Witchcraft Fear Triggers

[JDacapo]

I'm getting rather curious as to what really triggers fear of becoming a witch or of someone a sim knows doing so. Does it have something to do with someone having a bad memory of turning? Because so far in my new custom hood, I've played a Family sim through college and it became easy peasy once he built his warlock skills high enough to craft a throne of light. Despite not having Knowledge as a secondary aspiration, he has never had any desire whatsoever to be cured, and he's fine with the former head witch being what she is(she was aged down with a wish for youth).

Right now I'm playing a Romance young adult, and she just met with the new high good witch. I'm going to see if she will have any witch-related fears, but so far, she doesn't. Have you had anything like that happen in a custom hood where your sims for the most part had nothing to do with the high evil witches?

[omglo]

It seems like knowing that witches exist is enough for some Sims to worry that they or other Sims will become witches. None of my Sims have ever interacted with witches, besides seeing them arrive on community lots, but some of them have rolled witch wants and fears.

[JDacapo]

It seems like knowing that witches exist is enough for some Sims to worry that they or other Sims will become witches. None of my Sims have ever interacted with witches, besides seeing them arrive on community lots, but some of them have rolled witch wants and fears.

Weird. I've just turned my Romance sim into a witch and she doesn't seem to mind at least right now. Are you playing Belladonna Cove or a custom hood? I'm doing this experiment because I want to make a magic neighbourhood with a diversity of aspirations and personalities, but without the dumb ol' Durwoods ruining it. I don't want a town full of sims with only one aspiration. Might hafta take some lessons in programming to make a mod that will curb the Durwoods and self-hating witches.

[LilGeek]

Hm, just a thought.. Perhaps they want to be cured of witchyness if they're close to aspiration failure?

I've played a good handful of witches and 'locks by now, and none of them seemed fussed with being cured..

[JDacapo]

Hm, just a thought.. Perhaps they want to be cured of witchyness if they're close to aspiration failure?

I've played a good handful of witches and 'locks by now, and none of them seemed fussed with being cured..

What kinds of aspirations? BTW my first Family warlock was permaplat almost day one. That may have contributed to his lack ofa desire to become mundane. Also, he's good friends with a former head witch, who was one of his first friends during his college years. She's gonna start her first day of school soon, being aged down from elder to teen shortly after moving in. She's also permaplat and Knowledge. Mainly did that to give her more of a chance to fulfill her LTW - randomly-created elders often have LTWs to reach the top of a career when they are either unemployed or in a different career, or even retired. Hell, first time I played Olive Specter, she wanted to be head of the SCIA.

[sierrakusterbeck]

I always noticed that whenever my sims would come back from community lots and a bad witch would show up, they'd come home and then have fears of becoming witches or their friends becoming witches, so I guess just being on the same lot/interacting with one will trigger the fear.

[LilGeek]

@ JDacapo, I don't recall the exact aspirations, but there's gotta have been at least a Family and a Knowledge one.

[Babahara]

I think fears or wants aren't related to memories directly. I once had a sim turn another sim into a zombie on her lot, nobody else has seen that. However, when I started accessing other lots, sims there rolled wants related to becoming a zombie. That sort of made me mad, because that zombie-turning was supposed to be done in secrecy (it's a crime in my hood), but it looked like everybody and his dog knew about it! Typically, evil sims rolled wants to turn others into zombies, and good sims rolled fears about others becoming zombies. Some sims rolled a wish to be a zombie, those were knowledge sims.

I know it's about zombies, but I noticed it to be true for all supernatural wants, except that becoming a witch seems to be less popular, not everybody rolls such a want.

[Peni Griffin]

It's not necessarily evil sims that roll wants to make people zombies. My knowledge sims roll wants to bring people back and make zombies everytime somebody dies, while everybody else is rolling fears that they'll be zombies. And I only have one evil Knowledge sim.

[omglo]

Weird. I've just turned my Romance sim into a witch and she doesn't seem to mind at least right now. Are you playing Belladonna Cove or a custom hood? I'm doing this experiment because I want to make a magic neighbourhood with a diversity of aspirations and personalities, but without the dumb ol' Durwoods ruining it. I don't want a town full of sims with only one aspiration. Might hafta take some lessons in programming to make a mod that will curb the Durwoods and self-hating witches.I've seen it in my custom commune hood, where every adult playable is a family sim. Maybe the fear is based on personality?

[Julieryc]

I've seen Sims roll the fear most commonly when they're non-Knowledge (as primary or secondary) and have a relative who was recently turned. That's when mine tend to roll the fear of becoming.

Of course, I'm heartless, and if my sims are destined to be witches they'll take the aspiration hit anyway. (For the first generation, sims destined to be witches got turned with the Sim Transformer painting immediately upon entering the lot; since witchery is passed down by birth, directing teens with at least 1 witch parent to that painting is the first thing I do when they become teens, unless I've previously random-rolled/decided the magic didn't manifest in them.)

It's funny, because my witchery fears/wants seem directly related to having a family member/house member being a witch, but I just had a witch who doesn't know any werewolves roll the "Become A Werewolf" want. (This is bad, since lycanthropy in my 'hood is a bad thing, for which there is no cure.) In that case, though, they're a Knowledge sim who'd fulfilled most of their wants/fears (a Knowledge/Fortune Sim who'd maxed all skills, reached the top of their career track, become a witch, own ALL the expensive things, etc.) and I wonder if the game starts pulling that out because there are werewolves in the 'hood and it's one of the few "eligible" wants/fears left for their aspiration. I wonder if it has to do with the supernaturals in their subhood - there are witches and werewolves but no vamps in my shopping district, and nobody in the shopping district's rolled the "Become a Vamp" want, while the vamps in my main 'hood mean that people there roll "Become a Vampire" want all the time. (As there are no zombies or plantsims in the 'hood, nobody rolls wants to become either of those.)

[JDacapo]

I've seen Sims roll the fear most commonly when they're non-Knowledge (as primary or secondary) and have a relative who was recently turned. That's when mine tend to roll the fear of becoming.

Of course, I'm heartless, and if my sims are destined to be witches they'll take the aspiration hit anyway. (For the first generation, sims destined to be witches got turned with the Sim Transformer painting immediately upon entering the lot; since witchery is passed down by birth, directing teens with at least 1 witch parent to that painting is the first thing I do when they become teens, unless I've previously random-rolled/decided the magic didn't manifest in them.)

It's funny, because my witchery fears/wants seem directly related to having a family member/house member being a witch, but I just had a witch who doesn't know any werewolves roll the "Become A Werewolf" want. (This is bad, since lycanthropy in my 'hood is a bad thing, for which there is no cure.) In that case, though, they're a Knowledge sim who'd fulfilled most of their wants/fears (a Knowledge/Fortune Sim who'd maxed all skills, reached the top of their career track, become a witch, own ALL the expensive things, etc.) and I wonder if the game starts pulling that out because there are werewolves in the 'hood and it's one of the few "eligible" wants/fears left for their aspiration. I wonder if it has to do with the supernaturals in their subhood - there are witches and werewolves but no vamps in my shopping district, and nobody in the shopping district's rolled the "Become a Vamp" want, while the vamps in my main 'hood mean that people there roll "Become a Vampire" want all the time. (As there are no zombies or plantsims in the 'hood, nobody rolls wants to become either of those.)

That's weird. So I guess the young adults are still malleable and don't really care, so long as the memory is good. However, I would love to take some lessons from a SimPE expert and make one where every aspiration will at least occasionally roll wants to become a witch, vamp or werewolf because in real life, Twilight fans come from all walks of life - from family to money to popularity. And there are millions of people of different walks of life who are into Pagan religions like Wicca or a mix of Catholicism and various animistic religions, such as Voodoo(not to be confused with Hoodoo, which does involve the dolls and pin-poking and stuff) and Santaria. I think that the popularity sims should also roll the wants to become a special being because those of us in real life who want to be popular tend to want to be something special or part of something trendy, or maybe they just want attention.

[Peni Griffin]

I think there may be some confusion over how the wants are rolled.

As far as I can tell, from my own experience and those reported on this newsgroup, few if any specific wants are connected solely to any specific aspiration. Each aspiration has a handful of wants that are associated with them and from which they are expected to get the biggest aspiration boost, but none of those wants are excluded from the pool available to the other aspirations. I wouldn't understand the coding even if I looked at it, but from the results people get, it seems probable that wants and fears are dumped into broad categories, and the chances of getting wants within each category are different for each aspiration, but they are all, or almost all, still possible for anyone.

Enter the training mechanism. The more often you fulfill a want for a sim, the more likely he is to roll it again. Also, the more often you direct a sim to do something the more likely he is to do it autonomously, and the more likely he is to roll a want to do it - especially if he's directed to do it when he's already in a good mood. This would explain why, after I made Harris Hawkins get up to write his term papers after dream dates a couple of times, he started rolling wants to write term papers after woohoo through the rest of his college career. The training mechanism can trump natural inclination, as anyone who's trained a sloppy sim to make his bed and clean up his dishes can attest.

Certain wants are triggered by external conditions. Wants and fears concerning alien abduction, werewolves, witches, etc., don't roll until someone is abducted, encounters a werewolf, or sees a witch. Normally, Knowledge aspirations are more likely to roll wants to experience these things and the other aspirations are more likely to roll fears; however, since Ms. DeCapo really likes witches and is making lots of them all over the place, and nothing bad is resulting, the sims in her hood are being trained to accept them as normal, not to fear them, and even to actively want them, regardless of aspiration. A witch-acclimated family sim whose girlfriend is a witch may well roll a want to become one as well, in order to have more in common with her. An unmarried male family sim who knows several men who got pregnant after abduction may well develop a want to be abducted as the prelude to having a baby, in the same way that even a cripplingly shy one will roll erotic wants to pave the way to a baby.

Various mods that affect default sim behavior would change the way these mechanisms work, but I think in a vanilla game what she's experiencing is what she should expect. And it's a good thing, as it lets her indulge her penchant for witches without having to overload her hood with Knowledge sims.

[mr_db1]

seeing the change in ones son/daughter triggers the want him/her cured an those fears in my sims
I have one family build in which I have both good and bad witch as daughters, the mother has both fear and the want cure for both of them

[JDacapo]

I think there may be some confusion over how the wants are rolled.

As far as I can tell, from my own experience and those reported on this newsgroup, few if any specific wants are connected solely to any specific aspiration. Each aspiration has a handful of wants that are associated with them and from which they are expected to get the biggest aspiration boost, but none of those wants are excluded from the pool available to the other aspirations. I wouldn't understand the coding even if I looked at it, but from the results people get, it seems probable that wants and fears are dumped into broad categories, and the chances of getting wants within each category are different for each aspiration, but they are all, or almost all, still possible for anyone.

Enter the training mechanism. The more often you fulfill a want for a sim, the more likely he is to roll it again. Also, the more often you direct a sim to do something the more likely he is to do it autonomously, and the more likely he is to roll a want to do it - especially if he's directed to do it when he's already in a good mood. This would explain why, after I made Harris Hawkins get up to write his term papers after dream dates a couple of times, he started rolling wants to write term papers after woohoo through the rest of his college career. The training mechanism can trump natural inclination, as anyone who's trained a sloppy sim to make his bed and clean up his dishes can attest.

Certain wants are triggered by external conditions. Wants and fears concerning alien abduction, werewolves, witches, etc., don't roll until someone is abducted, encounters a werewolf, or sees a witch. Normally, Knowledge aspirations are more likely to roll wants to experience these things and the other aspirations are more likely to roll fears; however, since Ms. DeCapo really likes witches and is making lots of them all over the place, and nothing bad is resulting, the sims in her hood are being trained to accept them as normal, not to fear them, and even to actively want them, regardless of aspiration. A witch-acclimated family sim whose girlfriend is a witch may well roll a want to become one as well, in order to have more in common with her. An unmarried male family sim who knows several men who got pregnant after abduction may well develop a want to be abducted as the prelude to having a baby, in the same way that even a cripplingly shy one will roll erotic wants to pave the way to a baby.

Various mods that affect default sim behavior would change the way these mechanisms work, but I think in a vanilla game what she's experiencing is what she should expect. And it's a good thing, as it lets her indulge her penchant for witches without having to overload her hood with Knowledge sims.

Wow... this must be quite an advanced AI then! Because in the Uber-Megahood, there were a lot of family sims who were afraid of becoming witches, and I think it may be due to Kimberly Cordial becoming an evil witch. I may well be heartless and have my witches and warlocks 'punk' the neighbours. I didn't know that other aspirations could roll wants to become witches though... I thought most of the aspiration-based wants were set in stone, though early on I have seen a lot of variables such as mothers with family aspirations rolling fears of having babies.

Anyway though... you are saying that there were non-knowledge sims rolling WANTS to be abducted? That would be quite awesome! I had this one graduate abducted naturally twice in my custom hood using the search for planets perk - he now has three sons and is earning money at home making reagents and treasure chests. It would be neat to see non-knowledge sims rolling wants for these things.

And there's something interesting I've noticed with non-knowledge sims after abduction; they often don't roll fears of abduction right away. My popularity/fortune sim hasn't rolled any abduction fears, maybe because he things losing friends is worse than being abducted. I had him turn his first son into a warlock, and so far he hasn't rolled a want for his son to be cured. He still is working on a goal to have thirty best friends at once, and his LTW want is to become General.

This has made me realize just how intelligent a game could be. I thought there were a lot of moments of real in this game, but my goodness, there are a lot more than I expected, and it's so good to know that not everything is set in aspiration-stone. I guess it kind of makes sense in a way for a non-knowledge sim to want to be abducted even though he would have a bad memory, because knowledge sims want to become werewolves, even though it's unpleasant and not at all Twilighty.