As I'm trying to find ways how to make social interactions meaningfull in The Sims, I was also considering clubs. For several reasons, it's was not really successfull (group-specific hehaviour is only active at group gatherings, group gatherings are not started autonomously by NPC sims?). Still, I wondered what you guys are using the club-feature for, or if you have any creative ideas how they can be used?
My current clubs are set up along
socio-political lines. Don't be offended if you read this. There are
- young and old conservatives/snobs (priority = success in career and/or family, gain political power, networking),
- the tough it-girls (priority = success in career or family, very strategically oriented, marry rich) ,
- the egoistic superficial girlies (priority = admiration of others, live a life as close to glossy magazines as possible; social media obsessed)
- the machos/work-out guys (priority = date girls, esp. girlies and it-girls and be as manly as possible, look down on other males)
- the PC obsessed millenials (use my pronoun, you racist!),
- the artsy hipsters (vinyl-second hand clothes-single gear bike-barista guys, priority = superficial self-expression/admiration of others),
- the goths/emos (priority = escapism, prefer a fantasy world rooted in video games and movies over the real world)
- the punks/anarchos (priority = reject the system, start fights)
- the "esoterics" (mostly mid aged - elderly women, also some goths; feel good by pretending to know a truth that others don't know; also, make money from it)
- the nature outdoor organic food anti-vaxxer tyrants (priority = impose your ideas of health on everyone else)
Most of this club are defined by their social actions towards other clubs (be mean/friendly to...). For the reasons mentioned above, it doesn't really work that well though.
I was also considering to set up clubs to represent
co-workers. A club gathering would then represent an ordinary work-day at an office lot. It would be necessary to set this up as a club to prevent strangers from entering the building (--> using the lock door feature). Prefered activities for standard office jobs would be: drink coffee, write, browse the web, etc. Lots of fun!
For more spice, two clubs could be set up as opposing factions in the office. Or you could also open a club only for the chef and set the co-workers so they are all nice to the chef but mean to co-workers.
Another idea would be to go more extreme and use clubs as rivaling
religious cults.
So what are your ideas? What do you use clubs for and how does it work?
PS: As I'm setting up my game-world, I wanted to point out the lack of easy club management (in order to delete a club, you have to play its leader...) and easy skill and trait management in CAS (I had to leave all entry requirements blank if I didn't want to individually skill up 50+ sims to fit the requirements...).
Comments
Ah yes I have a parents club, it's exclusive to the parents of one of my main families and I remember doing it because the doors wouldn't lock and the kids would always enter their parents bedrooms during rather inconvenient times and I needed them to stay out of the room ^^
Other ideas I have but haven't tried yet:
Scouts group for kids (Boys/Girl scouts)
Art group (painting together)
Yoga class or Gym group
Spa group
Weekly Dinner/Barbeque group
Campers
I feel like there is so much you can do with clubs but I just don't get it xD It's actually one of the features I forget exists but it's the feature that can enhance features from different packs to make them more fun.
A smile is the prettiest thing you can wear
Time enjoyed is never time wasted
All the sims err'day
A couple of the ones I have added to the already existing ones:
- A youth program for troubled teens club, that gathers in parks to socialise, skill up and other things that attempts to help them be better people.
- Some of these teens are also part in a teen-only club that only hangs out to have fun and cause mischief.
- An artist club for painters and writers called The Pen & Pencil, who discuss their crafts and work on them together.
- A dog owner club that like to hang out along with their dogs to train them and also barbeque.
- A club I'd like to see as quite famous, for very skilled singers who like to go and sing at karaoke bars. I often feel a bit pity for the sims with bad singing skill that goes up on stage when they are there.
- A bunch of hooligans that are almost like an MC gang with bad reputation that uses a bar as their hangout. A couple of my troubled teens has ended up here...
- An, ahum, adults only club that likes to chat, drink juice and other things.
- A retirement home club for elders.
- A couple of small ones that are mostly made out of various friends and family so they go out in the world and do stuff together.
There's more but that's a big part of them. I mostly make them to create some life in the world.As you noted, managing a lot of clubs is a pain, & like you, I've learned I have to have one of my sims as the leader of every club or the leadership gets messed up when sims age out/die. Luckily, there's a mod for that, which I put in my mod folder when I need it, and remove to the Electronic Arts folder when I don't.
Not feeling well enough to type out what I do with all my clubs, but wanted to give you the link to the mod in case it helps.
There are only a couple of premade clubs I'll join, one is Powerhouse, the other is Upper Crust. The rest are completely useless to me.
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I make clubs that benefit my sim and/or their family... either because I want them to get to know a certain type of sim... wealth or skill ect. Or I want free labor (painting and cleaning clubs)... or I'm using them to fulfill aspirations.
I also tend to make a club with a sim in my household that is my main sims lackey. If my main sim is a serial romantic... the other sim can bring them in and they can pick and chose. I have lots of deviant uses for them like this lol..
Also say you have a sim that needs to introduce themselves to a hundred zillion sims, okay 10, but whatever.. If the other person makes the group your sim can just go in there and have a crowd to introduce themselves too, flirt with, joke with or do mean or mischief interactions with, then they can go about their business otherwise. They can also make them money in the meantime. Yeah I do tend to set up a lot of painting groups keeps them distracted while my sim corners the other ones.
I've made some clubs for workers though.. like I made a cop club and that was fun.. had the coworkers get their drama on after work. I made a fight club and that was fun until the leader got dethroned for being hated lol.. okay it was fun period. Especially when the guys started getting romantic for no reason that I set up. I've made clubs for baby-daddy's to be a parent to their many children that don't live with them. It was pretty fun to go swimming or do other things with a group of child sims that you really don't have to take care of. I've made clubs for scientific experimentation.
Recently I made a Pear-Shape Killers club. Needed a mod to do stuff in it but it was fun also. I also admit to making some woohoo clubs... all the cool kids do.
I have a bowling club that bowls happily in a lounge that I turned into a bowling alley with a bar. I have a comedy club of comedians that tells jokes, performs stand up and watches each other’s routines at one of my nightclubs (it is now a comedy club for all sims to visit as a result). I have a park that I turned into an arena and a kids’ and teens’ skating club meets there to skate (which doesn’t prevent others from skating there as well). I have a cafe that I turned into a movie theatre and my film buff club meets there to watch movies and eat popcorn. These all make great date venues and they seem real because other sims are usually there bowling or performing comedy or skating or watching movies or whatever.
Most of my parks have community gardens in them, so I have a couple of gardening and town beautification clubs (as well as an anglers’ and a campfire club). I now also have a Conservationist club in Sulani. A teacher’s pet club meets at the local library to do homework, use the science table and do art. A void critters club has matches and tournaments at my arcade while older (teen and young adult) gamers use the consoles or arcade machines to play their games. A bunch of pampered, snobby and rich housewives meets at the spa to have massages, drink the fruity spa drinks, use the sauna and the hot tub. Another club of wellness gurus does serious yoga and meditates at the same spa.
I also have a book club, artists’ clubs, an organized crime syndicate, a vegetarian chefs’ club, a gourmet cooking club, a writers’ club, a music appreciation club (for listening) as well as a music club (for players), a karaoke club (for singers), a drama club, a dance club, a family reunion club (for a multi-generational family who live on different lots to get together more easily), a Weekenders’ club (so a bunch of former roommates can hang out together in the sun and do backyard stuff on weekends). I even have two vampire clubs, good and evil, who fight each other on sight. I can’t wait to make magic clubs.
In my experience, clubs are a wonderful tool for bringing life to a game and I highly recommend them. I only hope that someday they add hobbies like in Freetime, so we could have a potters’ club, a knitters’ club for my grandmas, and whatever else.
Btw, if you want to give sims more personality, may I also suggest giving or cheating them some of the special traits that came with Parenthood. The bad traits are especially dynamic and amusing. I gave my bad boy artist the Uncontrolled Emotions trait and now he has frequent emotional meltdowns, which are hilarious, more easily paints emotional paintings, and seems to spread his negative emotions to his friends a lot. Argumentative is a fun one too; sims with that trait will spontaneously start arguments seemingly for fun. The good traits are less fun but very useful, especially for parents.
I have an artsy Sim who has a club called Pixel Perfect, where they paint.
For my vampires....I have the Queens of Chaos...where basically they just wreck havoc on everybody.
I have a few party clubs. Now that fishing has been revamped, I think I might do a fishing club for one of my nature Sims.
Your had a cult worshipping a sausage (Frankfurter)? Or did you mean Frankenstein?
Thanks a lot for the link! That certainly does make life easier. It's just a shame you have to use mods for so many things. Btw, as you say you have 49 clubs. Isn't there a maximum of clubs you can have in a game?
Thanks for the tip! These traits went under my radar as they're not visible in CAS. But I do remember to have cheated them in on some sims in the past.
Newbie question: Do non played sims start club gatherings on their own (if they're on the lot type specified as their club's base)?
I also use groups for a political/community system. In my game each hood has one elected "Hood Contact". I have one group per district (in my game worlds are referred to as districts) with 3 to 4 Hood Contacts. It makes it easy to gather them once every year, but it's of course a nifty tool just for keeping track on who were elected. One Hood Contact from each district is a Councilor to the regional council (all my worlds gathered) so I also have a group for the councilors. They work in a Council House, and the group makes it easy to lock off their offices section to random visitors.
And I use groups for certain businesses, such as when my Way To Go Travel Agency arranges tours to misc locations, sims will join the group in order to sign up for the next tour. After the tour, the group is emptied.
More about all this and more on my blog
Ten Pin Teens
Requirements: Open invitation, Teens only
Club hangout: Bowling Alley lot
Club activities: Go Bowling, Play arcade games, Eat food
Outfit: Set up matching bowling outfits for both sexes in everyday 1
Description: Bored with life in the slow lane in the 'burbs? If you are feeling lucky, strike out on your own in your spare the time, and have a ball with us.
The Bowling Stones
Requirements: Open invitation, Young Adults, Adults
Club hangout: Bowling Alley lot
Club activities: Go Bowling, Drink bar drinks, Eat food
Outfit: Set up matching bowling outfits for both sexes in everyday 1
Description: You can't always get what you want in life, but if you are suffering from the summertime blues, use your imagination and let us come to your emotional rescue. Stop waiting on a friend and get some satisfaction with us.
For kids that are focusing on good grades and skills
For kids that like to play and/or enjoy the outdoors
For artsy/rebel teens
For preppy teens
For teens to do homework and school projects
For elderly sims I always like to have a bookclub where they meet in a nice café or library
For writers I have a club where they meet at a café and write and exchange ideas, usually the leader is an acclaimed writer that inspires and coaches the rest of the club members
For painter to gather at an arts centre
For sporty sims
For outdoorsy sims
Then I always have clubs for families that live in separated households so they can gather on Sundays for a bbq and whatnot
All my creations are CC free.
They like to do yoga, Blow some bubbles and celebrate diwali together.
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I also used to have a co worker group. They were all in the politic career and protested, gave speeches and chilled out after work
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also in the future i will have a scout club for outdoor kids, so they can meet up in granite falls.
Newcrest Heights: An upperclass school for the rich, with several "sub" clubs to show each student's class, age, and privileges within the school. They go to a school lot to study and level up their skills. They need a certain level in several skills before they can "graduate." (6 skill points in Writing, Charisma, Logic, and two electives)
Newcrest Widths: A juvenile hall/reform school for troublesome teens. They have a much lower skill requirement for graduation (3 skill points in Logic, Fitness and Writing), but must also have a good reputation. They get prepared for certain careers, do community service like cleaning up litter, and visiting the nursing home.
Sulani Mermaids: Nalani and her mermaid friends just swim and discuss mermaid things. They try to keep their species a secret, while also working to repopulate.
Book Club: Pretty self-explanatory. Sims get together to read books. The club also has a lot of perks to help you boost your skills.
Brindleton's Concerned Sims and Sulani Neighbors: World-specific groups that get together to talk about the neighborhood, how to improve it, keep children safe, etc. Sometimes they'll help organize events, like bake sales or special festivals at the park/beach.
Mystery Hunters: Originally founded to solve the StrangerVille mystery, these guys investigate everything supernatural, paranormal and weird. They also help occults whenever they run into trouble.
Platinum Empire: The most elite of the elite, the leaders of each world. They come together as this sort of Illuminati-esque cabal to controlt he world from behind the scenes.
Sims of High Society: A smaller-scale Platinum Empire. Basically, the stay-at-home rich spouses come together to hang out, gossip about others and drink.
Architects of Selvadorada: Archaeologists who often go on excavations together, discuss and spread Sulani culture, and host seminars.
Screen Actors Guild: All the notable sim actors register with the Guild to mix and mingle. It's also a good way to discuss arranging fake relationships for press exposure.
Scouts: The Scouts also have their own scouting troupe. They go on camping trips, hang out at a rec center, and work on getting their badges.
Single and Mingling: Single sims can meet up and see if they can make a connection.
Single and Swinging: Single sims can meet up and see if they can make some WooHoo.
The Sims 4 hasn't introduced a new musical instrument since 2017
I create clubs when I want my Sims to take a class (or something along those lines). For example go to yoga class, book club or art class. I also use them for friend groups (especially for kids and teens). I just add all the friends into a group with no real restrictions so they can all get together and hangout.