behaved, stable, and most importantly, sane, little girl.

Chase, a fortune sim, has since fulfilled his marry a rich sim want by marrying Tristan, the Diva, who is pregnant right now.

Lexi, the family sim, has eldest Rhiann (father Chase), twins Bridget and Morgaine (father-asylum knowledge sim, cannot remember his name right now), Aeoife (father Chase), Moira (father Nightlife family townie) and a bun in the oven. Rhiann is technically two hours younger than Erica, above, but because of play order is three days to child. The father of the current pregnancy is another nightlife townie, a knowledge sim, Ryan Wheeler, and he keeps rolling wants to marry Lexi when they date. Lexi keeps rolling wants to marry him, but only when she's on a date with someone else! Ryan says he's got $$$, and he could be their rescuer, and he's got a reason--the pregnancy--to try. But he's been wanting to marry her since before Moira, so maybe he just thinks he could fix Lexi.
Should Lexi marry her latest baby-daddy, even though she never rolls the want when he's around? It would make the kids' lives much easier to have another adult around. Probably. There's always a possibility that he wouldn't be a decent step-dad. But Lexi's story is that she wants love and doesn't know how to look for it appropriately.
I had kind of thought this would end up with Rhiann spending as much time at her half-sister Erica's calm, serene home as she possibly could and dragging her younger half sisters along as soon as they could. Rhiann and Erica have been bff since before the asylum ended (which is pretty darn good considering that they were maybe a day into toddlerhood at the time), and the two girls deciding that only they could fix things for their little sisters and having that be Erica and Rhiann's driving motive. (Lexi's LTW is actually to graduate three kids from college, so she wouldn't stand in the way of her girls trying to go . . .)

@Sunbee, it sounds to me like Lexi's the type that wouldn't recognize a good guy and only realizes what a good guy Ryan is until he's not around, so I don't really see her marrying Ryan but he probably could talk her into letting him move in to help with the baby. Lexi would appreciate the help and Ryan's still trying to get the girl, you know? And the way I'd play it is that Lexi would screw things up somehow, probably by cheating on Ryan, who, although he realizes they're not official, is hurt because he thought they were moving in a more serious direction. He moves out in a huff, probably taking his kid with him, but if you don't want to create another household, he could always return to life as a townie and the story goes that he wasn't able to get custody of his kid because the judges in the town are biased against single dads or even just former townies and ruled to let the child stay with Lexi. Ryan would obviously hold a grudge and every time there's a social worker scare, you can be sure it's him, trying to get the courts to see Lexi isn't a fit parent.

And, for icing on the cake, some kinda family tragedy would occur, also of Lexi's doing, but by accident--perhaps Lexi almost burns down the kitchen, gambles all the house's money away so the repoman shows up, etc. And that's when Rhiann has had enough; upset that her mother ruined the best chance at a happy, normal life, she runs away to Ericka's. But being there only makes her jealous of the care and stability Ericka has and Rhiann realizes she can't stay with Ericka if she wants to stay friends--the resentment is just eating away at her. So, as soon as she ages up, Rhiann strikes out on her own. She tries to make it on her own as a young teen and maybe she goes to uni but maybe she's doomed to follow her mother's footsteps and never gets the chance/has to drop out. Meanwhile her half sisters resent her a bit because they feel she abandoned them with their crazy mother. Or maybe one of them dies in an accident and the other blames the death partly on Rhiann because, if Rhiann had stayed, things would have been different.

Anywho, hope I gave ya some ideas to run with!

Anybody have an idea what I could do with my Dina?

To start Dina is my least favourite character in Pleasantview, so I'm already drawing a blank there. I'm also playing the Pleansantview Epic challenge (basically you have to preserve the family names for 10 Generations) and Nina has married Daniel(and took his last name), so Dina has to pass down the caliente name (which I decided will be handed down in a strictly matrilineal fashion). She can't marry Don since he has to pass down the Lothario name. Mortimer is back with Bella, Malcolm Landgraab is with Cassandra.
In my last iteration (which I blew up by not using clean templates and thinking the remote control car issue had been fixed in the UC) I made her a career woman after she had been betrayed by all her lovers and eventually she married Dirk Dreamer. However I don't really feel like re-enacting that (especially since Dirk is with Melody Tinker this time around)

She kept rolling wants to have a baby so I had her become pregnant via one-night stand with Chester Gieke, but well...she doesn't want to work, there aren't any rich bachelors left (and no bachelorettes either) and she is gonna be a mama soon with a whooping 200 Simoleons to her name. Since there's no welfare in Sims 2, I'll eventually have to do something with this lady, I just don't have a clue what.

Edit: I have some ideas for further down the line (her either reunite with Don once his meriage to Jodie Larson goes sour or to have her marry Chester once he becomes a rich game designer) but how do I make her survive until those things happen?

Move in with Nina and Daniel.
Employ her at home with something she can do sitting down - writing novels.
Once she no longer needs help with the baby, she moves into an apartment and is a single mother writing novels and dating while the kid's at school. You might find you like her under these conditions.
Alternatively, she could make a living on her back, if you have mods enabling woohoo without love. Her going rate will be rather low (sell date flowers to simulate that transaction), but rewards from dates and outings may enable her to eke out a modest living.

Ooooh good idea with the Novels! She can write trashy romance novels and become famous (50 Shades of Caliente?)

I also like the idea of making her join the "oldest profession" though if I go that road I might make her a "high class escort" rather than a streetwalker.

Yeah pretty much the only issue I have with Dina is that, at least in my interpretation of her, she expects other people to hand her a free ticket to easy street. Last time I "redeemed" her by fulfilling her lifetime want of becoming an architect, irt was awesome, she and Dirk became a Power Couple and raised two gorgeous daughters, but this time her want is just "Earn 100.000 Simuleons" and she never rolls wants for jobs...

Though about her moving in with Nina...she kinda caught Nina in bed with Don, there was a lot of fighting and now the sisters kinda hate each other... though I do think Nina is someone who would help family if their in trouble simply because they are family, no matter how she feels about them at the time...so it might work.

Do you have freetime? Let her sit at the computer using her freetime fortune perk to give financial advise. Live off other people, no job, sounds about your Dina's speed. If she gets the fourth perk and 'plays the stock market' herself, even better! If you have M&G get her a solar panel as soon as you can. A few of those can bring in a tidy passive income stream, too.

Perhaps you could have her invest a bit (search 'investment' on this site, you get silver bars that increase value over time and certificates that are more random).

Your Dina sounds a bit more hands off, so, unless you don't marry townies in your hood, I'd have her marry Mr. Big or one of the vampire counts who always seem to be loaded in my game. And I'd have her open a business, perhaps a nightclub, perhaps a brothel. Since she wants to earn money but never rolls wants for a job, a biz will let her do so without actually working, since she can hire someone else to do the work. That's how my Malcolm Landgraab is currently running his businesses. He doesn't do anything ever, just sits back and watches his managers manage. It can be tedious to train up a manager, but doable especially since most of the time, if you ask a sim directly to work for you by clicking hire, you stumble upon a townie with two or three badges already. Then they're usually just a quick sales badge away from being able to be manager.

Also, I think you're underestimating her ability to make money through nontraditional means, without any skills--if you have AL she should be out schmoozing with townies, getting her reputation up so they give her gifts, breaks on rent, discounts on household stuff, etc. She can also hop from job to job or earn a few promotions this way. (In fact, in my Belladonna Cove, that's exactly how Chastity Gere got to level 7 of the business track. I think she only learned two charisma points in all the time I've played her.) Then of course, she can date and go on outings and be a regular socialite--and soon enough, she'll have gifts piling up at her door. It might be a little more risky to earn money that way, but that's what makes it fun, imo.

But if that doesn't work, there's always the Olive Specter way of building a fortune. Well, rumored way, anyway, since technically there's no definitive proof she's a murderer. All her fiancés and husbands just happened to have tragic accidents right after they moved in with her and gave her all their money.

This is a great for my Dina Goth. Her real estate business, is doing less than expected at the moment, as demand for five bedroom homes are low.

I have a question though. How do incorporate the silver into your game? I'm trying to figure out how. I don't want to set up a bank, and let sims buy the silver. As, It would get boring fast. I have at least 5 or more rich households, in my Uberhood. I was thinking of having my rich fortune sims buy some, and store it in their attics.

I just stick a shelf somewhere and put them on that.

This "dilemma" is centred around a couple of sims from Peni Griffin's Widespot, so I've put it under spoiler tags in case anyone hasn't played Widespot, may do so in the future, and doesn't want to know any details about the 'hood! :-)

Do a second roll since you can't decide ... odds she lives .. even she dies.
Since you are doin a second roll here .. to make things a bit more .. count-y? ... do a roll to see if the baby lives or dies too .. that way you're not totally not followin your rules . but you're puttin in somethin to help balance your change :D

It sounds to me like you really want to let her live and see what their lives together end up like. Rolling for outcomes is a process you include to make your play more interesting for yourself, but if the outcome isn't going to make you happy ignoring the role is fine.

I roll for things in my game too, but I often leave myself a way out when the rolls are unpleasant - in the case of a death, there could be a way that the sim survives but the roll still has some affect on the household. Perhaps you could require that another sim attend the birth as a midwife (and be paid by the household in some way), and then roll again to see if she survives fully healthy or if she's left infertile after the birth - that's my out for death during delivery rolls.

Screw rules! Penny lives! You can give her a disability of some kind instead.

Mary could plead for her and save her life, if you really must go by die rolls and summon Grim.

Thank you all! I just moved Mary in to the Weiss household and rearranged the furniture so that she and Penny can share the room that used to be Skye's and Skye now has Penny's old room (I split the downstairs bedroom into two rooms). There's a corner set up with cribs and a changing table and it looks so nice and I finished the household for this rotation with them sleeping with their arms around each other and PENNY SO TOTALLY GETS TO LIVE!

I rolled again and it came out that she lives but becomes completely infertile. I'm OK with that (especially as there is no same-sex pregnancy in my game and I want her and Mary to be together forever and ever and ever until they die in platinum of old age, so her fertility makes no real difference anyway!)..... :-D

Well, Lexi moved Ryan in, he brought only $7000. That is not $$$ in my book!

But I know exactly who Ryan is. He's that guy, the one who went to college and never really found a job after, he's working at a waiter at that cheap diner (you know, not the nice diner, but the one with the slightly scorched coffee), mostly couch surfing at his friends for a month or three at a time, though he rented an apartment with a guy for a while, until the guy kicked him out for being a little (3 months) late on his share of the rent. He thinks $7000 is a lot of money. He thinks he wants to be a scientist, but he doesn't know how to get there from here.

Lexi has a better job than Ryan. One of her many boyfriends offered her a Business job, and she took it (the rule with her is take all reputation perks) and has gotten promoted to Executive totally and entirely on chance cards and reputation bonuses. I think she's in charge of warmly welcoming visiting executives or something.

Rhiann aged to child and slept on the couch and Ryan taught her to study, so whatever becomes of him, she'll remember him fondly.

Are you in the right thread? I don't follow....

Are you asking Sunbee? Sunbee posted about this dilemma in this post a couple of days ago :-)

Oh. I didn't even see it. I'm slow on the uptake.

S'okay, I'm a blond, I'll loan you some hair, and you can call it a blond moment!

I know, it's way off topic, but what you said sounds really interesting, so I have to ask.
Do you have a list of these events that you can share? Or do you make them up as you play? And how do you incorporate disability in game? (Do I ask too much? Probably I do.) Maybe in a more appropriate thread you could tell more about your sistem, share your rolls. If you'd like.

Also, wanted to say this is very cool thread. I get so inspired every time I visit Sims 2 section of the site! Thank you all

I have posted a bit about this aspect of my game-play system before, I think, but it's scattered all over the place in random threads :-D I'll start a dedicated thread about the use of random number generators for The Sims 2 play in a few minutes! I'd like to know if anyone else uses them as well :-)


Agreed! I love this forum :lovestruc

I've got a sim who just accidentally died in college. I had plans for her, but nothing definite. Basically my plans were that she'd mellow out in adulthood, marry and have children, but then get caught cheating and divorce and move away. Do you think I should try resurrecting her or just leave her be?

That's up to your playstyle and how much you enjoy the surprises the game throws you. It is a life simulator, after all, and life is what happens while you're making other plans.

On a practical level, when Ivy Copur died at SSU Drama Acres, I could not keep her tombstone from vanishing no matter what I did; nor could I or the Hood Checker send her off campus. It's possible I missed a trick, or that the problem was not with death on campus but with the general level of corruption in Drama Acres, but eventually the fun of having a haunted sorority was not worth the effort of continually respawning her tombstone, so she was resurrected by the last person at Tri-Var who remembered her, and resumed her college career amid strangers. She attracts a lot of curiosity, has adopted a Pleasure secondary to represent having learned to seize the day, and is now bound for a paranormal career, as she has the perfect backstory for Drama Acres's very first Cult Leader. So at this point I regret neither the death nor the resurrection.

So I say let her haunt campus until it bugs you or you get a good story/character excuse to resurrect her, and then milk it. Resurrection is far more dramatic if some time passes and the subject reawakens in a world that isn't where she left it.

Drama Acres is corrupt as all get out, so I have no idea if my problem was with that, or with a more basic problem with ghosts on campus. Given that there's a cowplant at the Secret Society, they should have planned for ghosts on campus. So you needn't assume your tombstone will glitch out until you see it doing so.

@Peni Griffin - I think your post got cut off.

I say do what makes you happy. Either stick with the plan or roll with the punches. If you really can't decide, flip a coin.

Ha, so it did. I wonder what's up with that. Fixed it now.

Maybe you accidentally hit a keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+Z, for instance). I've sent a few emails prematurely with keyboard shortcuts.

Last time I messed with my game files I forgot to put in empty templates for Uni and ended up with 50 Maxis-made dormies. I didn't mind their looks as much as the overpopulation of my tiny college 'hood, so one of my playables got a mini botanical garden with a cowplant as the centerpiece in his front yard, the college itself got a cemetery lot, and in a couple of sim-days there were at least dozen dormie-graves lying around. I've kept them on the lot until the ghosts spawned, moved them to cemetery and spent some time with my knowledge playables there laughing at the ghosts scaring the living daylights out of the visitors.

tl;dr - I've had no issues with ghosts/tombstones in Uni 'hood.

Brandi Broke died and I'm unsure what her orphaned children should do.
How it happend: she invited some towny over to her house, the date started off well and proceeded to bedroom, but then Dustin set up the kitchen on fire in his attempt to care for his brothers and make some dinner. So the date score went down the hole. While Dustin was trying to put out the fire (fire alarms are a little more expensive in their universe), the towny was screaming and not helping, and Brandi was locked up in her bedroom by me. At some point the towny took off saying "Screw you, I'm getting outta here, I had a terrible time, don't ever call me again!" (or something like that anyway), aaaand to my biggest shock the Grim arrived to take Brandi. She was a single mother and was a bit hungry and tired while on a date, and I guess, that terrible date score had really bad effect on her needs, and she died. As I see it, she either had a heart attack (a little young for that though) or the towny just murdered her. (No one burned in fire, by the way.)
Dustin is still a teen and left with two little brothers. Poor, out of school, out of job (criminals fired him for bad grades, heh). I wonder - is he the type of guy to raise his brothers or to put them up for adoption? Brandi was close with John Burb, so maybe Jonh would want to take care of her kids? Although he's got his own problems and Jennifer would probably mind. Nina Caliente has her own problems as well. I made Brandi's friends help out by giving gifts to Dustin, so he's got some cash to pay bills, but this is it for now. What next - I don't know. Also, what should I do with the towny that caused all this? I should probably think of ways for Dustin to get back at him. But the main concern at the moment - living situation. What happens with the kids? I don't have any strict rules or government in the 'hood, so it could be anything.

Is Dustin close with his brothers? You said he was tryin to feed them. Maybe bein the sole person responsible for the boys is what will help him grow up and become a mature male.

Several possibilities here.
1. Dustin drops out of school and devotes his life to keeping his family together. Maybe this ends well, maybe it ends badly - play it as it lies. You can invent new and ingenious ways for him to earn money without ever having to hire a nanny. Maybe he starts a "handyman business." I.E. he visits each playable household in the neighborhood, is influenced to garden, clean, repair, watch kids, etc., and is rewarded by your preferred method of transferring funds - artwork he can sell, Monique's computer, whatever. Maybe he sells craftables from home, starts a home business, goes to work at a business run by another playable, whatever.
2. Dustin can't cope and a playable "social worker" takes the younger boys to a playable foster home. Dustin is on his own and you have a new household.
3. Dustin's friends and neighbors rally around him and the kids are raised by a neighborhood coalition of babysitters and patrons.
4. Dustin and/or his brothers befriend an adult who adopts them, Disney-happy-ending style. If he's still friends with Gordon King, that could lead in interesting directions...
5. Dustin's best friend (Dirk? Angela?) convinces a parent (or possibly grandparent, in Angela's case) to take the whole bunch of them in. Overcrowding and blended-family hijinx and stresses ensue.
6. A random sim - townie walkby, CAS special built, bin sim - sees that the boys are vulnerable and moves in on them, posing as their benefactor but in effect stealing their home and treating them like servants.
7. ????? Having read through that list shaking your head you suddenly realize - no, none of that but this other brilliant idea that has suddenly leaped full-blown into your mind! (It happens.)

The only thing I wouldn't suggest you do is use the in game adoption system, as doing so will ensure Dustin's brothers will forget their relation to him and lose their family tree. (And all their memories, too! ) I know I find that sort of thing irksome--I can understand a young sim forgetting they knew someone, but the family tree thing bothers me so much. So if that sort of thing matters to you too, I'd use hacks to go the adoption route, if you chose to go that way.

As for other options, well, normally my Dustin would try everything he could to take care of his brothers--it's what he does anyway, even when Brandi is around. He'd forgo college, or maybe go later/study at home, and get a full time job, working to ensure his brothers got a chance to go. But, since it's currently what's going on in my game, I advocate a life of crime. You see, my Brandi remarried a townie who happened to be a smuggler (I feel like I told this story before?) and he's teaching Dustin how to steal. They hit up a few places downtown (using the buy/build always enabled hack) and got away with everything since there's no playable sim in law enforcement, military, or intelligence. I set up limits on what they steal, etc., but Renaud (Brandi's new smuggler husband) also happened to know the current Mr. Big, whom he befriended, moved in, and murdered. Now the family is rolling in dough, even more than the Pleasants and it looks as if everyone is going to college. Except for the fact that their house is glitched (It always happens to them, too. I swear, 99% of the time I restart Pleasantview, it's cuz of them and their family's glitchiness!), they're doing pretty good.

So I'd advocate Gordon King coming to Dustin's rescue. Maybe he moves in, involving the boys in questionable dealings, maybe forces an arranged marriage between Dustin (or one of the boys after they grow up a bit) and a townie who wants to be a playable (in exchange for money, of course), or maybe Gordon lends Dustin money at a super high interest rate and Dustin has to steal to pay it back. Every time you have Dustin visit somewhere or see him visiting someone else (like when he comes home with Angela), he could be stealing something, with a chance to get caught.

Or maybe he abandons his brothers, scared of the responsibility, and goes off to college without ever looking back. He gets his act together enough in college so that he can marry Angela and years later his brothers come back into his life, looking for revenge. Or a handout. Or both.

Or maybe he sells the house for a cheap plot of land/farm in the middle of nowhere, where he doesn't have to worry about his brothers being taken away and can live off the land for food, becoming the founder in your next legacy!

I guess I'd have to ask what type of hood is it and what everyone else has going on. For example, today in my game Daniel Pleasant just died in a fire that started when Angela burned dinner. It was a very sudden tragic "accident" (quotes because I waited until half the kitchen was burned down and Daniel was gone before I let anyone call the fire department. Don't tell my sims I'm evil!) and it happened right after Lilith got into a brawl with her dad and decided to move out. Oh, and at the exact same time Daniel was dying, Mary-sue had a miscarriage. So my Pleasants aren't exactly in the best shape to adopt anyone right now--Mary-sue's got to decide if she's going to remarry for money or build her empire by herself, if she'll really let Lilith go without a cent to her name, and what to do about those rumors that Daniel got the maid pregnant (she doesn't want to believe it, but he did leave her some money in his will after all [It was only a thousand bucks, though. What a cheapskate!]).

So I don't really know if someone else should adopt/move some of the Brokes in, cuz they maybe have their own drama going on, but who knows, maybe there's a family you don't play a lot in the hood and creating a blended family could get playtime for them and help for the Brokes?

Oooh, I'll go with Gordon King with hidden agenda! Which will lead to boys beeing kicked out or escape and a chance for Dustin to be that mature male after he learns this lesson. So it'll be a combination of what you all said. And it all makes sense - Gordon is a friend, but not that much of a friend - he didn't help when Dustin got fired and Dustin remembers beeing beat up by him. Now that he has a house without Brandi in it, he'd be of interest again. And it's a good opportunity to make Gordon playable, as I plan with all "connected" NPCs. Perfect! Thanks!

Dustin is close with his brothers, yes, and it's a normal good old Pleasantview, no special type. I'm not very far, but everyone has something going on. Well maybe except for Lucy Burb. She has no problems so far, but at the same time it IS a problem in the 'hood where everybody's lifes are complicated in some way or another - because no one seemed to notice her even at her own birthday party, so she might start to get in trouble, for attention.

So, about Gordon King. He turned out to be a knowledge sim who wishes to learn every skill. He's very serious and very into science, which is also his true hobby. He has ZERO interest in crime and very interested in weather and ecology. I loved the idea of him enslaving Brokes, and now that I know he's all sciency I may turn them into guinea pigs. Would be easier if he aspired for money though...

Darren Dreamer and Nina Caliente have fallen in love and Darren wants to move Nina in, but Nina has twins and she also is the only one taking care of Dina's son. If I move in Nina with Darren should she bring Dina's son too, or just her own kids?

For me, it would depend on why the twins and the kids were living in that family dynamic. Is Dina the breadwinner, while Nina stays home with all three kids, or is Dina too lazy and self-absorbed to raise her own son? Does Nina like her nephew - does she play with him, read to him etc. or does she do the bare minimum to ward off the social worker? If Nina loves her nephew like a son, and Dina is neglectful, I would let Nina take him. If Dina's neglectful and Nina's not attached, I'd have her leave him behind so that Dina could step up.

If Dina is a good mother and Nina is attached, I'd probably have Nina leave him, but invite him/teleport him over to her place often for visits. Or, I'd let Nina insist on taking him over Dina's wishes and do a custody battle.

Nina has a higher relationship with all three kids than Dina. I don't think Dina would really even notice if the kids were gone, if the cribs weren't in the living-room, Dina picked her son up, maybe, once or twice, since she gave birth, while Nina plays with, and feeds him. Nina actually rolled secondary aspiration of family, while Dina rolled popularity (tho you wouldn't know it by her wants, constantly wanting paintings, sculptures or to be promoted rather than make friends).

Then better take him. Invite Dina over frequently and see if she shows signs of missing him or likes him better once he's a kid.

Yeah, I'll have Nina take him, and try inviting Dina over once he's a little older, that is if the twins stop hating each other.

If they don't start getting along, and you wanted to get a story out of that, you could always have Dina invite him over to her place and secretly build a relationship with him. Even if Dina never develops a true interest in him, she might feel like he's better off with her once he's more self-sufficient and old enough to get a job soon. Then you could let Nina react to Dina moving in on what is essentially Nina's son.

Well, if Nina and Darren aren't planning on having more kids, Darren could aways move in with the Calientes. After all, Darren is older and already has a son--maybe he wants to focus on his paintings. And even with a family secondary, I can't see Nina wanting too many more kids, especially if she considers her nephew her own. So unless you have other plans for Dina and the house, they don't necessarily have to move. Nina might not be ready to move fully into the suburbs.

@Lamare, maybe Gordon is stealing in the name of science? Lab equipment *is* expensive. Maybe he steals to fund zombie research or steals skills from other sims? He could be one of those supervillains that thinks the only way to save the world is too destroy it. People have lots of reasons behind what they do.

I've moved in Gordan, he's really nice, hard working and not a complainer. All around great guy and father who wanted to be head of the CIA or whatever that American in game job is. I had a hard time picturing him as a criminal after that and figured he must really be an undercover cop.

I'm having a hard time as well. Moved him in and quit the game to think what to do with him in terms of gameplay.

Stealing skills from other sims sounds interesting. I don't think I've ever used SimVac, so it'll be fun. Aspiration rewards are limited, and he's gonna need a lot, so that's how he'll use the boys (and their unsuspecting friends). I read SimVac has affect on relationships. After Gordon uses it a few times on Brokes it'll probably be the time when they start to hate him and try to escape.

Once again, thank you!

I got a little dilemma... I got a family of five. Two adults, two teens, and a baby belonging to the teens-WHO ARE MARRIED. The school in town was torn down for a home, and now the teens and their baby need to move out. The mother of the boy teen is expecting, and she needs the crib in their home. But, if the teens leave, then they take some of their parents' money with them. I started thinking about a couple of options for the teen couple:

1. The parents build another home on-site as a studio for the teens and their child, and they do not have to move out at all-unless you count out of the main building
2. The teens are forced to move out by the reluctant adults, and they are forced to buy a house within the city, taking the original family car with them
3. The parents make heavy renovations to the lodge they own, and set the kids into that renovated section built (presumably) just for them

I need some input on this, to figure out where to go with this thing, help to decide whether to either keep the younger part of the family on the lot or not, since they'll take more money than give now since they cannot take part-time jobs due to the child. Oh, and the mod I use, besides its MasterController from the same creator, is Nraas' WooHooer mod, that's how the teens got married in the first place and had the kid-while the school was still operational, of course.

I think it would depend on the personalities involved. Are they the type to want an extended family or do they believe it's better life experience for them to be out on their own? Do the teens and parents get along or would the teens be the type to want to 'split this scene' ASAP.

Just so you know, this is the TS2 section, so you might get advice you can't implement. But a story dilemma is largely a story dilemma no matter what the game, so... I'm not sure if there's a TS3-related reason why both teens must stay home with the baby instead of one getting a job? Since you describe the parents as reluctant, and the teens have no income, I'd lean toward finding the cheapest option to keep them all together. The teens taking more than they give should be temporary. I'm not sure how money is divided when Sims move out in your game, but wouldn't it cost the adults more if the teens left, taking the car and some of the savings with them?

Remodel the house! Much cheaper in the long run, everybody gets live-in babysitters, and so what on the income? Babies don't eat much, and I presume S3 has ways to generate at-home income, or it's not much of a life simulator.

I was going to ask it was TS3, too. But as omglo said, story advice is story advice.

Anyway, yeah, I vote for expanding and building a studio for the teens. In my experience, it was always easy to earn money in TS3. The teens will soon pull their weight and it never hurts to have extra sims around to help with childcare because babysitters seem to be worthless.

Baby bottles in TS3 doesn't even cost money, IIRC

The main give away are the Nraas mods. Master Controller and Woohooer are Sims 3 mods.

Sims can make money at home in Sims 3 depending on the Sim's skills and what EPs the player has. Painting, sculpting, writing novels, selling the potions they make if the player has the EP and I'm sure there are other ways I'm not remembering or don't know about because I don't have all of the Sims 3 EPs.

Like Sims 2, Sims 3 teen jobs tend to be a few hours in the afternoon or evening and don't pay that much.

The parents could remodel and have the teens live in the studio. One or both of the teens could paint, sculpt, or do other things to earn money from home. One teen could get a job while the other stays home, although like I said above teen jobs don't pay that great.

Here's one: Would the Summerdream family make sense to be (good) witches?

(I actually did consider turning Veronaville into a vampire-vs-werewolf thing - with the Capps as vampires and Montys as werewolves - but decided against it. Though it'd be kind of amusing.)

I feel like Juliet would be distressed at the idea of a hairy boyfriend. But that's just me. *shrug* (Maybe I'm the one who just doesn't like hairy men, ahah....)

DO THE VAMPIRE VS WEREWOLF THING!
(The Summerdreams that were in TS3 were fairies in TS3 Supernatural, I think, so good witches are the closest thing.)

Yep do the Vampires vs Werewolves thing, but put a new spin on it by making the Capps (and thus Juliet) the Werewolves!

Edit: Quoted wrong message

I think you quoted the wrong post there...

Ever since I got AL, I've always made the Summerdreams witches. Titania and Oberon start off as maxed good witches. Fairy/elven kids acquire their magical abilities (become witches) when they age into teens. Bottom is a bit of a spoiled brat in my current Veronaville - she likes pranking and always wants to be the center of attention. I'm thinking that when she becomes a teen, she may misuse her powers and follow the path to the Dark Side.

I like the idea of a vampire-werewolf feud. It would certainly spice up the village!

I was mostly concerned about the practicality of it - even though I have a hack that lets vampires stay in daylight safely, they tend to sprint off any lot they're on if the sun's out - "ah, the sun, I must flee!"

The other one is aside from the knowledge Sims they'd all be rolling wants to get cured or cure others. Would rather not set a knowledge secondary for everyone.

If anyone has any solutions for these two problems I might go for it.

I could have sworn there was a mod to fix the constant cure wants. I think wfsanity is the one you want from Pescado. http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/al/hacks/

I might be wrong though.

Story dilemma: Shenala Tragedy is a rich businesswoman who went through a hard childhood. Her husband, Neil, was having an affair so they divorced, leaving Shenala to raise their kids herself. Said kids are Brittany (The oldest), S (The youngest), Amy (Second oldest), Elissa (Second youngest) and Aliana. (Older than S and Elissa, younger than Brittany and Amy.) (Elissa and Aliana are Neil's alien kids. S and Amy are Shenala and Neil's biological kids. Brittany was adopted.)

Before divorcing, they took in a kid called Orlando Bertino because he lived on the street. They didn't adopt him, just let him live with them.

The kids grew into teens. Orlando and Brittany got into a relationship. S was taught about business and they were sent off to college one by one.

Fast forward to Orlando and Brittany's graduation. Orlando had his grad party first. Before Brittany could go and live in Pleasantview again, Amy (Who was pregnant at the time) killed her because she was jealous of Brittany having a stable relationship while Amy's relationships ended in her partners dying or betraying her.

Before we go on any further, note that Pleasantview is in anarchy because of several murders. The police force united to fight crime, but they aren't equipped to arrest murderers, so murderers get away without punishment.

Back to the story! Amy killing Brittany caused Elissa to trap Amy in a burning room to kill her. S resurrected Amy (Shenala gave them one of those resurrection things she got from her own college days). Amy gave birth to twin girls, Murder and Mercy. S killed Amy when she found out what Amy had done. This was all while Aliana was at her final exam.

Aliana doesn't know what Amy did, but is furious at S and Elissa for murdering Amy. She takes care of Murder and Mercy.
Orlando is in the family bin.

Options for the sisters in college:
1. Get Aliana to know what Amy did and make her leave the twins outside to deplete their needs.
2. Same as #1, but Aliana will continue taking care of the twins anyway.
3. Hold a Hunger Games between them to see who will win and let them decide the fate of the babies.
4. Anything you want to suggest.

Options for Orlando:
1. Get another love interest.
2. Adopt a kid or some pets to keep him from his misery.
3. Get together with one of the sisters. (All of the sisters have the hots for him.)
4. Anything you want to suggest.

Options for Shenala:
1. Sell her businesses since she's almost an elder.
2. Temporarily give her businesses to Orlando until S graduates.
3. Die from rally forth at one of her business lots.
4. Anything you want to suggest.

First, let me say, I love checking back in on this thread!

Next, @ihatemandatoryregister - I too support the vampire vs. werewolves hood idea. I think it'd be very cool. You could have the Capps vying for control and vampire hierarchy, backstabbing each other to control territory and gain power and money, etc. While the Montys werewolf line would have more of a "pack mentality," being wary of outsiders, having strong family traditions like continuing the patriarchy, choosing family as an aspiration, etc. They could have stronger ties to nature while the Capps rule the city. The Summerdreams would make a good witch family, but I think they'd also make a good plantsim family, choosing to stay neutral and remove themselves from day to day society squabbles.

Anyway, don't worry so much about sims rolling wants to cure themselves--I find that really depends more on the sim. Though it seems like everyone will roll wants to cure others, most of my non knowledge sims are okay with being a creature. I regularly turn romance sims into a creature and they rarely have a problem with it, especially if they still get to woohoo all the time. The evil head witch, for example, is romance and if you move her in, she doesn't really roll wants to cure herself (at least she doesn't in my current game). But that could be a witch thing. I've found most sims don't mind being a witch and instead roll wants to cast spells.

Finally, @Astha123, it seems obvious to me that Aliana must go on a path of revenge. She's probably not in a place to listen to her sisters' "excuses" and raising Amy's kids would most likely hardened her--nothing could possibly justify depriving Murder and Mercy of a mom. I see her turning to some dark arts or at least some crime and violence to get back at her sisters. Everything escalates to where they don't talk anymore and maybe another sister dies in the fighting, allowing you to set up a one on one, dark side vs light side family feud. But maybe I'm thinking that cuz of all the talk about witches and supernaturals? Either way, I don't think S would leave Aliana to raise the twins alone--she brought Amy back so she could give birth, right? So maybe you split Murder and Mercy up and each of them are raised on different sides of the feud, leaving them to figure out if they continue it when they're older (it seems like they would, if only from their names). And/or maybe Elissa has a vendetta against the twins, since she did kill their mom while she was pregnant. Or maybe the twins grow up wanting to get back at her for that?

I like the idea of Shenala giving the business to Orlando though; it's like she's horrified of what her family has become and doesn't want to reward anyone's behavior. Then maybe one of the sisters is upset that he got their rightful inheritance and there's another feud right there. If he does fall in love with anyone, I'd say it'd be S or Elissa, since they all seem to be on the same side, but more importantly, what would that do to everyone's relationships if Brittany is resurrected later, after he's moved on and married/had kids with one of Brittany's sisters?

I think you have lots of options, so when in doubt, pick your favorites to play, get rid of the sims you hate, and build your story from there!

@PhantomKnight The reason Elissa killed Amy in the first place was because she thought Amy already brought them too much pain and drama even though she didn't and that the children would undermine their college studies. I really love your post, especially the reason for Shenala to give the business to Orlando!

Ok, so I wrote what happened while I was playing.
Aliana moved into a new dorm with Mercy and left Murder with S. She went into a room and saw a picture of Brittany with Dirk. She remembered that Brittany and Orlando sang on campus. They took pictures with fans. Aliana decided to keep the picture. It seemed like a nice reminder of Brittany.

She set up a crib and other things for Mercy. The Tragedy family had the technology to make people grow up early, so she made Mercy grow up into a toddler after feeding her.


Meanwhile, S took care of Murder. Elissa was at class, so S aged Murder up to a toddler to make sure Elissa wouldn’t do anything. The college authorities threatened S that they would take Murder away if she didn’t stay with Elissa to make sure she didn’t do anything.

Both S and Aliana are terrified that the other is raising the twin to be hateful and are making sure that the twin they raise doesn’t go away. They don’t trust each other.

Both went to Erin ‘Death’ Burb, a murderer who is the child of the Grim Reaper and Lucy Burb (Who was a serial killer before dying) to ask her for magic powers to kill each other and to protect the twins. She gave them said magic powers.

Orlando went to Shenala and told her what had happened. They were both unhappy about the feud. She gave all the businesses to Orlando and proceeded to go to another one of her business lots with him.

She overused Rally Forth to basically commit suicide… but not before Orlando made out with her under temporary insanity and because he had 3 chemistry bolts with her. Shenala was fine with it because she was going to die anyway. Dozens of people watched this and gossiped about it. The gossip spread fast and the sisters found out about it.

Orlando took Shenala’s grave and left it at the graveyard. He went back to the mansion and put Shenala’s dogs up for adoption and sold the Servos she used to help with her house.

Two fires were summoned by S and Aliana and they destroyed a large part of the mansion but left Orlando unharmed.

Aliana did so to punish him for making out with Shenala and didn’t kill him because she felt it would be morally wrong.

S did so to punish him, as well. She didn’t harm him as she wanted to get into a relationship with Orlando to coax him into handing over the businesses to her since Shenala had trained her as she was the heiress.

When he woke up, he called the fire department.

@Astha123 I love your update; I wonder what S would do if she did manage to get Orlando to fall in love with her and hand over the business? Would she kill him, as seems to be the trend in your hood, or would she settle down?

Anyway, I've my own dilemma, not related to Pleasantview this time (I've quite a ways to go before I can unleash a zombie apocalypse there. ). I wanted to restart my bacc/integrated test hood since my old one is glitchy. I'm planning on using bin families again, since creating sims from scratch takes forever and it's harder for me to connect to them at first. Plus I really liked playing them--which was a surprise for me, as I usually delete most of them. Like the Ottomas, for example. I never, ever played them before, but surprisingly had a good time with them. So I'll use all the bin families this time, including Gieke and Larson. I'm not sure how playing Gieke will go, but it'll be good to have Jodie in this hood as women were in short supply in the last hood. I basically had to number every sim and as soon as a female sim was of age, they got sent off to get married.

Right, so, the dilemma: What to do with the Goodie family? In the old hood, I had thought to have Herbert kill off Faith and marry someone else but I couldn't justifying giving him a wife before any other eligible adult male, since it'd be his second marriage, so he was supposed to just establish himself and wait around for a while. What ended up happening was that Faith became a plantsim (due to a lack of insecticide) and had plantbabies while Herbert became a witch and got rid of Faith soon after the plantbabies were old enough to work for him. I think he got a genie lamp too, which he used to get money and become younger. But even with that going on, I found it boring compared to the family building going on in other lots. Too much skilling and watching plantsims alternate between working and complaining about needs (it didn't help that two seasons out of four were winter.)

Now, I like Herbert and the idea of remarrying him. It's basically the only reason why I included them in the first place. I'm a little torn, though, because I think it's unfair to Faith. And I would like to have at least one sim carry on her line/genes. But since I'd like to keep supernaturals out of the hood for a while, until the town develops a bit more, she'd have to stay an elder and female elders in this situation are basically useless. No point in skilling, cuz she's going to die, she can't have kids, and since it's just her and Herbert, there's no one to really care for. Anyone have any ideas? Should I age her and Herbert down and give her a little more time? Should they adopt? Boolprop a baby? Or any votes to just kill her off and be done with it?

As an elder female, I find your perception of Faith as useless in the situation objectionable and short-sighted.

First of all, give her and Herbert both some skill points! Randomized if you like. But it makes 0 sense for two elders to have no skillpoints at all. It's not cheating; it's fixing the company's oversight.

Things Faith can do: Start the first community business. Act as Society Leader, using her house to host meetings and cultural events. Give her a greenhouse and let her and Herbert become the main food producers. (Since they're elders, I don't see the cheat involved in giving them a couple badges, either.) Act as Town Founder; or Assistant to Town Founder. Act as Welfare Worker/Nurse, seeking out sims who are having problems and helping them out with it. Make a living as an artist of some kind (novels or crafting stations) to increase the tax base. Adopt the Newsons. Act as community matchmaker/yente/mediator of conflicts. Some combination of these roles.

I only played the Goodies once and I aged them both down to adult and gave them a family. If I was keeping them old I would first use the simblender to randomize their skills, because I agree, they should have come with some! Then I would perhaps have them run an orphanage. I would check out their hobby and interests and maybe give them some badges as well.

Faith is not useless. She has a great personality and makes friends easily.
The Goodies, in several past hoods of mine, always adopted at least one child, sometimes two (and, indeed, once the Newsons)

Thanks for the ideas! I hadn't considered using Faith in such a way, Peni Griffin (obviously. Hope I didn't offend too much!). Everyone will pretty much be starting from scratch though, so there won't be too many social services in the hood yet, but she could go around and act as hired help to families in need when things get hectic later on. Maybe even be midwife. And Herbert could be pastor, considering his last name. I guess I was focused more on the legacy aspect of the family; I want to carry on the family names and I didn't really see a way to do that with her in the picture.

For this hood, I'm picturing them as settlers who picked up and moved from somewhere and decided to travel together. They'll eventually build a town but it'll be a while before they start any businesses. As for randomizing skills--I usually don't because my sim blender always seems to give too many. Instead I was thinking of grouping everyone into camps and playing with aging off for a couple of seasons, letting them skill a little, collect resources (chopping wood takes forever!), and socialize, symbolizing the journey there. Like before they came to the new hood they were empty headed city slickers who didn't know a thing about living off the land, but they learned a bit on the way there.

You could age Faith down to adult but take away days so she isn't 'that much younger' then Herbert and let her have a 'late in life' child. That way you get the genetics from her. You could even have her 'die in child birth' so Herbert can marry some 'sweet young thing' to help him raise the baby.

What I do is after randomizing I then use the sim manipulator to take away skills. I never allow any sim to start with more than five in any area, so if it randomized 8 in body and 10 in cooking I just lop them off back to five.