How do you pick your sims' traits? «12...Next Go

puzzlezaddict

Players can choose traits in a variety of ways; most of us probably use more than one approach in the same game, and often enough with the same sim. But which way best describes your priorities? Which one do you go to first, before filling in the other slots with whatever suits your mood or your master plan? We describe our in-game stories and like to show off our sims' looks, but there's not a lot about traits. So I'm curious how other players approach the subject.

Goulsquash

I create the sims first (or sneak a quick peek at the toddlers in CAS) and then pick traits based on their looks.

I do randomize any childrens traitss though, and let what they roll influence their story.

bekkasan

I'm most interested in relationships, so I pick traits that will make my sims care deeply about their partners, families, and friends.

My answer is for my initial sims in a story or save. Children from the initial sims will have one trait that I consider a family trait that they inherit, they will inherit one trait from the parents. The remaining traits will be randomized based on personality, future goals, LTW etc.

IreneSwift

other (please describe)

I do whatever I feel like doing at the time. Sometimes I choose traits that will help them with whatever my plans are for them. Sometimes I choose traits that neither help nor hinder them. Sometimes I randomize them. With one sim born in my game recently, I decided that I wanted to play her with a very long lifespan and have her spend most of her time painting, so I can hopefully see all of the paintings sims can paint. But I want to see them all in the unmodified state, so I made sure she had no traits that could cause trait overlays on paintings.

Nikkei_Simmer

My sims are well-oiled machines of productivity, so I select their traits to further their quests to master their chosen skills and reach the pinnacle of their professions.

My sims are all "machines" it seems. They go to work/school...and make sure that their homework is done ON time. After all...their founder is a "High Expectations Asian Father".

YOU NO STUDY; I NO FEED YOU.

cwaddell

I usually have a story in mind and use traits that will further the plot, whatever it happens to be.

IreneSwift wrote: »

I do whatever I feel like doing at the time. Sometimes I choose traits that will help them with whatever my plans are for them. Sometimes I choose traits that neither help nor hinder them. Sometimes I randomize them. With one sim born in my game recently, I decided that I wanted to play her with a very long lifespan and have her spend most of her time painting, so I can hopefully see all of the paintings sims can paint. But I want to see them all in the unmodified state, so I made sure she had no traits that could cause trait overlays on paintings.

This is more like how I choose traits too. It's never the same just depends on how I feel or what I want to accomplish.

This artist sim sound interesting. What traits that influence painting style did you avoid?

SemaviLady

other (please describe)

In the past I have done a variety of things. In order to learn which traits give better buffs toward goals, I often used the well oiled machine approach. Depending on the game and goals -- used other methods, for example different challenges require certain traits.

Nowadays, I tend to use NRAAS quite a bit to look at Status > Personal of NPCs including ghosts generated by the black dragon, the ghost gnome, and to look at the personalities of NPCs and inactives. Some of the combinations of traits that I've seen are so amusing, may have LTW I've never played, and seem challenging to play. So I've begun adding such sims which didn't die of old age (bringing them back to life if they are ghosts) to my much more vanilla families through which I rotate. And a bit later move those former NPC sims to their own households so they are in my rotation.

I play high free will -- so situations that develop tend to generate ideas for story flow. So I'm really enjoying this 'other' approach.
True, I end up with sims with odd fashion tastes, peculiar genetics, and exaggerated facial traits. I change very few bits of whatever they arrived with (some ghosts do not have winter clothing, so I change that). I might recolorize their clothing bits, eyes and hair and if it's WA sims such as with an Irish (or similar out of place) surname for that culture, I give them a new name and be sure they have the correct culture assigned to them. I had a Chinese ghost with a roman nose and a surname of McRae, for example -- changed all that and gave her asian culture.

Additionally I have a sort of pet rescue program for ghost pets. If while managing the dead, I find ghost pets, I add them to a family I'm playing and when the ghost appears if it is a red ghost (in pets means they had little satisfaction in their previous life), I bring them to life and give them a better life so they die after their second life with a blue ghost. All blue pet ghosts are returned to the mausoleum.

Simtown15

My sims are well-oiled machines of productivity, so I select their traits to further their quests to master their chosen skills and reach the pinnacle of their professions.

I usually choose traits that will help the Sims later in life, like skill traits, ambitious, and family oriented if they’re stay-at-home-parents. Once I have a few traits, I try to get a theme going. For example, I’ll make a virtuoso toddler an artistic child.

Abubakr

other (please describe)

-Other
My priority is always making money but careers only make-up 3 traits, the other two is determined by the expansion. For example University students need Genius to study Business but not the actual Business Career. So I select 2 traits that I need for my career and 2 for relationships and 1 for study and the last career trait I get for graduating

IreneSwift

other (please describe)

cwaddell wrote: »

IreneSwift wrote: »

I do whatever I feel like doing at the time. Sometimes I choose traits that will help them with whatever my plans are for them. Sometimes I choose traits that neither help nor hinder them. Sometimes I randomize them. With one sim born in my game recently, I decided that I wanted to play her with a very long lifespan and have her spend most of her time painting, so I can hopefully see all of the paintings sims can paint. But I want to see them all in the unmodified state, so I made sure she had no traits that could cause trait overlays on paintings.

This is more like how I choose traits too. It's never the same just depends on how I feel or what I want to accomplish.

This artist sim sound interesting. What traits that influence painting style did you avoid?

artistic, can't stand art, genius, grumpy, evil, virtuoso, computer whiz, insane, and neurotic

Concout

I just hit "randomize" and roll with it.

I used almost always picked the traits based on what kind of life I wanted them to have. Lately I have just randomized and rolling with it because I felt like I was using lot of the same traits and wanted to mix it up. So far only exception to this is I was having fun getting my sim abducted by aliens.

Amphora

other (please describe)

This is actually a really good question! I’ve never thought about my reasoning behind the traits I choose so it should be interesting to see the reasons why others choose theirs

Anyway, I usually give out traits that are my favorite ones (bookworm, shy, etc.) no matter the sim; however, I also like to give traits from the list that aren’t considered very desirable (like evil, grumpy, insane, kleptomaniac, etc.) because I very much love quirky sims with all the weird traits. They bring so much entertainment to gameplay

igazor

other (please describe)

My sims are machines of productivity, except in most instances along the way someone replaced the oil in the can with gravel. By the time most (not all) of my sims are adults, they will have four positive/neutral traits and one negative one that is intended to get in the way of where I see them heading with their lives or some slight variations on that due to extra traits. Not to make things impossible, just more challenging and realistic.

But then there's the grumpy, almost all negative ones who haven't figured out the benefits of high quality coffee yet who are essentially backdrops for the others so the contrast is more noticeable. Where it gets most interesting is when a mostly good and mostly negative sim find each other attractive anyway and end up liking each other enough to attempt a relationship.

But I don't necessarily select traits to fit an already decided upon storyline, it's more the other way around, and I have been known to randomize and start from there. I've also been known to cheat some traits away when it turns out they just aren't working as I thought they might. I have a newly added live-in "nanny"/housekeeper in my current household and as much as I find it endearing in other settings, the Absent-Minded trait he started with has got to go. This guy is driving me crazy leaving piles of laundry, garbage, and half-cooked food (probably soon to be piles of babies and toddlers as well once they are born) all over the place, Neat, well-intentioned, and as great an addition to the household he may be for other reasons. If that's the experience I wanted I would have chosen a Butler instead of a new household member.

On Service and Role Sims who will never be played actively, I have no guilty feelings about cheating some traits and even skills their way that are intended to help them perform their assigned duties better.

GraceyManor

I usually have a story in mind and use traits that will further the plot, whatever it happens to be.

Mine are based on what kind of gameplay I'm doing.Currently, doing a medieval game, and for the king I chose: Brave, Charismatic, Hopeless Romantic, Athletic.

His love interest is : Shy(She's nervous to be romanced by the king), Friendly, Esquestrian(sp?), Natural Cook, Neat

SimplyJen

I just hit "randomize" and roll with it.

After years and years of simming... I randomize traits. Some of the "negative" can actually be pretty fun and interesting. There are sims I use lifetime points to change traits if it's for their job.

dreamerz13

I just hit "randomize" and roll with it.

I mostly randomize. Unless I'm trying to make characters for a story. But just general gameplay I'll usually randomize. I used to pick traits but I always picked the same things and it was boring.

ciane

other (please describe)

I do randomize, but I randomize three times. If a trait comes up twice then that trait sticks. If I need more than one trait, and didn't get a second duplicated trait, then I just choose a trait from the roll which didn't have the duplicate trait. I can pick up an extra trait (or two) from each of the three rolls (depending how many I need).

It's a great way to get a random trait you might not care to play, yet still have some control.

Then, sometimes the parents wish for their child to be a genius. So, I might fulfill that wish for them.

Jdog054

I either make sims that are similar to myself (sometimes to the point of recreating my own life in a way that creeps out my family and peers) or I like to make sims who have really complex stories. One time I made a sim who had the family oriented and commitment issues trait, her story consisted of wanting to continue on and have a family after the death of her first husband but fearing getting into another relationship. I also like to randomize traits.

xxnearlyperfectx

other (please describe)

I like to randomize the traits, but I do it quite different:
So if anyone ages up, I randomize the button three times and write down the traits and pick from the three that have been randomized.

IreneSwift

other (please describe)

xxnearlyperfectx wrote: »

I like to randomize the traits, but I do it quite different:
So if anyone ages up, I randomize the button three times and write down the traits and pick from the three that have been randomized.

That something like the way I randomize. I don't necessarily take the first ones that come up. I'll randomize and choose from the ones that came up. How many times I randomize depends on what traits come up. There are some I absolutely will not allow my sims to have. For example, I find the behavior of insane sims extremely annoying, and that's putting it mildly. So I randomize until I get a trait/traits I can live with.

JoAnne65

other (please describe)

I chose ‘other’ but it comes close to one of the options: I usually have a story sim / life in mind and use traits that will suit his or her character, career (if they have one), hobbies and course of life, whatever it happens to be. Plus, always always always the virtuoso trait, that is a family thing for all my sims. So when the potential heir grows up I already have plans for them and they’ll get traits according to those plans. In the past when packs were still added to the game, I had to change plans sometimes. I simply changed some traits then before they turned YA.

puzzlezaddict

My sims are well-oiled machines of productivity, so I select their traits to further their quests to master their chosen skills and reach the pinnacle of their professions.

It's fascinating to hear how everyone selects sims' traits, and especially how much thought so many of us have put into the process. Even many of those who randomize to an extent—and there are more players in this category than I would have imagined—still might have a plan of sorts, or intervene to shape the outcome without deciding it entirely. And then there are the people like me who tend to let our inner control freaks run wild. Hey, if we're going to make our sims spend all day painting or sculpting or playing for tips or whatever, the least we can do is give them traits that will help them enjoy it.

I guess it shouldn't be surprising that the randomize button gets so much use, though, since most of us have played TS3 for years. Picking the same positive (or positively entertaining) traits over and over can get boring, and there are so many trait-related quirks and interactions we might miss if we stuck to the same patterns. Plus, having to account for a more... difficult... personality can make gameplay much more interesting than if everything always went smoothly.

Thanks for voting and commenting, everyone, and I hope you're all enjoying this thread as much as I am.

jillbg

I just hit "randomize" and roll with it.

I don't really care about their traits, as I don't play, just take pics for my story...

TadOlson

other (please describe)

I just do whatever is supposed to be done in that game though I do often take traits that won't work in a particular situation and change them with Master Conroller if needed to ensure the survival of te sims in that household after adding them to a town.I'll also fix sims who got bad traits on agint up for not attending school if there was no school in town and/or the kids had done well other than attending school which wasn't in the cars in their story.I'll aldo fix traits with Master Contoller if slots got filled because I forgot to disable filling empty slots in story progression before expanding the numbers for each age group.I will sometimes choose bad traits if it's part of the story and that happened because they grew up badly and it affected them.

IreneSwift

other (please describe)

puzzlezaddict wrote: »

I guess it shouldn't be surprising that the randomize button gets so much use, though, since most of us have played TS3 for years. Picking the same positive (or positively entertaining) traits over and over can get boring, and there are so many trait-related quirks and interactions we might miss if we stuck to the same patterns. Plus, having to account for a more... difficult... personality can make gameplay much more interesting than if everything always went smoothly.

That's the reason I started randomizing sometimes too - because after playing for a couple of years, it became harder to decide on traits for new sims, because I was tired of the using the same ones all the time, and had no idea which new ones I wanted to try.

astera00

other (please describe)

I hit other because it's really a bit of everything, depending on the family I'm playing (I play rotationally) and whether I'm creating them in CAS or if they're born in-game. If I'm creating the sim in CAS and have a type of family or story in mind, the traits I choose will tend to reflect that. So for example, I have one family that's full of overachieving geniuses. They're all astronauts, tech gurus or scientists, so that's one trait they share and their other two traits individualise them a bit more. Another family is old money, so their traits reflect that. The two traits I've chosen to run in that family are ambitious and music lover, that means that every member of the family will have at least one of those traits. It gives a bit of family resemblance and unity.

If a sim is born in-game, I tend to go for family shared traits more often than if I create them in CAS, I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because in CAS, I have more control over creating a family resemblance with their looks, but not so much when a sim is born in-game (outside of cheating), so I go for inherited traits to give a family resemblance. Toddlers and children will get traits that match one of the main family traits or personality. So a genius family will get inquisitive toddlers more often and they'll usually grow up to become children with the mental aspiration. Silly toddlers might grow up to have the goofball trait.

Other times, when I want to create drama in a family, I'll have family members with mirror-image traits. One time, I had a pair of sisters who had opposite traits for everything. One sister was good, slob, family-oriented and the other sister was evil, neat, hates children (I also gave her the fertile reward ). Their house also had the grody lot trait, so it would be dirty more often. There was a lot of tension in that house! They also had two brothers, one who was outgoing romantic and the other was an unflirty loner (I can't remember the third trait I gave them, but they also conflicted). That house was mad!

The other way I'll choose traits is for variety. I think a lot people tend to get stuck on using a few traits repeatedly, so when I feel like I'm using too much of the same ol' same ol' then I'll randomize and let it decide for me. It certainly gives me combinations that I might not have chosen and keeps things fresh.