How to break the rules?

[WooHoo31]

When I play the game, I tend to get very bored easily. I think the reason why is because I follow my own rules too much... I'm totally OCD, and like everything to be perfect. I like my families (including siblings) having good relationships with each other, I never let my sims cheat or have affairs. I usually skip chance cards because I don't want to risk my sims losing their jobs, etc...

I hear people's stories about all the drama that goes on in their games, when my game rarely has any drama...

What are some things I can do to not be so strict on my gameplay and mix things up a bit? Have any of you been in my situation?

[TortureTheNannies]

To break the rules, you may have to do exactly the opposite of what you choose. For drama, the sims have nothing better than their greatest move. Make out with another sim , while the spouse is watching. That makes a fight instantly. To a lesser extent, pair a sloppy sim with a neat sim. This "Odd Couple" move need autonomy since we can't cause it, but it results in fury in Nightlife expansion. You can also move one sim to another family, stay a week, move back. This will result in change of priorities and relationships. For sone reason, hardship in the house produces fights. Let the house get messy. Encourage sims to drop trash on the floor. Then, do not let them eat. Within a few days, the sims fight each other.

[joandsarah77]

How about each family you play gets a random small challenge each week. Maybe spin a die to see what there challenge might be. There is a list of small challenges on LJ-although I'm not sure where exactly. It might be called 'tiny challenges' It's a small programme that you download and click on to get new options.
Here are a few things that come to mind
: Chosen sim or sims
>must have one fear fulfilled per day for a week.
>Are locked out of their house for a whole day.
>Must go someplace new and try something they haven't done before-if possible.
>Must adopt two cats or two dogs and try to breed them.
>Must work on their LTW even if this is something you wouldn't normally attempt and involves cheating on their spouse.
>Must forsake the rat race, quit their job and take to fishing and gardening.
>Must not be controlled directly for the whole week. You may influence and call them to things.

[lazzybum]

Best way to break rules is to get rid of the rules! I'm the opposite of you, where I do every chance card. For relationships, I let the sims do it themselves, especially with ACR, they will do the cheating themselves. I do help a bit where I invite sims over and stuff, but I pretty much just watch drama happen. That also allows sims to be different from each other and have their own stories. The only rules I have on my sims are ways to deduct money from them xD. You could try playing a hood with no rules and see how that goes for you. You will eventually come up with ways that work or don't work for you anyways.

[Aegagropilon]

To a lesser extent, pair a sloppy sim with a neat sim. This "Odd Couple" move need autonomy since we can't cause it, but it results in fury in Nightlife expansion.

This...doesn't always cause drama :lol:. There's several couples in my game where one sim has 0-2 Neat points and the other has 8-10, and they get along without a hitch. Even when the neat freak has 0 nice points. There is the occasional fury on the neat sim's part -- sometimes having to mop up a bathroom that had just been cleaned is just too much -- but there's never fights, and they'll still let their slobby mate flirt with them and kiss them (and even do a bit of flirting and kissing of their own) while the fury lasts.

But that's only in cases where there's a 100/100 relationships and love. When the neat sims and the sloppy sims don't like each other? Holy crap, there is drama in spades. I still remember the day of fourteen fights that occurred in the Beaker household when Nervous still lived there.

[Darby]

Paging Peni! :D

While we wait on The Mistress of How to Keep Your Game Fresh and Fun, I'll put in my piddly two cents.

I don't think rules are your problem, per se. The problem is thinking all sims lives need to be perfect and without conflict. You need rules, imho; You just need to come up with a set of rules that allows for drama.

I think it's safe to assume that players who insist their sims' lives always run smoothly (and I TOTALLY know where you're coming from - it's not an unusual affliction at all) are micromanagers, so the first step is to start letting sims do their own thing as much as possible. Observe, and let their personalities tell YOU what they want to do, whom they want to pursue, etc..

When you let the sims lead, they'll take you places you mightn't have thought of otherwise!

[Peni Griffin]

Look in the Challenges section, find what intrigues you.

If it's part of your personality to follow rules obsessively, create different rules. They don't have to be elaborate and they don't have to be uniform. I generally fly by the seat of my pants, but I do have different rules for playing different sims. Hi Thyme is dyslexic - he's not allowed to read for skill points, but can only learn by doing. Certain sims are "simmigrants" - they come from different countries and because they aren't citizens yet they're restricted from holding certain jobs until they naturalize and I have to play them a certain way to reflect cultural and linguistic differences among them, mainstream sims, and simmigrants from other countries. Inexperienced sims have to date blind - without opening the date's wants panel - unless they know each other well or their name is Hawkins; my Hawkins family having established itself early on as a set of woohoo gods (and no, I didn't do this on purpose; they did it on their own). Unless a male sim has a want to woohoo he's physiologically incapable of doing so; and a male sim who initiates woohoo with someone without such a want is committing rape - but a female sim who has a want for a baby but no woohoo want (which is pretty darn rare) can initiate a try for baby as long as her chosen male partner is in a condition to comply. I am not allowed to tell certain sims to perform certain actions - Alon Livingstone is a slob and I cannot direct him to clean up after himself. If he doesn't do it autonomously, his living space becomes a pit. And so on. This sort of thing adds texture, individuality, and suspense to what otherwise would be routine play.

Play with premades, townies, and other people's sims for awhile, ones you aren't personally invested in. You may feel yourself less hidebound about experimentation with them.

Good lord, Darby, you posted that while I was typing and now I'm all embarrassed and stuff. It's not modesty that's keeping me from running my mouth off more on this topic here; it's the necessity of making dinner.

[Saturnfly]

I love finding new ways that make the game more realistic/ challenging. Such as the mods for higher bills and harder promotions.
Occasionally I end up with a sim that can't pay their bills/ mortgage, so they have to move out and in with relatives or on the street.

You could set up your neighbourhood in different classes. Have an area for poor sims, one for the middle and upper class sims to create a bit of diversity.

I remember Stephen King once said as he was halfway through writing The Stand, he hit a massive writers block and discovered the only way through it was to kill a bunch of characters.
Seriously, build a graveyard and kill off everyone that bores you!
In the real world, people die every day, perhaps you could have one sim die every sim week. Then you might be able to start an orphanage!

[smorbie1]

I am also OCD. What I do is download a lot of mods. Then, when I count to see what gets added to the household (don't ask), if a mod object is chosen, that family is blessed, or cursed, by it. For example, I made Denise Jacquet adopt a baby, after Gilbert died of the plague. She had a little girl named Nicole. Of course, Denise had caught the flu (realistic sickness mod) from Gilbert, and became ill. She had Cyd Roseland move in with her to help her care for her baby. She died. Then Cyd, who found a magic object to make a woman fall in love with him, met and married Camryn Lee. Camryn doesn't really like Nicole and tries to have as little to do with her has as possible, considering that task to belong to Cyd. Then, Cyd found another magic object that aged him down to toddler. So now Camryn has to raise Nicole (now a teenager), but also has to care for her husband, who is now a toddler. All that drama thanks to mods.

[Alijah]

I used to have the same problem. I would pair up sims at childhood and then Perfect their personalities or turn ons to give them three bolts. I gave them jobs based on what I thought they should do instead if their LTW or interests. And like you, I got bored fast. Now I've started playing based on my sims instead of me. I let them date a few single bolters until that three bolter comes along and sweeps them off their feet. They get jobs based on their personality and some sins don't even get jobs and instead live off of community lot chores like baristas or playing instruments.

One thing that really makes it fun for me is limiting the money and careers. I use family funds to make them pay taxes and they can't get jobs above a certain level unless they've gone to college.

It's hard to let your simmies suffer sometimes but it's more fun to pick up their pieces than to watch them live perfect lives.

[FreezerBunny]

Theres lots of tiny challenges for existing families here: http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=341154

It helped me make my current family more interesting.

[omglo]

If you don't mind mods, take some of the power out of your hands. Install things like ACR and the 'fight anyone anytime' mod, then stick your married Sims in situations with another person they're attracted to and let them do their own thing. Children usually start out with a slightly negative relationship toward their new siblings and children with few nice points would probably rather tease the toddler than play nicely, so let them. Pay close attention to their personality points and consider whether the lazy sim who likes to sleep in would really be concerned with climbing up the corporate ladder, or if she'd rather spend her free time lounging on the couch instead of gaining skill points. When you're running a date, you know it's too soon to 'lower hands' while they're dancing, but your teenage boy does not and he rolled the want, so go ahead and let him try it out, and so on. Try and consider who each Sim is, based on their personality and life experiences and let them make their own path.

[sushigal007]

Do what your sims want instead of what you want. They want to woohoo three different sims? Let them. They want 10 children? DO IT. They want to see the ghost of their enemies? KILL THEM ALL (unless your sim desires the death of the Unsavory Charleton or something)! They're at college and don' t roll wants to skill? Don't make them sit down and learn!

[katya_stevens]

To be honest, I give my sims control by using more rules rather than less. I have some 'hoods which operate on three principles: what a sim wants they (usually) get if they can do so (unless it's those annoying hobby-related wants); randomly roll EVERYTHING; a sim's job and job level depends on their personality, aspiration, LTW and regular wants.

For rule 2, this means if I'm making a sim in CAS, I roll for their personality, aspiration, and turn ons/off. For a sim transitioning to teen, their aspiration is rolled and their turn ons/off are kept as the ones the game throws.

For rule 3, this means a sim who is lazy and playful (low motivation) can only work their way up to level 5 of a job on their own; any higher and they need to have a want to be promoted. For a sim who is active and serious (high motivation) though, any sim who stands in their way better watch out on their battle to level 10! (A sim who is average in motivation can get to level 7 before actively wanting to get promoted.)

also for rule 3, a sim's personality and aspiration determines the jobs they can go in to. A Fortune sim who is Sloppy, Outgoing (boosts Charisma skill gain), Active (boosts Body skill gain), Serious (boosts Logic skill gain) and Grouchy can get a job in Architecture, Athletic, Business, Gamer, Politics, or Show Business, their LTW career (if they have one) or any job they roll the want for while unemployed.

The combination of job levels and job restrictions stops well near everyone jumping on to the same high-paying career -- that combined with a mod which allows for a random number of jobs per day from the computer/newspaper and NPC jobs keeps my sims from gathering too much money and getting to the top of their careers. What fun is it (for me) to have a 'bad'/cheap area of town when hardly anyone lives there for any amount of time? Millionaires have to work for their money, and are usually the ones who have high motivation -- I have a couple in one 'hood where the husband is of average motivation, the wife of high motivation, and they both have the same LTW, 5 Top Businesses. As sims of average motivation can only open 3 businesses without the want to open more, the wife's going to be the one running the business empire. Their eldest child is also high motivation and thus will be inherriting said empire when she's old enough (the wife is pregnant with another child, but it remains to be seen how many children she'll give birth to and what motivation levels they'll have).

[maxon]

Develop some demonic vindictive story-line and build the sims accordingly. That's what I do.

What?

[Peni Griffin]

Don't overlook the OCD gamer's best friend, polyhedral dice! Unless the sim is telling you loud and clear what it wants, make choices based on random die roll. This gives you the illusion of control without enabling yourself to make the same choices again and again. Sometimes it's good to roll a die to see how you feel, even if you don't treat dice decisions as binding.

[Alijah]

Don't overlook the OCD gamer's best friend, polyhedral dice! Unless the sim is telling you loud and clear what it wants, make choices based on random die roll.

This is a good point, too! I use dice for a lot of little details that I otherwise couldn't be trusted to make myself. Sims in dangerous career paths, like crime or law enforcement, get rolled every week to see if they are injured on the job and if they are, I roll again to see if it's fatal. Injuries on the job means they lose body points and have to quit their job on leave for a whole season while they recover. If it's fatal, I just off them as soon as they get out of the car. Athletic career paths get the roll for injuries, but not for fatality.

There are a ton of tiny situations in day to day gameplay that can be integrated with a roll of a dice. Does this teen kid get into college? Because SSU is surely the most popular university around and they must get a ton of applicants. If they don't manage to get into SSU via grades, desire to go to college, and a good dice roll, then I either ship them off to my tiny custom college, Simcity Community College, or they go to school from home using squinge's college mega pack. What about getting a job? I know I never just got on the computer and applied for a job and then got it that day. When I find an open job for my sims, I roll to see if they even get it. If not, no job for them. The higher the job level, the harder it is to get it.

As Penny said, almost any situation where the sim is not directly telling you what they want, roll the die! If my sim kids don't roll the want to do their homework and their parents aren't the involved type, I roll to see if they get the initiative to do it that night. If not, it piles up uncompleted until they roll the want, their parent rolls a want for them regarding school (either help with homework, get good grades, overachiever or private school wants) or the dice hits that magic number, which varies based on sim personality. A serious knowledge sims requirements are far more lenient than a playful pleasure sim.

If you don't have dice, but you have smartphone, there are a ton of free dice apps on the markets. I just use one cleverly called "Dice".

[Peni Griffin]

Ah, but no smartphone can give you the sheer sensual pleasure of rolling oddly-shaped dice. If you don't have any and there's no Friendly Local Game Store, order 'em!

http://www.greathallgames.com/aacc/adice/adi.htm

[Saturnfly]

Ah, but no smartphone can give you the sheer sensual pleasure of rolling oddly-shaped dice. If you don't have any and there's no Friendly Local Game Store, order 'em!

http://www.greathallgames.com/aacc/adice/adi.htm

L0l, spherical dice.

[DigitalSympathies]

For me, I have a bit of a ruleset in place - whatever the fuck calls to me at that moment. I let sims have a bit of a free run, but I always plan out the dash to work and school (down to the second!) just to get'r done. That way the kidlets are at the bus stop in the uniform of their school (there are many types of schools in my neighbourhood: public school, private school, the weekly boarding school, the full-on boarding school for children with developmental challenges, and "da skuhl 4 kidz whoo con't reed goud") and the parents are off to work without a hitch.

That is, until I break that routine and screw things up for EVERYONE. Chaos breaks out! Sims get unfed! Babies get ignored! Etc, etc! Drama! Romance! Missed Carpools! (All on next week's episode of Summerset Bay, only on SBN nearest to SimCity, and Romantic Rendezvous if you're nearest to Bridgeport.)

Another way I spice things up is like Peni - I limit some of my sims to certain things. I have one sim who's an alien in hiding (the occults are outlawed and if they're caught, they're burnt to death - more drama than accepting them right off the bat, as I want it to be a historical moment!) and thanks to a temporary skin-colour-changer potion (aka, a vase that lets you do so) and some lucky facial genes, she can go out in public without threat, UNLESS THERE'S RAIN. >:3 If she refuses to head indoors, and there are people around for when I switch her skin back suddenly, she will be beaten and burnt, or if she has more than $3000 in the bank, she can try and get a taxi before somebody tries to approach her (my way of getting her caught) and flee to Strangetown under a new identity. I also have in place some age mods to make their lives longer - 10 days to a 10-day season - so that 40 days = a full seasonal rotation. It's great for making things last and having the game be harder so it feels like having children is an actual burden.

I also dice roll a lot to determine things. I had a sim who was in a horribly abusive relationship, living on the 8th floor of a 10-storey tenement block, who wasn't allowed outside after she fell pregnant. I was so stumped as to what to do that I found a six-sided die and tossed it, each number corresponding to an option:

1) Keep it
2) Adoption
3) Abortion
4) Break up with him
5) Try and run while he's at work
6) Abandon it

I got a 2, so her son was unceremoniously (thanks to a re-named memory) ran off by the social worker after his birth at the local community hospital, which was induced as she was running a bit longer than normal. His new mother was a single lady and the founder of my "city legacy," in Belleville (whereas my "town legacy," is the Meyers legacy in Summerset Bay), and it just went from there. I found it very interesting that his birth mother often woke of nightmares of him woohoo'ing her during her pregnancy (rape?):

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/6765/snapshot1cb706e63cb8721.jpg

http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/2035/snapshot1cb706e6bcb8721.jpg

Which I thought was a very interesting part of the game's design (I had no idea this could happen until I let go and let my sims take over) and cemented my resolve to give the baby up for adoption.

So, yeah - just do whatever calls to you! See where it takes ya! You never know what you may find later down the road.

[iCad]

Do what your sims want instead of what you want. They want to woohoo three different sims? Let them. They want 10 children? DO IT. They want to see the ghost of their enemies? KILL THEM ALL (unless your sim desires the death of the Unsavory Charleton or something)! They're at college and don' t roll wants to skill? Don't make them sit down and learn!

^All of this. My game got a lot more interesting after I decided to follow what my little pixel dollies wanted to do rather than making them do what I wanted them to do. And I have a lot more fun and a lot less boredom now. Because otherwise, every family became the same, in the end. All perfect, happy, and fabulously wealthy. SNOOZE! The only thing I don't like about playing this way is the ENDLESS PARTIES that Popularity Sims always want...so I ended up putting a limit on them. (One a week, kids! One a week.) But other than that, what they want is what they get and, by corollary, they don't get what they don't ask for. (Like, for instance, skill points to advance their careers. So, I have lots of Sims stuck on the bottom rungs of the ol' career ladder. Sucks for them, but it avoids fabulous wealth! :lol: )

I've heard it said that it can also be fun to actively fill fears, but I haven't felt a need to do that. Yet.

All of this isn't to say that you can't have rules. I have a ton of rules. It's just that my rules as they've evolved over the years tend to encourage/enforce randomness and chaos far more than they encourage/enforce order.

And I love siblings who hate each other. My sibs and I are and always were best buds even though we'd bicker, so it's fun for me to see the "other side of life," so to speak.

[Dizzy-noodles]

I'm like you. I try to keep everything perfect for my 'fangirl' sims (Team Rocket, Labyrinth, Grandia etc.) who live in Pleasantville.

But I try to let my Strangetown sims be a bit more casual, which works ok,except for romance! I always do the same thing-make a romance sim, dress her up like a tart, send her out clubbing to find some men..............then she falls in love with the first one who flirts with her, and I end up marrying them off happily ever after! sigh........I'm just crap, I love love and romance :lovestruc

[Helmasaur]

Only doing what a Sim wants sounds like it would be interesting. I'm definitely going to have to try that.

[Simonut]

Have a "Romance" Sims make him or her the Sun Sign "Leo" Leo personality are very open , not shy will get in the hot tub in the nude. no matter who there. ( lol ) I think not with children in there. ( not sure I do not remember )
Let the Romance Sims Be a real romeo they are good at that, they can really add lots of "Drama" to a neighborhood. Let a bore housewife make friends with him or a bore Sims husband make friends with her. ( A Romance Sims )


When one of them get busted for having an affairs, that when the fire work began, Or better yet let your Romance Sims Woohoo everyone in the neighborhood. hahahaa
Just know with all the slap face action and trash can kicking, or newpaper stealing or when a Sims get busted for cheating the relationship will go down hill.
Give it time it will cool off, that is if the Sims do not get kick out of the house or get a divorce.

Now I do not play Vampires myself, but maybe you can turn a neighborhood into Blood sucking Vampires, or the Walking dead Zombies. There are so many thing you can do just to turn your perfect game into a living nightmare.

But if I was you try it out first in a Custom Neighborhood, that way you will still have your "Perfect Neighborhood" intact. ;)

[margonaute]

One thing that might help you get used to loosening the reins up a bit is to try something like an asylum challenge or an I'm Surrounded By Idiots challenge (if you're not familiar, both more or less involve houses where none or only one of the sims is controllable by you). I, too, was completely OCD about watching over all my sims' actions and making sure they were always using their time wisely/being perfectly happy—it does get a little boring! Doing an asylum challenge (you can see mine here (http://mswn.livejournal.com/tag/bacc%3A%20asylum), if you'd like to get some idea) helped me learn to embrace the random and amusing nuttiness of sims left to their own devices, and I think it's made me appreciate what happens when sims don't always get what they want.

[LeBaiton]

I am often stuck in the same OCD rut. Here's what I've been doing to battle it:

- I am using a Child to Teen transition generator, which randomly picks an aspiration and likes / dislikes. Even if I don't like the outcome, I roll with it to the letter, and it's been great fun because it messes up my routines.

- I do what my sims want to do in their want list. This has caused some havoc, especially with the romance sims and any long term partners they might have.

I do have one problem with playing this way though. Freetime / Hobby wants often completely take over my sims want lists.

Does anyone know if there are mods or solutions to fix that?

Regards,

LeBaiton

[Sunbee]

All I can say, is if they've done them all, they'll usually roll something else. Going to another lot will usually scramble the wants.

[sushigal007]

Giving them a secondary aspiration will add a bit of variety to the wants too.

[Gcgb53191]

OP I was really bored of my game as well because I made everything go perfect all the time. Perfect families with the parents always on top of their career and making lots of money with the children in private school and already dating their high school sweetheart who'd they end up spending the rest of their lives with. On this post (http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?p=3815792#post3815792) katya_stevens talks about the mods and how she plays her game and I loved it! It does take a bit of more work imo but its worth it! :)

[iCad]

I do have one problem with playing this way though. Freetime / Hobby wants often completely take over my sims want lists.

Does anyone know if there are mods or solutions to fix that?

This can happen, yes. Fortune Sims' wants to buy stuff until they're broke and their houses are full of $5000 paintings can do this, too. (Which is the other thing I've put a limit on. Again, they can get one of a certain item a week. I play in week-long rotations, so it's easy for me to know when their quota is filled. ;) ) Wanting pets (If you have Pets, of course) can cause a lot of chaos, too. I've got this lesbian couple, both Family Sims, so I built them a lovely 4-bedroom house, thinking they'd want kids. Do they want kids? No. Never rolled a want for one. No, what they want is dogs. Lots and lots of dogs. They've never rolled a want for a cat. Just dogs. They have 6 adult dogs now, all of them large, plus a few puppies because I had them breed two of their adults who were especially pretty. Needless to say, those bedrooms that I thought would be filled with kids are instead filled with dog beds. :lol: And, oddly enough, they're one of my favorite households ever. Chaotic, but really fun. One of the couple had to quit her job to stay home with the dogs, to train them not to tear up furniture and to keep the food bowls filled and stuff, but she likes staying home just fine. I'll be really sad when they go, since they're approaching elderhood now. :(

ANYWAY, my point is, if you play this way, you do have options for these situations, whether it's repetitive hobby wants or stuff-buying wants or dog-hoarding wants:

1) You can simply roll with it and do it. In some cases, it can be surprisingly fun, actually, as my above example is for me. I just consider these Sims a little...um, quirky. :)

2) You can make rules to limit the amount you'll fill them even if they roll them. Like, my one-a-week rules for party-throwing and stuff-buying. Sims can also get stuck with a want panel filled with wants to be BFFs, something that can't be actively filled or just Best Friends with someone who is a long way away from having the LTR necessary for that. When I end up with "stuck wants" of any kind, I'll sometimes use the batbox to reroll them, but far more often I just consider myself "done" with that Sim until his/her wants reroll to something I can fill. Basically, if I'm "done" with a Sim for a period of time, he/she free wills and does what he/she wants. Sometimes, I have whole households on free will, at least until wants reroll. When that happens, I'll go make dinner or read a book or something until it's time to play again. Or sometimes I'll just watch them because Sims can be quite amusing when left to their own devices. :lol:

3) You can hack the behavior. You CAN limit and, I think, eliminate hobby wants entirely, at least. I haven't done so because they don't bother me. They're easily fillable and usually reroll to something not-hobby-related. So I can't point you at hacks, myself, but I'm thinking MATY would be a good place to look.

[Liv Lukas]

I really thought that someone here, at some point, told us about a hack to stop hobby related wants. I *THINK* there is a hack out there for this? Anyone remember this or have this holy grail of a hack?

[Simsica]

I don't have the hack but I've heard about it. Google should help.

... As it helped me a moment ago when I searched for what OCD means. Anyway, Google found me a test to determine if I had it. I don't! I'm so happy! I break the rules all the time!

Seriously, what's the point of rules if not in breaking and remaking them until you're satisfied they work as intended? In my game, the rules are there to make it more interesting. If they end up making it more tedious, which they on occasion certainly do, I change them or leave them behind and search for new ones which would do what they should - make my game fun for me.