If you prefer playing with aging off, don't worry about enabling it when making families. Just use Master Controller and manually move the timeline along whenever you're ready for characters to age up or die- it's what I've been doing the entire time. The Scumthorpes aren't a legacy challenge, they're just an attempt to create a long-running dynasty of cartoonish villains for my town and produce the most comically awful sims ever. They might ultimately run for 10 generations,* but they sure as hell won't have adhered to any of the rules in doing so.

...Well, except for maybe the idea of all the main heirs to the family fortune being the same gender. But that's more of a characterisation point than an actual rule. Because given that Larry is a ridiculous caricature of sleazy, corrupt businessmen and (barring Sprog) probably the worst person in the world, of course he's sexist. Of course he's only interested in male successors.

There may well be female heads of the Scumthorpe family in decades to come, though. Some of them might even have been born already...

Also, while I agree with you that babies in this game will most likely never not be boring and terrible, I'd argue that toddlers can be pretty entertaining under the right conditions. Install Cherry92's Toddler Interactions mod if you haven't already- it adds far more things for them to do and is directly responsible for half the funny moments involving the Scumthorpe triplets that I've posted on here.

*The Scumthorpes are currently at the beginning of generation 4, if you count me editing the family tree and retconning in Ethel and Sylvester Scumthorpe, the parents of Larry and Sid. While the triplets are technically the same generation as Larry's adult offspring due to sharing a father, the first fourth-generation Scumthorpe was actually born some time ago when Darius Victor/Scumthorpe decided he hadn't fulfilled enough supervillain cliches, cloned himself and produced a mini-me named Alexander.

Consequently, the fourth generation is actually biologically older than some members of the third generation at the moment. I should probably edit my last post; the Scumthorpe family tree makes even less sense than their genetics.

Downloaded the mod, thanks. Not sure it will be in use anytime soon though. I still have to get over my natural aversion to Simsbabymaking- which I haven't managed to do despite having cheats and mods which enables me to age them up immediately. It might or might not have something to do with the baby disaster I experienced the first time I play Sims 2.

The closest thing I have to playing a functional family is when I moved in a Sim with a wealthy premade couple and their pair of dogs to increase his household funds. Didn't go well because both couple were mean-spirited and declared my Sim as an enemy right then and there. Killed them off shortly afterwards.

The dogs aren't much better, though. That pair of mongrels (who happened to be twins) were aggressive and proceeded to randomly chase, growl and piss at everything in the household. I usually like Pets, but they proved to be too distruptive to keep, so I sent them away

EDIT: On a related discussion to family trees, having a kid of one generation younger than the people from the next generation is actually quite common here. In my secondary school, I have a friend whose nephew is at least 3 years older than him. My current classmate's family tree is even weirder. She said she has a grand-nephew who's easily least twice her age.

I'm interested to hear, what was this monumental baby disaster? :P

Nothing as epic as your Scumthorpe craziness, obviously; I did mention that the contribution of the disaster to my curent anti-baby policy is a mere speculation. The 'disastrous event' I had experienced may or may not be a good enough reason for my babyllergy. And this thread is definitely not a suitable place to discuss Sims 2 stuffs.

This story is already really old, though - it was when the game was still freshly installed in my computer (which I don't use anymore), when I haven't fully understand the game mechanics because I never read the help pop-ups, and have not thought of finding a Sim forum; this was definitely ages before the Golden Age of Mods and CCs began in my Simverse.

The first Sim I played was a Knowledge Sim whom I'd send to live in Strangetown. She met and fell in love with a stray townie who (upon further investigation) was a Romance Sim. One fateful "date", the couple went to cuddle in the hot tub and began doing a series of WooHoo. A "try for baby" interaction must have sneaked somewhere in the action queue because a few days later, I got an announcement that my Sim is pregnant. I got confused at first; because when one is too familiar with Sims 1, one would think SimBabies fall from the sky, complete with its crib and other fancies. I certainly did not buy/prepare childcare products when my Sim finaly gave birth (right next to the outdoor tub, no less).

The runt's existence prevented my Sim, who lived alone, from going to work, and she got a warning for skipping work. My first thought after hearing this was to dispose of the runt ASAP, and I ended calling the adoption service in hopes that I could put it up for adoption. To cut long story short, my Sim ended up with TWO babies, with 0 knowledge of childcare, and desperate to go to work; she finally got fired, had both babies taken away, then succumbed to mental breakdown and die.

A major WTF moment:

I dislike the paparazzi. But, i really, really dislike the ones that peep on your sims. So, i do this:

Build super hidden basement, 6 floors down.

Separate into several rooms, with one small room, that opens into a hallway, that leads to three other rooms. Put cow plant in each of the rooms. Lock doors.

When a paparazzi is peeping, turn move objects on, and trap them in the small room.

Teleport down, and attack them.

After kicking the crap out of them, i teleport out, and unlock the main door, and a door to one of the cowplants.

The WTF moment:

Every time one gets eaten, and the Grim Reaper shows up, after collecting their soul, he:

Plays with the cow plant.

Drinks the Cow plants milk.

I mean, what the hell, man?! You're already immortal!

You have made my day. You're writing is hilarious.

Priceless.

This is why I play with TS3. It is my own little soap opera.

A few Sims came home with mine after (high) school. At 3:00 A.M., they went out onto the porch. They all go the gnawing hunger moodlet. Then a few hours later one of them peed herself. Then they all went home finally.


Here is a series of pictures of how the social worker dropped off my Sims' adopted (child) son.

I had some bad CC earlier today when I played and it made my game laggy. I guess it messed up free will too, because I spent the entire sim day watching the kids play in the yard while the mother and father did their own thing about the house. When I went to put the kids to bed, the parents were still standing in the same spot they were that morning, almost starved to death and about to wet their pants! I wanted to scream at them, lol. They could have made their poor kids orphans! :P

Okay, gotta share this story 'cause it just made me laugh so hard:
My main Sim, Chiquita, received a call that her best friend Keaunu was dying so I sent her over to his house. From here on out, FYI, everything was pure free will! He invited her inside and they chatted for awhile. Then she sat down on the couch and started reading a book. He interrupted her reading and started coming on to her. One thing led to another and they proceeded to the bedroom. I noticed that, once they got there, the interaction changed from "Woohoo" to "Try for baby" so I wonder if this was only Chiquita's idea or if the feeling had been mutual. I'm sure Keaunu thought "hey, why not? I'm gonna be dead tomorrow so it's not like I'll have to take care of the kid at all or even pay child support!" lol. Anyway, so they did their thing (but, alas, no lullaby music ) and afterwards, they relaxed for a little bit. All of a sudden, Keaunu gets up from the bed and motions for Chiquita to leave, his excuse being "It's getting late, you should go now." So Chiquita did as asked, got dressed and walked out the door. All the while, I'm thinking, 'Oh so that's how it is! You just wanted one last romp in the sack before you met your maker!" Even if Chiquita didn't feel used, I felt used for her! That little incident had to be one of the funniest things that's ever happened to one of my Sims. Too bad she didn't get pregnant 'cause that would have made for an awesome story.

Please say he actually did die afterwards.

That would be terribly annoying if the jerk was still alive after all. I'd be tempted to send a cowplant his way....

One of my CAS Sim met himself at work today

Since I'm currently waiting around for Supernatural to be released before I bring about any major new developments in my town, I think the time's right for a few posts about Sprog Scumthorpe and how he is without a doubt the creepiest sim in the world.

You've seen his baby photos, in which he pretended to slit the throats of Wugglesworth Schnuggles Bears, crawled around wielding a claw hammer and only ever laughed or smiled when watching his relatives suffer. You've seen him hanging around in the background of more recent screenshots as a child, looking like an evil Frodo Baggins and disproving the notion of childhood innocence and purity merely by existing. But the following few posts will demonstrate for the first time just how profoundly screwed-up he really is.

So, without further ado, I present...


Part I: Autonomous Casual Rage

As previously mentioned a few pages back, Sprog has just about the worst personality you can possibly give a child sim as far as traits are concerned. His current traits are Evil, Mean-Spirited, Insane and Pyromaniac, with Kleptomaniac and Hot-Headed as planned additions during the teen and young adult stages to reflect the poor impulse control and disregard for law and order generally found in clinically-diagnosed psychopaths. Sprog, in short, is basically a long-term experiment in which I take the concept of sims born with the Evil trait to its logical conclusion and see what happens.

So far, it hasn't turned out well.

Often, people have complained that the traits system doesn't lead to enough behavioural variantion in TS3 sims, and that sims have consequently become bland and samey. But that isn't always the case. The effects of the aforementioned trait combination, for instance, become glaringly obvious almost immediately after you encounter a sim with it.


And they aren't pretty.

Let's begin with Sprog's idle animations. Put simply, they range from darkly comical to downright disturbing. Because even when left entirely to his own devices, Sprog still routinely starts loud and aggressive arguments with himself...



...either has a rebellious hand that hates him or a disturbingly precocious penchant for self-strangulation...



...and frequently starts hissing and barking like an animal in public for reasons that are probably best left unexplored.


(On an unrelated note, my god, he's got a tongue worthy of Gene Simmons)

Other sims are, to say the least, unnerved by him as a result.

One day, Sprog went to the local library, most likely hoping to stare disconcertingly at anatomy textbooks and giggle insanely at the gorier parts of Hannibal for as long as he could without being forcibly evicted from the place.

A few minutes later, at least one grown man fled the building in terror.


This is a perfectly reasonable response to the presence of Sprog.

Later on, he declared Jocasta Bachelor a nemesis. She immediately wet herself.


This is also a perfectly reasonable response to the presence of Sprog.

But it's around Lolita Scumthorpe that Sprog is at his most legitimately unsettling. Because whenever they're in the same room together, he looms over her and just... stares. Blankly and soullessly, with the red Emperor of Evil glow surrounding him and a not-so-subtle hint of YOU'RE NEXT in his cold, dead eyes.


Run away, Lolita! Run away as fast as your stubby little legs can carry you-

-Oh, god, she hasn't even learned to walk yet!

CRAWL! CRAWL FOR YOUR LIFE!

In short, I've created a monster. But surely nobody is born evil? Surely it's early enough for him to eventually become a less fundamentally broken human being with the right amount of effort and support? Surely there's some small hope of redemption here?

Nope. Not even remotely.

Sprog's wishes revolve almost entirely around seeing ghosts, declaring the entire world his nemesis and watching people die, with the occasional petty wish to make his baby sisters cry purely because he can. He has zero positive relationships and countless enemies, never autonomously uses anything from outside the Mean interactions category and quite evidently doesn't understand the concepts of love or compassion on even the most basic level. Overall, he's only ever expressed anything vaguely resembling affection or empathy once in his entire miserable excuse for a life...


...towards a wild snake he found in a bush. Presumably, this was the only point at which he ever felt something in common with another living creature.

And then the snake apparently realised it was being held by a homicidal maniac and made a break for it. Even poisonous reptiles are afraid of Sprog. He is completely, utterly, absolutely irredeemable on every concievable level, and the world would be an objectively better place if Larry Scumthorpe had grilled him on the OMGWTFBBQ at birth.

So, in conclusion: Sprog, what do you want to be when you grow up?


"Feared."

Heh.

Who says children in TS3 can't have distinctive personalities?

Lol you win

Mingham, you really, really need a blog.

Yes, the next day I received a notification that he had passed on. Which is good, because after they "connected", she received a want to start dating him. I'm just like, "Oh, hell no! First of all, he just kicked you out of his house as if you were a prostitute. Second of all, he's old enough to be your grandfather! This was definitely a one-night stand! Let's not ever tell anyone..." I'm actually kinda happy she didn't get pregnant!

The first picture is when my Sim was changing so he could work out, and I paused the game at the moment.

The second, I don't really have any words for. This is the third time something like this has happened.

Omg, I can't stop laughing!

Perhaps Sprog's name should've been Dameon.

That pic of him with the snake seems awfully appropriate. Funny how that was his pet of choice....

Sprogs problem is not that he is misunderstood. He is just understood.. far... FAR.. to well.

And i agree you need to get a blog started as a warning to all simmers that this can happen to your game and computer...

Personally, I couldn't help but think of this fable when he found the snake. It perfectly sums up how any attempt to engage with him on a level other than running away or cowering in fear would inevitably pan out. And it fits a future plan for him too...

As for Sprog's name, you're right, Damien (or Lucifer, or Beelzebub, etc) would have worked very well as an alternative name for him. I decided to reserve those kinds of names for inhuman/supernatural sims, though, since there are a few toddlers in my town that are actually, literally half-demon. Along with an endless assortment of new occult characters to make next week once Supernatural is out, many of which will probably start making appearances in this thread once I determine the comedy potential of fairies, witches and werewolves.

As it stands, though, there is a definite reason why Sprog is called Sprog: It's based around the idea that the Scumthorpes are such mind-bogglingly terrible parents that they didn't even bother to name him properly and just scribbled a mildly pejorative term on his birth certificate out of sheer apathy. It's also similar to the thought process behind Lolita's name- the joke there is that they're also so stupid that they didn't realise they'd named their baby girl after a certain notorious Vladimir Nabokov novel. :p

When the Langeraks of Sunsetvalley hate their neighbours they are willing to burn their own house down just to go out with a bang and take all 6 of their hated neighbours and any other bystanders (who came to watch the fire) with them in a massive inferno...
The Firemen gave up and went back to the station; allowing 12 sims to die in just one fire.

Also sims in Riverview fail at driving... Poor Luke McDermott, Ginny takes being beaten at GTA far too seriously...
There must be something in the water

Okay, it's official. I'm in love with Sprog's character.

Regardless of the Scumthorpes' skill of naming babies, where did you get that name from anyway (unless EA generated it)? Cos when I first saw that name, my first thought was "Spawn of Frog". Seriously...

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sprog

It's a mildly dismissive slang term for a baby or child, perhaps vaguely equivalent to something like "brat." If it seems obscure, blame my nationality- when I first used it for the character I didn't realise it was a specifically British term that might be unfamiliar to people from outside the UK. My mistake.

(Although the existence of Sprog predates me posting on here by a few months, so I probably wasn't thinking about that at the time)