Genetic traits?

SimKeats

So, one thing that always bothers me about sims 3 is random or chosen traits for children. IMHO, traits should be based mostly on parents or maybe influenced by growing up. Sims 2 did a better job of it to me.
I saw at one point I thought a generator thing where you put in parents traits and it would give you the traits for a child. I'm pretty sure it was related to a challenge or something but I'm not sure.

MemoriiValentine

Even in real life ,parents and children can have vastly different interests and personality.so to me it makes sense why they won't always get traits from their parent. Though it would make sense too if they did get at least one trait

SimKeats

I think with the way traits are in Sims 3, the ideal thing, to me, would be, the initial 2 traits are based on the parents, and the ones from aging up are influenced by their life experiences more.
I miss the sliding scale system in Sims 2, if that was in place for the sims 3 traits it would rock, like every sim could be somewhere between Neat and Slob, Couch Potato and Athletic, etc.

JoAnne65

I've always chosen the traits for my sim kids so in this respect the autonomous settings of the game don't bother me. I'd love a more genetic approach for non played sims though (especially the kids my heir's siblings get). For my active family I wouldn't like a genetic approach really, because it would mean you play the same traits for generations. I think the game benefits from variety myself.

KevinL5275

For the baby's traits, I pick one from the mother and one from the father. But for the child, teen, and adult, I pick based on the personality of the sim and my plans for their future career. And sometimes they just surprise me.

GaiaHypothesis

I generally just randomly roll my traits because I don't care, and I do find that more often than not the kids end up either randomly rolling certain traits that both parents share. That's anecdotal though, and I'm not sure if my mods have anything to do with it. Some of my favourite sims though are ones that are completely random, with traits that I would never have picked for them. So... <shrug>