A challenge-type thing: Family Fates
Hello friends,
Long time, no see! Happy New Year. I now have a simblr that will probably grow to be at least as active as this LJ (which is to say, not much).
So... I abandoned my game for over a year and chose to start 2014 by falling back into this infernal addiction. While I was going through my old files today, preparing to start a new hood, I found this writeup for a challenge/gameplay style I was planning on adopting. On the off chance that other simmers might find some merit in it, I am sharing it.
I've been playing my game legacy style for almost as long as the Legacy Challenge has existed; once University came out, I played an informal challenge that I called the "Founders Challenge," in which my legacy founder would start in University, found a Greek house, and move some dormies in. Then my legacy founder and playable dormies would populate the neighborhood prosperity-style. I never kept track of points. All my families were perfect, functional, perma-plat, and filthy rich within two generations... and I never made it past the fourth generation. I started drafting this challenge to break out of my boring old cycles. I call it the Family Fates Challenge.
The Family Fates Challenge!
This is more of a semi-structured game-play style than a true challenge. There are no point systems. The rules are more like guidelines. The emphasis is on playing for drama, laughs, or both. These rules were written with all expansion packs in mind, but feel free to amend them to suit your own set-up. The rules for this challenge were inspired primarily by Legacy and Prosperity Challenge rules; any resemblance to other challenges, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Starting the Neighborhood:
Ideally, you should start in a new neighborhood. However, you can set this in an established neighborhood, or layer these guidelines over those of another challenge, if you like-just skip ahead to the “Gameplay” section and apply the themes to your existing households. If you begin with a new neighborhood, I highly recommend using empty or cleaned-up neighborhood templates (see this tutorial for help). Add townies, if you like.
Creating the Families (Fussy Method):
Start with at least three households. For each household, begin by making a full, 8-sim, multi-generational family in CAS. Your family must contain at least one sim from each age group. All the sims within a founding household must be related by blood or marriage. (Tip: Avoid customizing your sims’ clothes, makeup, etc. as soon as you make them because you’ll end up having to delete some of that hard work shortly.)
Embrace randomness. Feel free to use pre-made or downloaded sims to seed your families, but create the rest of the family members through “rolling the pacifier.” In addition, keep all randomly generated personalities as they come. You should also roll for each sim’s aspiration, if applicable:
1 = Pleasure
2 = Family
3 = Romance
4 = Knowledge
5 = Fortune
6 = Popularity
Once you have created an 8-sim family, roll a 6-sided die to determine the number of sims you will delete from that family before you save it. (Optional cop-out: If you roll higher than 3, subtract 3.) Delete the appropriate number of sims as you see fit.
Alternative Family Creation:
If you'd rather create your families in a Prosperity or BaCC fashion (or however else you'd like), go for it! The way you play after you create your founding families is more important/interesting than how you choose to create them.
Additional Households:
New households may only be added every other generation. After the first generation, no new sims may be added until the third generation.
Gameplay:
The youngest generation of CAS sims (i.e., those who were created as teens, children, and toddlers in CAS) count as the first generation. Therefore, they are the first sims who must adhere to the challenge rules. As the first generation prepares to enter adulthood (or head to University), select one child from each household to lead each family. This sim, their direct descendants, and anyone who marries into the line of succession, will be the ones who must live according to the theme(s) chosen for the household.
The challenge lasts for at least five generations. The goal is not to work toward individual sims’ lifetime wants. Instead, each family is governed by one or two themes. Earning perma-plat is encouraged… but so is aspiration failure-whatever makes it fun for you. There are no points. What you earn is a sense of accomplishment… or amusement at the drama you have caused in these poor sims’ lives.
Choose one or two themes for each of your founding families, and keep the theme(s) going in the main household for at least five generations. (Spares and other sims who move out of the main household are exempt from living under these themes, unless you want them to.) The themes are as follows:
Dollars to Donuts (Pleasure): No one in the household may earn money through a “real” job. Instead, the family must earn money through digging for treasure, date rewards, busking, contests, and other odd jobs. As long as it doesn’t involve a carpool, it’s fair game. Sims who attend college must only earn grade points through influence and/or befriending professors.
Pioneer Spirit (Family): This household consists of close-knit, do-it-yourself types who value cultivating strong family ties. These folks do their best to live off the land, growing their own food, sewing their own clothes, and making their own fun. All sims of child-bearing age who live in the household must “Try for Baby” each time they woohoo. Each heir must have at least three children. The heir must keep in touch with spares and other scattered relatives by hosting weekly family reunions. Any children taken away from another household must be adopted into this one during the next rotation. No service sims, electronic entertainment (unless it comes from a craft bench), clothes shopping, or grocery shopping permitted.
Yours, Mine, and Ours (Romance): No one in the household may get married. Each heir must have children by more than one partner. Only children who were conceived via public woohoo may inherit the family estate. Any heir who attends university must seduce a professor. Once a generation, a family member must carry on an affair with someone from one of the other households.
Supernatural Scholars (Knowledge): All children must attend private school and earn at least three scholarships. Each heir must be or become a supernatural entity, graduate university cum laude, and max all skills. The household must acquire all possible career rewards. The household must maintain a graveyard or crypt, either on the home lot or as a separate business lot.
Capitalist Consumers (Fortune): Each generation must create a top-level business from the ground up and sell it back to the community when it reaches level 10. Each generation must purchase a new vacation home and take at least one family vacation. Each generation must regularly employ at least three service sims, even if they’re not needed. All heirs must earn all the vacation mementos for at least one locale.
Party Animals (Popularity): The household must host two parties each week and own one top-level venue. All major life events (weddings, birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, retirements, etc.) must be celebrated with parties. The heir must have at least one friend or enemy in each of the other households. Each heir must earn a completely good or bad reputation. Heirs who attend college must join a Greek house, throw one party each semester, and become a big sim on campus.
Aging:
When sims age to teen and must pick an aspiration, you have a couple of options. You can either randomly select their aspiration by rolling a die, or you can choose aspirations this way, if you'd prefer to account for young sims' preexisting personality traits, interests, and hobbies.
Cheats:
Just say no, unless you need them to fix a bug or set up a neighborhood (e.g., creating townies).
Hacks and Mods:
It’s your game; use your own discretion.
If you want to add or change rules for any of the themes, feel free. If you would prefer to come up with a points system and make this into a true challenge, be my guest. Just kick me a shout-out, some credit, and a link.
[Updated 1/7/14 to add a couple of links, an alternative method for sim generation, and tips for choosing teenage sims' aspirations.]
If this seems a little half-baked, that's because it is. :) But if I don't post it now, I never will! The document was originally created in January 2012, for goodness' sake...
Long time, no see! Happy New Year. I now have a simblr that will probably grow to be at least as active as this LJ (which is to say, not much).
So... I abandoned my game for over a year and chose to start 2014 by falling back into this infernal addiction. While I was going through my old files today, preparing to start a new hood, I found this writeup for a challenge/gameplay style I was planning on adopting. On the off chance that other simmers might find some merit in it, I am sharing it.
I've been playing my game legacy style for almost as long as the Legacy Challenge has existed; once University came out, I played an informal challenge that I called the "Founders Challenge," in which my legacy founder would start in University, found a Greek house, and move some dormies in. Then my legacy founder and playable dormies would populate the neighborhood prosperity-style. I never kept track of points. All my families were perfect, functional, perma-plat, and filthy rich within two generations... and I never made it past the fourth generation. I started drafting this challenge to break out of my boring old cycles. I call it the Family Fates Challenge.
The Family Fates Challenge!
This is more of a semi-structured game-play style than a true challenge. There are no point systems. The rules are more like guidelines. The emphasis is on playing for drama, laughs, or both. These rules were written with all expansion packs in mind, but feel free to amend them to suit your own set-up. The rules for this challenge were inspired primarily by Legacy and Prosperity Challenge rules; any resemblance to other challenges, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Starting the Neighborhood:
Ideally, you should start in a new neighborhood. However, you can set this in an established neighborhood, or layer these guidelines over those of another challenge, if you like-just skip ahead to the “Gameplay” section and apply the themes to your existing households. If you begin with a new neighborhood, I highly recommend using empty or cleaned-up neighborhood templates (see this tutorial for help). Add townies, if you like.
Creating the Families (Fussy Method):
Start with at least three households. For each household, begin by making a full, 8-sim, multi-generational family in CAS. Your family must contain at least one sim from each age group. All the sims within a founding household must be related by blood or marriage. (Tip: Avoid customizing your sims’ clothes, makeup, etc. as soon as you make them because you’ll end up having to delete some of that hard work shortly.)
Embrace randomness. Feel free to use pre-made or downloaded sims to seed your families, but create the rest of the family members through “rolling the pacifier.” In addition, keep all randomly generated personalities as they come. You should also roll for each sim’s aspiration, if applicable:
1 = Pleasure
2 = Family
3 = Romance
4 = Knowledge
5 = Fortune
6 = Popularity
Once you have created an 8-sim family, roll a 6-sided die to determine the number of sims you will delete from that family before you save it. (Optional cop-out: If you roll higher than 3, subtract 3.) Delete the appropriate number of sims as you see fit.
Alternative Family Creation:
If you'd rather create your families in a Prosperity or BaCC fashion (or however else you'd like), go for it! The way you play after you create your founding families is more important/interesting than how you choose to create them.
Additional Households:
New households may only be added every other generation. After the first generation, no new sims may be added until the third generation.
Gameplay:
The youngest generation of CAS sims (i.e., those who were created as teens, children, and toddlers in CAS) count as the first generation. Therefore, they are the first sims who must adhere to the challenge rules. As the first generation prepares to enter adulthood (or head to University), select one child from each household to lead each family. This sim, their direct descendants, and anyone who marries into the line of succession, will be the ones who must live according to the theme(s) chosen for the household.
The challenge lasts for at least five generations. The goal is not to work toward individual sims’ lifetime wants. Instead, each family is governed by one or two themes. Earning perma-plat is encouraged… but so is aspiration failure-whatever makes it fun for you. There are no points. What you earn is a sense of accomplishment… or amusement at the drama you have caused in these poor sims’ lives.
Choose one or two themes for each of your founding families, and keep the theme(s) going in the main household for at least five generations. (Spares and other sims who move out of the main household are exempt from living under these themes, unless you want them to.) The themes are as follows:
Dollars to Donuts (Pleasure): No one in the household may earn money through a “real” job. Instead, the family must earn money through digging for treasure, date rewards, busking, contests, and other odd jobs. As long as it doesn’t involve a carpool, it’s fair game. Sims who attend college must only earn grade points through influence and/or befriending professors.
Pioneer Spirit (Family): This household consists of close-knit, do-it-yourself types who value cultivating strong family ties. These folks do their best to live off the land, growing their own food, sewing their own clothes, and making their own fun. All sims of child-bearing age who live in the household must “Try for Baby” each time they woohoo. Each heir must have at least three children. The heir must keep in touch with spares and other scattered relatives by hosting weekly family reunions. Any children taken away from another household must be adopted into this one during the next rotation. No service sims, electronic entertainment (unless it comes from a craft bench), clothes shopping, or grocery shopping permitted.
Yours, Mine, and Ours (Romance): No one in the household may get married. Each heir must have children by more than one partner. Only children who were conceived via public woohoo may inherit the family estate. Any heir who attends university must seduce a professor. Once a generation, a family member must carry on an affair with someone from one of the other households.
Supernatural Scholars (Knowledge): All children must attend private school and earn at least three scholarships. Each heir must be or become a supernatural entity, graduate university cum laude, and max all skills. The household must acquire all possible career rewards. The household must maintain a graveyard or crypt, either on the home lot or as a separate business lot.
Capitalist Consumers (Fortune): Each generation must create a top-level business from the ground up and sell it back to the community when it reaches level 10. Each generation must purchase a new vacation home and take at least one family vacation. Each generation must regularly employ at least three service sims, even if they’re not needed. All heirs must earn all the vacation mementos for at least one locale.
Party Animals (Popularity): The household must host two parties each week and own one top-level venue. All major life events (weddings, birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, retirements, etc.) must be celebrated with parties. The heir must have at least one friend or enemy in each of the other households. Each heir must earn a completely good or bad reputation. Heirs who attend college must join a Greek house, throw one party each semester, and become a big sim on campus.
Aging:
When sims age to teen and must pick an aspiration, you have a couple of options. You can either randomly select their aspiration by rolling a die, or you can choose aspirations this way, if you'd prefer to account for young sims' preexisting personality traits, interests, and hobbies.
Cheats:
Just say no, unless you need them to fix a bug or set up a neighborhood (e.g., creating townies).
Hacks and Mods:
It’s your game; use your own discretion.
If you want to add or change rules for any of the themes, feel free. If you would prefer to come up with a points system and make this into a true challenge, be my guest. Just kick me a shout-out, some credit, and a link.
[Updated 1/7/14 to add a couple of links, an alternative method for sim generation, and tips for choosing teenage sims' aspirations.]
If this seems a little half-baked, that's because it is. :) But if I don't post it now, I never will! The document was originally created in January 2012, for goodness' sake...