Sims 2 Hunger Games Challenge.
It is the year of the 1st hunger games. You, and your partner, live in district 12 on the only farm in the district. You do not yet have children, but fear for their future. Until then, you must concentrate on farming enough food to survive you through the winter, and make enough money to survive too.
To start off:
• Make a couple in Create-A-Sim (this could be either a heterosexual or homosexual couple; you can always adopt. Let’s just say that you’re “rescuing the district’s orphans.)
• Move them into a lot. I’m not going to give a specific size as you may want to have a smaller lot but more money; or a bigger lot but less money. You choose.
• Build their farm. Remember: Fishing, Gardening, Digging for Treasure, Toy Making; Flower Arranging and Painting are ALL acceptable ways to make money.
Part One: A new Panem.
“District 12, where you can starve to death in safety.” – Katniss Everdeen.
You have got your farm up and running, and it seems to be a big hit amongst the residents of District 12! Unfortunately, the Hunger Games are becoming a big hit amongst the Capitol; but not so in the Districts. Although you feel bad for the families affected, and anger at the heartless Capitol, you are secretly relieved that your kids aren’t old enough for the Reaping – yet.
To complete this section, you must:
• Have at least one child. More are definitely recommended - you’ll see why later.
• Live off the produce of your farm. You have the food in your fridge at your beginning of your challenge, and your crops. That’s it. After that, you may not order ANY groceries. You must use your own produce.
• Likewise, NO ONE in your household may get jobs. You earn money by selling the crops, fishing, and the other activities listed above.
• If your sim becomes a Plantsim, you must cure them as soon as it is possible. Plantsims have an advantage – hunger does not affect them like normal sims.
• Once your first child has reached childhood, and only has 2 days to go until becoming a teenager, they are eligible for the REAPING. Congratulations, you have passed part one!

Part Two: May the Odds be ever in your Favour.
“ I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute!” – Katniss Everdeen.
Now your child(ren) are old enough to be included in the Reaping. You’re worried sick about them, but there’s nothing you can do. It has become a part of daily life in Panem.
To complete this section, you must:
• Roll a dice every 3 days. If you get a 3, your child has been chosen for the Hunger Games.
• However, if this sim has a sibling that is old enough to compete, they can ‘volunteer’.
• You then have one sim day to ‘train’ the tribute sim. This basically means you have to get their athletic skill as high as you can – if you want. Note: The sim may skip school for this if necessary.
• After the sim day is up, you must roll a dice again. If they don’t roll a 6, they die. How you do this is up to you. You may use cheats if need be. If they are a child, you can wait for them to age up into a teenager.
• HOWEVER! For every athletic point your sim has, you may re-roll. As soon as you get a 6, you can assume they ‘won’. This sim does not have to roll for the Reaping again. They can volunteer for a sibling if you wish.
• If you are low on funds, you may sign up for a Tessera. Basically, this means you can add $1000 to your sims account per child sim. In return, you must roll the dice twice on ‘Reaping Day’.
• Once you have a child that has reached adulthood, congratulations! They have survived.

Part Three: The Rebellion
“If we burn, you burn with us.” – Katniss Everdeen.
You have survived the threat of the Hunger Games! (and maybe even won them.) But the ghastly images of dying children a permanently etched into your brain. You cannot believe the Capitol address it as a matter of sport. You are determined to do something about it, even though your parents are begging you not to.
To complete this section, you must:
• Join the Military Career. You are joining the rebel forces and defying the Capitol.
• Make 7 best friends. These people will assist you in your fight against the Capitol.
• Max your Athletic Skill. You won’t be able to win without it!
Once the above criteria are met, roll the dice every day. Once you roll a 1, you have beaten President Snow. The Hunger Games are abolished. Congratulations, you have won!

Other Rules (apply to all three parts):
• You have to stay a natural sim. No plantsims, Werewolves, Vampires, Servos etc.
• NO CHEATS! Unless: Your game is bugged and you need to fix something, or you’re adding money from the Tessera.
• No mods that give you a significant advantage over other players. (Not 100% sure what it does but I think awesome mod is ok?!)
• You may adopt a baby only. You may adopt as many times as you want.

So.. this is my first challenge. Hope you like it? Any feedback would be great

An interesting challenge! I like that you added before the games and after sections. It would be interesting to see more depth in the skill points for the kids in the Hunger Games, though. Sims with high cooking skill would be less likely to die of starvation. Sims with high mechanical would be good at building tools and weapons. High charisma Sims would be more likely to form teams with the other contestants and get gifts from the Capitol. High logic Sims would be more likely to outwit their opponents. High creativity would be good at camouflaging themselves. High cleaning would be less likely to die from disease/infection. I guess this would require a bit of an expansion of the games section and figuring out how to add all that up. Sorry for getting carried away : )

Would be interesting if this could be expanded to have 12 families, one in each district. Then select the children who will take part, move them to the Capitol for a week or so and make them concentrate on their skills and build relationships before the actual games.

Since I loved the books, and the movie, I think this would be great fun to try. Agree with Vladora about the other skills being useful in the games and would like to see that incorporated. But since everyone in district 12 is so poor, kids wouldn't have time for studying the skills (from books), but would have to learn by doing only. A family that wanted to prepare their children as much as possible would encourage them to develop as many skills as possible just in case, even before the official training period. After all, Katniss already knew how to shoot a bow, hide, use herbs, etc. when she was chosen to compete.

Not to mention, those are all important survival skills. The "training period" should be construed as the point at which intensive, directed training can begin, as opposed to normal learning while going about everyday life.

Since life in District 12 is all about survival, rules against certain fun items that also provide skills would not be out of line. However, everyone should have a TV (possibly, only the cheapest ones), as viewing the Games is compulsory.

As District 12 is all about the mining, I kind of think they should only be allowed to earn money by digging stuff up. 11 is the farming one. Then for 4, fishing, plus they can enter the Hand Of Poseidon career track. :D

Well, but fishing and gardening are the only ways the game mechanics allow to simulate the hunting-and-gathering that Katniss does to keep the family alive. Perhaps cash can be gotten by digging for treasure and all the food produced must be consumed? Except you can get some really nice treasure out of digging...

Can I assume you've TRIED this? Seems like it takes so long to catch fish, even longer to grow good plants - can a family survive? And sounds like they can't have a business where they sell produce - ? Can they sell pets? And since I've never been able to adopt a stray, this would mean creating a pair in CAS. How about limiting how many they can sell, and only to townies; THAT (ha ha) would mean they COULD wind up with lots of extra mouths to feed!
I have farm animal mods that produce a LITTLE income (chickens that produce more chickens) but they also cost money to buy and feed - would that be to much of an unknown veriable?

Believe it or not grammapat, I've managed to get a family to survive on nothing but food they've grown or caught, even with the hack that stops fridges being stocked when you purchase them!

It comes down to getting at least one family member to start fishing the moment they move in - by the time they're hungry they should've caught some fish (with any luck at least one largemouth bass), and provided they have a counter and a stove/grill they'll be able to cook it. As long as the command used for cooking is "serve", one fish will feed the family at least once; if there are less than 6 members and leftovers are kept, some will be able to eat twice.

It'll take a while to get good plants, but even the first ones will give food points (or money if you choose to sell them when harvestable), which will tide the family over until the next crop is ready. It's tough to begin with, but after only a few harvests it gets easier.

Um OK. I'm in. Can people post pictures here? Would like to see OTHER families struggling! oooo Questions: At the end you say "roll dice every day, when you get a "1" you win" -- wait, to get ONE you would have to rolling one DIE; so in other places where you say "roll dice" are you talking about ONE dice? oh ack - I have to go buy dice!

Anyway, at "2 days to teen, roll dice 3 days" -- 2 days as a child & 1 as teen? If roll a 3 one of these days, then the NEXT day they get to train? Then NEXT day roll as many times as # of body points - if no 6, they must die. RIght?

Seems like good chance of survival, but better have 2 or 3 kids.

First, my compliments on a well-written challenge. It offers a lot of variety with the hunger/survival challenge combined with the risky rolls for death. Good framework!

Now my questions:
1) Is this for a single generation? Can only the founder(s) from part 1 succeed in overturning Snow (part 3), or is it acceptable to go multi-generational if the CAS Sims die before their rebellion succeeds? Or did you envision part 3 as being something only a child who has survived the Hunger Games can achieve, and the founders are actually ineligible to complete the challenge?

1b) If part 3 can only be completed by a Sim who has survived the Hunger Games, does the player have to choose an "heir"? If I have two Sims who made it through teenhood alive, is only one of them eligible to roll the dice or do I get a dice roll for every Sim on my lot who meets the dice-rolling criteria (Hunger Games survivor, military career, 7BFs, maxed athleticism)?

2) You include the OFB craftables (except robotics, which is understandable); can I assume the Freetime craftables (sewing, pottery) are also an acceptable way to make money?

3) For part 3, the Sim only has to join the military? Not reach a certain level?

4) [really belated edit] I assume any mod or object that increases a toddler's skilling ability is out, per "No mods that give you a significant advantage over other players." For instance, there's a mod that makes the AL springrider increase athleticism, and javiera offers a set of baby toys that includes a toy for every skill (not just charisma, creativity and logic).

4b) Is smart milk permissible? On the one hand, it's food from a magic source. On the other hand, the Sims do need to earn enough LTR points to purchase it, so it's not free. (And, since an empty refrigerator in an unmodded game will continue to produce baby bottles, it's not like normal baby bottles aren't magically replenished.)

I hope simzo10 or other community members will brainstorm ways to fold the other skills into the odds of surviving part 2. Vladora makes a really compelling point about their value to a tribute.

Maybe small garden plots, no large scale farms? As for treasure, I guess you could make a rule that treasure must be kept for display purposes only. Or maybe given as a gift to Peacekeepers in order to make them turn a blind eye to hunting. Oooh, I like that! To unlock hunting, befriend someone in Law Enforcement and bribe them.

As a huge fan of the Hunger Games series I love this idea, and I agree that it could be really great with a little more development. I'm about to start playing a Hunger Games-themed uberhood so I may be able to do a little playtesting once that's up and running!

- VT

Argh! I'm chomping at the bit to play this (I have a couple of free days this week and clearly I should devote it to Simming), but every time I think through playing the challenge, I come up with more questions.

I have resolved my desire for all skills to be valued: rather than allowing an extra survival roll in Part Two for every body point, I am going to give an extra dice roll for every skill point over 5. So a Sim with 2 cooking, 5 mechanical, 6 charisma, 6 body, 4 logic, 7 creativity, 4 cleaning would get four bonus rolls for high skill levels in charisma, body and creativity.

For the questions I asked above, I have decided
1) This challenge can only be completed by a Sim who has at least run the risk of being a tribute, so the founder is ineligible to end it, but if they have a child who is never selected to be a tribute, that survivor will still be eligible to end the tyranny.
1b) If I'm fortunate enough to have multiple Sims survive their teenhood, I am going to choose an heir to represent for the rolls rebelling against the Capitol/Snow. So, basically, only one rebel per generation. (I have no idea what I'm going to do with any spares. Probably assume they all succumb to PTSD and live out their lives as addicts in the city.)
2) Freetime craftables are acceptable…though it doesn't really matter, since my family will be earning their money via digging. But at least they can occasionally sew themselves a new outfit.
3) Unless the original rules for the challenge are updated, I am not going to require the Sim to reach a certain level in the Military career track before rolling the end game in part 3. Since I will only allow them to use the newspaper to get the job, it may be difficult enough just to join the career in the first place.
4) No mods/cc objects that allow toddlers to skill in ways not enabled in an unmodded game.
4b) Smart milk….argh! I hate to give it up, but it seems so counter to a life of deprivation. On the other hand, I don't think I would ever need to use the Tessera option for extra money, so I might consider smart milk to be the Tessera bonus, and every dispenser a toddler goes through will multiply the number of times they have to roll per reaping.

But now I have logistical question 5:
My Sims are going to breed like bunnies in the hopes of having a child survive to adulthood. The reapings start at 2 days before the firstborn's teen transition. Now, does every child have a unique reaping cycle, or once the 3-day cycle is defined by the firstborn, do the other siblings share the same schedule? Let's say Sib2 is three days to teenhood on Sib1's second reaping day. Does Sib2 start an independent cycle of reaping rolls the next day, or is Sib2's first reaping three days later when Sib1's third reaping comes up?

The reaping is on an independent calendar, not tied to the individuals reaped, so once it's established it's established for everybody, I'd say. Not to mention, keeping separate track for each of, say, six kids would be a nightmare.

Genius! Just Genuis!! love to enter!! Pictures coming soon of my Sim's Story! :3

BTW! is woohoo ok? or you just do Adoption?

Why wouldn't woohoo be okay? It's practically the only fun thing to do in District 12; I'd think the only reason anyone wouldn't do it would be fear of having kids to be reaped + lack of birth control, but biology has a way of catching up to you. BTW, forum rules encourage you to edit the previous post rather than double-posting.

Thanks for the feedback, Peni. Tracking reapings wouldn't be so bad, no matter the number of Sims: it's just 2 days before the child-to-teen transition and 14, 11, 8, 5, and 2 days before the teen-to adult transition. In a way, that's easier than remembering an independent schedule, because checking an individual Sim's age bar would tell me if there was going to be a reaping today. What makes it awkward for me is the illogic of (hypothetically) one child participating in the hunger games on the exact same day another child is rolling for the reaping. Sort of spoils the narrative illusion of the community reaping. So I agree: the reaping should be on an independent calendar, though if my game goes into 3+ generations, I will let the schedule reset for the firstborn of each generation.

One thing I thought of while this conversation was going on is, if a 3 is rolled (and therefore child is chosen) and you've got more than one eligible child, should the dice be rolled again to choose the child chosen or will it automatically go to the eldest one? After all, in the story it's the younger sibling who is chosen, not the elder one...

As the challenge mechanics go, it doesn't really matter if it defaults to the eldest but I was just wondering.

Why not roll to randomly choose the tribute and then go by relationship? If the elder sibling has a best friend/BFF flag with the younger one, they volunteer in their place.

That was what I was thinking, though always nice to hear someone else of the same mind Well, the first half anyway, I'd not worked out how the volunteer might be chosen yet.

I'm only 10 days in to the challenge so far, so no Hunger Games for my Sims yet, but I gotta say watching the refrigerator level tick down has been kind of dramatic. One of the "uh oh" moments for me when I started playing was the impact of Seasons on the game. My Sims moved in on the last day of summer, and they don't have a greenhouse, which means they have 5-6 days to plant and fish before winter sets in. After they planted their tomato crop, i focused all of their time on fishing, and was getting pretty smug about the quantity of fish in their inventory when I realized that they could only cook bass with squash at their current skill level, so anything that wasn't bass wouldn't do them any good until they were able to increase their cooking skill. But they can't take time out to study cooking until the pond freezes over.

I used my Asylum randomizer and picked the first random male and female options for my founder couple.
• Malachi Siekert (M) is a Cancer, Pleasure/Romance Sim. His LTW is to become a celebrity chef (irony!) and his hobby is tinkering.
• Rebekka Siekert (F) is a Scorpio, Pleasure/Grilled Cheese Sim. Her LTW is to become a game designer (more irony!) and her hobby is sports.
Their turn-ons/offs are mostly incompatible -- he likes blondes, she's a redhead; she likes black hair, he's a blond -- so I was thrilled that their aspirations and signs were enough to make them 3-bolters with one another. Hooray for Sim love.

I then pounded a pond into the corner of 1 Way Out in plasticbox's Baskerville and moved them in. I'm not a very narrative person, so here's a chronicle of events:

day 0 - move Malachi and Rebekka Seikert in, plant 10 tomatoes, start fishing.
day 3 - meet Alana Dean. I'm a little nervous because she's a blonde and Malachi has chemistry bolts in his interactions, but I run the risk of having him check her out and --- whew -- only two bolts, compared to 3 for his wife. I celebrate by having him ask Rebekka on a date that leads to her first pregnancy.
day 4 - the refrigerator level is 130/200.
day 5 - burned a catfish dinner. ouch. They ate it and put the leftovers away because no food can be wasted.
day 6 - harvested the first crop of 10 tomato plants. There won't be time to plant again before winter sets in. Refrigerator level 125/200. Twins Daniel and Darius are born; Rebekka's wants were fairly balanced between pleasure and GC before, but now she's all GC all the time.
day 7 - 111/200
day 8 - 105/200; the pond freezes over.
day 9 - the twins become toddlers; one tessera (smart milk) collected
day 10 - 102/200; snowed in; second tessera collected; twins are potty trained and can walk. Daniel's hobby discovered: games (more irony!)

Nice challenge! I'll start it today.

I really, really love this challenge and will definitely testing it out