How Far Do You Go Into Storytelling? «12...Next Go

snarkles

I know some people get suuuuper involved in telling stories, setting up scenes, and stuff like that, which I think is super admirable. I just don't have the patience for it! What I'll usually do is have a mental idea of what each Sim is like - likes, dislikes, aspirations, etc. - and imagine their personalities and histories based on that. My main problem is not caring about the townie they marry, so I usually end up getting bored with them and killing them. Oops.

But what about everyone else? Super detailed? Not detailed at all? In the middle like me?

PeculiarPlumbob

I'd really like to get into storytelling but every time I try to make sims for my stories I can't make them look good enough and I get bored in CAS... Then I try to make sims for like a challenge and they look great... .___.

simsinmysleep

Suuuper detailed. TOO detailed. So detailed that none of my sims stories ever get posted anywhere because I get bogged down with trying to create really specific scenes exactly the way I picture them. I was trying to learn to make cc and poses recently just so that I could make the scene I wanted, and cc and pose-making is really not my thing.

Bloosmoo

I'd love to get into storytelling with my Sims, but I get that into playing the game I don't have an inclination to rummage around for mods and poses, which I'd love to do, but haven't. so I just take random pics here and there and write little captions under them in the hopes that one day, one day I'll work out how to put up a picture and join the play happy thread somewhere. Until then the world is probably better off without my weirdness in it

agustd

I am so into storytelling I could write books based on my sims life stories. They have rich social lives, rich inner lives, everything is just very realistic and complex, as people tend to be

However, I'm not hellbent on playing out specific scenes super realistically, I'll set some things up when I feel like it, but I don't need pose player for example. The story is alive in my head and when I take screenshots I like to utilize animations happening naturally in the game. I can also let myself go with the flow and incorporate elements of surprise into my story, if some things happen randomly.

I get very attached to my sims because of that. I've only had one save since City Living, I'm still playing the same family I made when that EP came out. Every generation is unique in its own way.

Cupid

I like for a sim I'm making to at least have a small bit of background in my head. Other than that I do nothing.

RedDestiny92

Depends on the family some have stories that stick in my head even if I forget names while others I just go with the flow, either way, I have more fun that way, I treat my sims as characters in whatever I set up for them.

ElenPink

All my sims have a background story and personality, in my head. I play with one save file with a generation family. I usually take pictures of weddings and other important life events.

ShadyLady89

I just write their stories in my sims journal, or keep them in my head. I take screenshots, but that's mostly for specific life achievement moments: like weddings and such. Or whenever my sims do something cute involving kids or pets. Or if I really like an outfit I designed. The story I come up with is what keeps me interested, but I don't spend my time playing trying to set up things for pictures. That would take the fun out of it for me, though I admire the people who do write sims' stories.

simm621

I'll have a story in mind when I create a sim and make it work with how the game plays out, sometimes it takes weird, unexpected turns but I fit it in. Nothing written down or screenshots, just let it play out in my head.

MadameLee

I do get super involved but I don't think of what a character's favourite thing is.. until I need it for a scene.. ie I made Molly and Carly fans of (for Molly and her husband Alexander Goth fans of Once Upon a Time TV series.. I used some words from the show for their vows) and for Carly and Wade I made them fans of Harry Potter. Again I used quotes from the series...


America and David I made a fan of Friends
I made Elizabeth a fan of Pretty Little Liars series for plot related stuff
(Note: I never seen FRIENDS or PLL)

Juliet didn't have much time for reading or watching stuff between her Mom, sister and Juliet's band and falling in love with (Romeo)
Selene didn't have much time for reading or watching stuff because of her being a slave early in life, learning to be a princess (when she was going to marry a Prince) and then a poltican for the rest of her life.

now Jane Grace Olivia is a fan of John Greene novels, Time Traveller's Wife

Lyrie

snarkles wrote: »

I know some people get suuuuper involved in telling stories, setting up scenes, and stuff like that, which I think is super admirable. I just don't have the patience for it! What I'll usually do is have a mental idea of what each Sim is like - likes, dislikes, aspirations, etc. - and imagine their personalities and histories based on that.

I do this OP! Though lol I don't quite get bored and kill lol and I try to let my sims choose but sometimes I am like nooooope! The only scenes I set up are really gushy ones like first kiss, holidays (fake ones right now need seasons!!!) But I have fun Great topic I'll stick around to get some ideas!

Sketch

I make up stories for sims I create but the process is not always the same. Like for example realizing that I need more sims, I would have to make more sims and then add them to the story. What part do they play in this story?


So what do I do after I have the story and all its's requirements? Then it's fun part, I get to make videos like this:

https://youtu.be/0bJuu6EMJtI

Movotti

I engage in occasional, extreme story telling. It's pretty sporadic, and somewhat unconventional.

I really need to do it more often, it's been too long since my last tale was told.

So_Money

I'm big into story and roleplaying, but I keep most of it in my head. I don't have huge documents with my sims' backstories mapped out.

HillyBeth

snarkles wrote: »

I know some people get suuuuper involved in telling stories, setting up scenes, and stuff like that, which I think is super admirable. I just don't have the patience for it! What I'll usually do is have a mental idea of what each Sim is like - likes, dislikes, aspirations, etc. - and imagine their personalities and histories based on that. My main problem is not caring about the townie they marry, so I usually end up getting bored with them and killing them. Oops.

But what about everyone else? Super detailed? Not detailed at all? In the middle like me?

I don't get too detailed, I don't even tell stories like other simmers do. I just play. Lol. I usually add families to my game for my sims kids to meet and eventually marry, like the kids in my current avi: Shane Parker and Stephanie Brooks. They met in daycare as toddlers and found each other again in elementary school. He'll be a teenager in six days and she ages up one day after him. I'm hoping to have them date.

keekee53

I usually have stories in my head and play them out. When unexpected things happen in the game, I play them out. If I see a flirt outside of a relationship, I have them do a full out affair. I watch other sims and see who they are out to dinner with when I am not playing their household and start new stories based on that..lol

One of my sims was cheating on her husband with another married sim. She asked them both the risque question which gets rejected a lot. The husband was all for it and the one she was cheating with was not. Both were soulmates so she is going to work it out with the husband..LOL Who knows maybe the extra lover will get angry and try to kill the husband?? We shall see..lol

Maggiedoll

Often I do more story creation in screenshots than in-game. I screenshot rather compulsively, and then it's when I'm going through them that I develop ideas about who my sims are and what they're doing. It's partly after-the-fact storytelling, and partly using the screenshots to decide on what I want to happen later.
When something totally unexpected happens in-game I do a "save as" so that I can cancel it out if I want to, but I rarely actually do that.

So.. somewhere in between.
I don't think of the spouses as "main sims," they're more just accessories.

Lexx223

I don't tell stories too much, sometimes I have specific marriages I want but other than that I just follow the flow of the game, adding drama when it get's too boring.

Hermitgirl

Normally most of it is in my head with the biggest set up being initial character creation and backstory. This can be quick or can take days if it involves multiple sims. Backstories can be jotted down or kept in my head. Now and then I get kind of manic about it and have to write it all down with future scenarios and motivations for them to occur... but that only happens once in a blue moon. It's fun but can be draining because I tend to not sleep when that happens.
Then I just start to play it out trying to keep somewhat true to the character. If something happens that I don't expect I either use it, ignore it or discard it. I do usually have their future story in mind and it can get stronger or change as I play.
I do like the sims or characters to live in a place they would live so I may spend some time on that but I don't stage scenes elaborately like a wedding day or tell stories through pictures. I wouldn't have the patience to set that all up just right.

PninaSimmer

Somewhere in the middle. The more developed story I have for a Sim though the more likely I am to actually play them and not just be another half hearted CAS that sits in my library.

MattieMayfair

I would say in the middle, depending on the household I’m playing. Some I will think of stories for them load up that household and switch immediately afterwards. While others I’m already planning what their next life stage will be like. I have a complicated story right now between my current household and the Fengs from SAN Myshuno and the landgraabs. My family and Nancy were crime partners and the dad was enemies with the fengs. My oldest son is now engaged to one of the Fengs kids and moving in that household soon. The parents arent happy and Victor and Lily are dead lol. And my other son i’m Moving into the landgraab household to be roommates with Nancy’s last kid before her and her husband died. I bought her a restaurant before she died so I figure we will run that and work on the new gardening career for awhile.

drakharis

I get very deep into their backstories. Here is one I created and recently tweaked.

Anatu Masaru is a vampire I have. She is a teenage vampire I have. She was a mortal during the time of ancient Babylon. She was a high priestess of Ishtar and a courtesan of a Babylonian noble. In those days she wasn't exactly evil but she wasn't good either. Some vampires are born like Vlad. Others are turned into vampires like the Vatores. Others just become vampires through blessings or curses from unknown entities. Even in those days, there were vampire hunters and some vampires more infamous than others. She was among the infamous ones. Charming mortals, using and manipulating them to achieve her agendas. She was eventually forced to sleep because of the chaos she caused as a daywalker. Her tomb sealed and her name forbidden to even speak for many millennia. One day a group of adventures found her sealed temple and lacking the wisdom and just plain intelligence to pay attention to warnings. They saw a sealed tomb. They broke the seal and woke her. During her time asleep she did NOT age. She lost it and drained them all and went on a feeding frenzy not feeling satiated as she drank. Cain, the vampire king, I have mentioned in other backstories, had found out about her awakening and realised he needed to do damage control. He was able to calm her and brought her with him to re-educate her and teach her about the modern world. She eventually would meet crimelord "The Mad Don" Jaques Villareal and his kids. Max (I tweaked my turning him into an Ares sim with the custom trait) was pleased to meet her, He had aged up to a teenager and both became fast friends and partners in crime. She is dating him and Malcolm Landgraab. Neither boy minds her dating the other and is often amused by how she manipulates other mortals and bringing them to ruin with the psychological games she plays with them.. She runs a nightclub, running game, and recording the sinful embarrassing things and vice sims do at her club and sharing the information she gathers to Max and Malcolm. She isn't exactly evil but she surely is far from being good. She is one of the infamous ones lacking morals and ethics that even some evil sims can pretend to have. She is ruthless and conniving. She sees most mortals as playthings for her amusement lacking empathy when their little feelings get hurt or they feel she has somehow betrayed them. Malcolm and Max, she genuinely loves and would do nothing to harm them it's the closest she gets to having actual "compassion", "ethics" and something somehow resembling morality. She is honest with them and doesn't even practice her cruel games on them. There are others too. As ruthless as she can be she has another side that only those lucky to be her friends and loved ones get to see.

musteni

I don't really give backstories for my sims or if I do, they'll be just quick ideas of what has happened in their past. Their actual story starts the moment they enter the world. I play my rotational save and take screenshots as I go. I like to take a lot of them. I don't usually change the scenery for the pictures unless it's a big event like wedding, but I may change the sim's outfit for the picture (most of the time I forget). I'm really lazy about actually putting the stories together though. I just did one and after selecting the pictures that may potentially be related to the story, I had 700 of them to go through. Then I got it down to 350 and started to sketch the actual story and which moments to involve. Sometimes I end up tweaking things slightly, like changing the timeline of events so it works better for the written story.

ldmarko

Not nearly as creative or in-depth as other simmers, I have the children of my families all paired up for the next generation, and superficial back stories on them, but usually I just sit back & let the stories unfold on their own.

SikoahGrace

I go from the extreme background to in general and let it play out. I used to try to tell the stories on tumblr but it took the fun out of it for me. So now I just play the sims and their stories. Besides, if I tried to explain to everyone the detail in some of my sims backgrounds it would get confusing fast. Also, how do I choose which story to tell and when? Where do I start telling it so that it isn't confusing to others? Nope, I just play and share bits and pieces here and there on the forums.