Oh, and I know it may seem silly, but I also base personality (in terms of clothing style/color, hobbies, and room decor) a bit on how they acted as a baby and the randomized outfit they end up in when they age up to toddler. It gives me a starting point, at least. (And yes, the babies do actually have different personalities. I've had some that needed to be cuddled almost all the time, and some that stayed happy and quiet for sim-hours after feeding and changing)
@DaWaterRat That’s interesting about the babies having different personalities. I haven’t had very many yet, so I never noticed. I’ll have to be on the lookout for that.
On EA forum Stories and Legacies board and on QueenOfMyshuno.tumblr.com
@DaWaterRat That’s interesting about the babies having different personalities. I haven’t had very many yet, so I never noticed. I’ll have to be on the lookout for that.
It may just be a quirk of the randomizer for baby needs, but I'd swear some are more "needy" than others. Some seem to be more hungry too.
though, to be fair, I tend to age up the needy ones pretty quickly. Not right away, but quickly.
I give my played Sims a bit of backstory to start with, then I play them as closely to their aspirations and traits as I can. I use a lot of imagination, my Sims are like a "soap opera" cause I eventually add their friends into my rotation too. I'm pretty micromanagey, but I do " try" to give them a little leeway to act on their own, to keep things spontaneous.
I play my game exactly as a soap opera too. With this game it is best to use your imagination.
All of my Sims have personalities, although It's 50% via gameplay and 50% in my head.
I've just came from playing the Goths which are a good example. I made Alexander Evil and he is almost at the top of the Criminal career track. I used Clubs to make a gang called the Goth Syndicate which operate very much like the local Mafia. He married Nina Caliente because her power hungry mother pushed her into it (my own imagined element) but they have a family together and Nina has actually grown to love him and would never stray (I toyed with the idea of her having an affair but decided against it because Alex and Nina turned out to be quite a good match)
I wanted Alexander to be infamous, and other sims to be afriad of him, so I used the celebrity ranking system and gave him a terrible reputation. I thought he needed some kind of business, like in the old gangster/mafia films they either have factories, or some kind of hangout place away from home thats making them money. So I built him an Italian restaurant that has a very fancy club hangout in the basement, where him and his cronies drink whiskey and discuss thier criminal empire.
All of the members of the Goth syndicate have thier own storylines too. One is a distant relative, who Alex forced his sister Cassandra to marry (I didn't make them actually related in the game, but gave them a similar surname so indicate there may have been a very very very distant ancestor to its not too weird lol) one is a descendant of an old family friend of Mortimers. One is his cousin (I bought back Michael Bachelor and gave him a son Alex's age). It gets kinda complicated as I also play thier households because they too have to maintain terrible reputations. Id love to do screenshots and run proper storylines for people to see, but with the amount of households I play to maintain my plots its impossibly time-consuming! But a whole heap of fun lol
I just noticed that I unwittingly gave all of Alexanders children the self assured trait. But I guess you would be self assured if your Dad was an infamous gangster and head of a criminal empire lol
I just try to remember their personalities in my head, but it means that when I go and play a different family or save for a while, I forget everything about the previous family and usually end up deleting them. That's why I tend to play pre-mades - their personalities are canon.
Love this thread! Thanks for starting it! I'll need to return to read all, too much to browse quickly.
In my game I add lots of personality and extras! I use extra DNA that determines my sims' personality as well as looks. DNA is inherited, so I use a dice to randomly pass on this extra info from the parents. This includes many small details, and I love seeing how they may (or may not) affect each sim's personality and life. Each DNA thing has 4 possible outcomes, so it gives some variations. CAS details include level of hair growth (incl facial and body hair for men), need of glasses, level of freckles and beauty spot, teeth etc.
For personalities, the DNA gives me info on a sim's masculinity vs femininity, this again leads to how a female sim will dress/make up, hairstyles. It also gives who are gay/lesbian, or tending to be/are unsure etc. I don't play out the g/l bit much, but it's an important factor that can impact on both decisions and lifestyle etc. I also know how fertile my sims are, most can have kids only while YA, while a few also can have kids as Adults. A very few sims can not reproduce at all (they don't know this though, so they might still plan for a life with a huge family... sad stories in the line for them). Finally, DNA also decides a sim's intellect and factor of success. I also have a "social status" integer, which is most important to my upper class sims.
On the traits side, I have a system where most sims will get minimum 1 trait from each parent. I love seeing certain qualities being passed down the generations.
I also have color/material/style preferences on the side, this used to be inherited somehow, but lately I've included more randomness because we are certainly not influenced only by parents when it comes to preferences. It can affect how my sims dress, but mostly how they decorate their homes. Playing 50+ households I must admit I don't always adjust interior according to their preferences, but I wish I had more gaming time and could do this. Anyway, it's useful whenever I need ideas for decorating etc.
During game play I try to reflect all those details. My sims' family life and social life is affected. Careers and hobbies will mostly be affected by traits and social class, and both personalities and stories will turn out very individual in most cases. Also their family background will affect most sims' choices.
Right now I pay most attention to the 5-6 families featured in my ongoing video series.
- Victor F. Tangerin is a powerful man, but mostly thanks to his wealthy wife who has the right contacts. He wants children, which she does not want, but now a baby was born and I guess something about their life must change.
- Bud von Kaching is a typical powerful business man and politician. His focus is business, and he is no longer so close to his beautiful wife or family life in general. He carries a secret from the past that not even his wife knows about. Now that he is elderly I'll need to find a way to leak the truth while he is still around...
- Fanny Silverbone is originally a city girl who adores dogs, and moved to the countryside to breed dogs and sell paintings. Then she by accident became a local politician, and ended up on the regional council. It turned out that the house she had bought, actually held several farm rights, which forced her to start farming. She is Adult and just married a super friendly guy, and the household now counts 2 adults, 1 baby, 3 large dogs + 1 cat... I guess it's time to switch from dog breeding to family life...
- Josue E. Rosewood is a somehow naive enthusiast, but also very laid back and down to earth. A family man who fights for certain rights, and he is a councilor working with Culture. His biggest fight though seems to be avoiding his kids marrying the wrong people. His wife tries to make him let go of their grown up kids, but it's just not easy for him.
- Charloman C. Dougham is my regions current Mayor, His comes from a top class family with a long history and many shady businesses, but Charloman himself is basically a honest and dedicated man. He has no idea that his rich wife is a member of a secret kartel that sees the council as their marionettes. Charloman loves family life, and is a very good dad to this couple's triplets.
There are other families too that I play very detailed. I play all worlds, so there ought to be a good variety
I like to start them off in CAS knowing their personality basically. They almost all have a backstory no matter how loose. I don't usually play them as children though even though I know that would add layers to their personalities... I just don't have the patience to tell that backstory out .. unless the point is to tell that first part of their story also. Anyway, then I assign them the traits I know will work best in the game to express that. I also usually make it a point to get other traits (bought) quickly that will help them interact or live more in the way that seems right for them. I rarely give them traits that will take away tension, discomfort, sadness ect anymore unless it makes sense for them to not have these feelings. Although sometimes playing a supersim is fun still.
One thing that I think is very important for most of my sims is I "train" them for a few weeks by being on them actively directing and playing them and doing what I know they would do - actively playing that out. For instance if they aren't going to using a phone, computer or tv .. I give them a skill and interest that I know they will most often default to for fun (and often don't give them a tv or computer for a long time). When they finally do get a tv or computer they rarely show much interest in them because they would rather paint/garden/play an instrument/play a card game/listen to the radio/read a book already. Also mine never seem to default to cell phone use unless I've left them in the middle of no where away from home or locked them in somewhere with nothing to do. I think it helps that I play small sim households though and most of mine are single for a long time. They might have a live in helper or sig other or a child eventually so I do get to see them playing autonomously and I'm usually pleased with their choices and idiosyncrasies by then. They just don't have a big opportunity to go out of character with me on them frequently either way.
Some stories I tell can never really be expressed through the game and I simmify it. I have to know going in that they are going to do things in more of a slapstick way. So since I'm attracted to horror, sci-fi ect.. I end up with black comedies and funny (retroish) science fiction even if the character I'm basing it off of might not be that way precisely. Or I chose characters in the first place that I feel would adapt well to be simmified and who would be comfortable living in that universe.
I'm dating myself hard but I use to love a song called Angie Baby when I was a weird little kid. So I made a family and loosely based the young adult daughter off Angie. She lives with her father and I put them in the house next to the Pancakes house. She has the erratic trait, music lover and creative traits. She fell in line very quickly with how I expected to her act. Of course she talks to objects around her for fun, she listens to the radio and dances and she paints. She lives with her dad that I gave a life of his own since the song didn't indicate much about him but parental concern. I made him a chef with interests having to do with being a caregiver for the most part and he lives a more normal life than she does, has a gf ect. It is fun to look over at what she's doing when I'm playing on him though.
Linus is a sim I based of the Stardew Valley (game) character. He lives outdoors, has a tent and even a little helter-skelter garden. I decided to give him a guitar for fun and he fishes for his dinner some days. He has a cooler so he's not going to starve either way. I often turn off weather effects now but in that save game I kept them on .. eventually I got him traits to better withstand the elements but not block them completely. He likes to play in the rain, gardens on his own, plays the guitar on his own and of course sits by the fire (there have been a few fires for him). He has a radio in his inventory .. sometimes I place it out on good days. When I sent him to Granite Falls he met the hermit and became fast friends with him then more.. Sometimes he invites the hermit over and woohoo bush or tent get used. I gave him Loves Outdoors and Loner traits and I'm not sure of the other (and not in game right now). I do know I'm really satisfied with how he turned out.
In my head I always create personalities, I'm an Altoholic so I create a lot of stuff like this in my mind, things that never is seen in game lol. I wish the game actually had personalities that actually affected how they act, what items they use more and so on. Chess lover, chess hater... they wouldn't get along and end up fighting. Right now everyone always gets along like, it's so passive
@Simmerville - I always like hearing about your game. You have the patience and creativity to take the time to make your game very detailed and add realistic touches, which makes it very interesting.
On EA forum Stories and Legacies board and on QueenOfMyshuno.tumblr.com
One of my favorite things to do in this game is to create and develop stories for my little pixel people, so I do almost always have a backstory and personality in mind for each of them. I take inspiration from a lot of places: TV, movies, books, and especially music. In fact, music has inspired not only an idea for the personality of a sim, but also a situation I plan to implement into their storyline. I honestly don't think I ever realized it until now, but one song alone can help me to determine the personality and story for a sims character.
If I had to put a number on it, I'd say their personalities are determined about 50% by me and the backstory I've given them, 25% by their traits, and 25% by the way they act in game. However, one of my all-time favorite sims definitely had more control over determining her personality than I did. I've played her many different times over many different save files, so when I first created her, I thought I had a good idea how she'd act. She quickly proved me wrong! She starts out my games as a child with the genius trait, but evolves into this little spitfire with a whole lot of attitude if you cross her. Seriously, if I let her run around with that full-autonomy on, there's no telling what she'll do.
Numbers aside, some saves really take me by surprise when curveballs pop-up into my story. It doesn't happen all too often, but I love when the game triggers an event that totally reshapes the way you think of your sims and their personalities.
Anyway, it's been so interesting reading everyone's different approaches to creating their sims on this thread. Some of these comments have really inspired me to create some new sims!
The Sims is like an animated book written word by word as you play along. The different characters become more and more fleshed out the more time you spend with them and observe them. Knowing their three traits and first aspiration kinda gives you the same basics as reading about a character on the back of a book. Actual reading/playing then feeds then your imagination and perception with further input which in turn builds and expands the character's personality. It's pretty cool, actually. And because everyone is different, we all get a unique experience
Origin ID: Nindigo79
A smile is the prettiest thing you can wear
Time enjoyed is never time wasted
@klestrella It’s so interesting that you’re guided partially by how your sims act in game. I love how sims will act in ways you wouldn’t expect, even if you know their traits. It’s one of my favorite things about the game.
@Nindigo I agree with you completely. Very well put!
On EA forum Stories and Legacies board and on QueenOfMyshuno.tumblr.com
The Sims is like an animated book written word by word as you play along. The different characters become more and more fleshed out the more time you spend with them and observe them. Knowing their three traits and first aspiration kinda gives you the same basics as reading about a character on the back of a book. Actual reading/playing then feeds then your imagination and perception with further input which in turn builds and expands the character's personality. It's pretty cool, actually. And because everyone is different, we all get a unique experience
Yes, I completely agree with this. It's like a book or film but you can spend time on the details that would get cut out or glanced over to the extent that you want to. You can develop the characters as much or as little as you want to.
The balancing act is to what extent it's a blank slate and to what extent it is not.
Usually my sims are evil or are in the middle when it comes to alignment, but I usually give them some kinda quirk or obsession with something. Like in Sims 3 I had a vampire that loved honey, maybe a little too much considering I built a "worshiping room" where the best honey was stored for him. It was actually pretty fun being a servant to our great buzzing overlords and if I had seasons I would probably recreate him in Sims 4.
If I do recreate him he would have his honey room again and I would decide who or who not to kill by gifting them honey. If they accept the gift, they live! If they don't....
Comments
On EA forum Stories and Legacies board and on QueenOfMyshuno.tumblr.com
It may just be a quirk of the randomizer for baby needs, but I'd swear some are more "needy" than others. Some seem to be more hungry too.
though, to be fair, I tend to age up the needy ones pretty quickly. Not right away, but quickly.
I play my game exactly as a soap opera too. With this game it is best to use your imagination.
I've just came from playing the Goths which are a good example. I made Alexander Evil and he is almost at the top of the Criminal career track. I used Clubs to make a gang called the Goth Syndicate which operate very much like the local Mafia. He married Nina Caliente because her power hungry mother pushed her into it (my own imagined element) but they have a family together and Nina has actually grown to love him and would never stray (I toyed with the idea of her having an affair but decided against it because Alex and Nina turned out to be quite a good match)
I wanted Alexander to be infamous, and other sims to be afriad of him, so I used the celebrity ranking system and gave him a terrible reputation. I thought he needed some kind of business, like in the old gangster/mafia films they either have factories, or some kind of hangout place away from home thats making them money. So I built him an Italian restaurant that has a very fancy club hangout in the basement, where him and his cronies drink whiskey and discuss thier criminal empire.
All of the members of the Goth syndicate have thier own storylines too. One is a distant relative, who Alex forced his sister Cassandra to marry (I didn't make them actually related in the game, but gave them a similar surname so indicate there may have been a very very very distant ancestor to its not too weird lol) one is a descendant of an old family friend of Mortimers. One is his cousin (I bought back Michael Bachelor and gave him a son Alex's age). It gets kinda complicated as I also play thier households because they too have to maintain terrible reputations. Id love to do screenshots and run proper storylines for people to see, but with the amount of households I play to maintain my plots its impossibly time-consuming! But a whole heap of fun lol
I just noticed that I unwittingly gave all of Alexanders children the self assured trait. But I guess you would be self assured if your Dad was an infamous gangster and head of a criminal empire lol
In my game I add lots of personality and extras! I use extra DNA that determines my sims' personality as well as looks. DNA is inherited, so I use a dice to randomly pass on this extra info from the parents. This includes many small details, and I love seeing how they may (or may not) affect each sim's personality and life. Each DNA thing has 4 possible outcomes, so it gives some variations. CAS details include level of hair growth (incl facial and body hair for men), need of glasses, level of freckles and beauty spot, teeth etc.
For personalities, the DNA gives me info on a sim's masculinity vs femininity, this again leads to how a female sim will dress/make up, hairstyles. It also gives who are gay/lesbian, or tending to be/are unsure etc. I don't play out the g/l bit much, but it's an important factor that can impact on both decisions and lifestyle etc. I also know how fertile my sims are, most can have kids only while YA, while a few also can have kids as Adults. A very few sims can not reproduce at all (they don't know this though, so they might still plan for a life with a huge family... sad stories in the line for them). Finally, DNA also decides a sim's intellect and factor of success. I also have a "social status" integer, which is most important to my upper class sims.
On the traits side, I have a system where most sims will get minimum 1 trait from each parent. I love seeing certain qualities being passed down the generations.
I also have color/material/style preferences on the side, this used to be inherited somehow, but lately I've included more randomness because we are certainly not influenced only by parents when it comes to preferences. It can affect how my sims dress, but mostly how they decorate their homes. Playing 50+ households I must admit I don't always adjust interior according to their preferences, but I wish I had more gaming time and could do this. Anyway, it's useful whenever I need ideas for decorating etc.
During game play I try to reflect all those details. My sims' family life and social life is affected. Careers and hobbies will mostly be affected by traits and social class, and both personalities and stories will turn out very individual in most cases. Also their family background will affect most sims' choices.
Right now I pay most attention to the 5-6 families featured in my ongoing video series.
- Victor F. Tangerin is a powerful man, but mostly thanks to his wealthy wife who has the right contacts. He wants children, which she does not want, but now a baby was born and I guess something about their life must change.
- Bud von Kaching is a typical powerful business man and politician. His focus is business, and he is no longer so close to his beautiful wife or family life in general. He carries a secret from the past that not even his wife knows about. Now that he is elderly I'll need to find a way to leak the truth while he is still around...
- Fanny Silverbone is originally a city girl who adores dogs, and moved to the countryside to breed dogs and sell paintings. Then she by accident became a local politician, and ended up on the regional council. It turned out that the house she had bought, actually held several farm rights, which forced her to start farming. She is Adult and just married a super friendly guy, and the household now counts 2 adults, 1 baby, 3 large dogs + 1 cat... I guess it's time to switch from dog breeding to family life...
- Josue E. Rosewood is a somehow naive enthusiast, but also very laid back and down to earth. A family man who fights for certain rights, and he is a councilor working with Culture. His biggest fight though seems to be avoiding his kids marrying the wrong people. His wife tries to make him let go of their grown up kids, but it's just not easy for him.
- Charloman C. Dougham is my regions current Mayor, His comes from a top class family with a long history and many shady businesses, but Charloman himself is basically a honest and dedicated man. He has no idea that his rich wife is a member of a secret kartel that sees the council as their marionettes. Charloman loves family life, and is a very good dad to this couple's triplets.
There are other families too that I play very detailed. I play all worlds, so there ought to be a good variety
One thing that I think is very important for most of my sims is I "train" them for a few weeks by being on them actively directing and playing them and doing what I know they would do - actively playing that out. For instance if they aren't going to using a phone, computer or tv .. I give them a skill and interest that I know they will most often default to for fun (and often don't give them a tv or computer for a long time). When they finally do get a tv or computer they rarely show much interest in them because they would rather paint/garden/play an instrument/play a card game/listen to the radio/read a book already. Also mine never seem to default to cell phone use unless I've left them in the middle of no where away from home or locked them in somewhere with nothing to do. I think it helps that I play small sim households though and most of mine are single for a long time. They might have a live in helper or sig other or a child eventually so I do get to see them playing autonomously and I'm usually pleased with their choices and idiosyncrasies by then. They just don't have a big opportunity to go out of character with me on them frequently either way.
Some stories I tell can never really be expressed through the game and I simmify it. I have to know going in that they are going to do things in more of a slapstick way. So since I'm attracted to horror, sci-fi ect.. I end up with black comedies and funny (retroish) science fiction even if the character I'm basing it off of might not be that way precisely. Or I chose characters in the first place that I feel would adapt well to be simmified and who would be comfortable living in that universe.
I'm dating myself hard but I use to love a song called Angie Baby when I was a weird little kid. So I made a family and loosely based the young adult daughter off Angie. She lives with her father and I put them in the house next to the Pancakes house. She has the erratic trait, music lover and creative traits. She fell in line very quickly with how I expected to her act. Of course she talks to objects around her for fun, she listens to the radio and dances and she paints. She lives with her dad that I gave a life of his own since the song didn't indicate much about him but parental concern. I made him a chef with interests having to do with being a caregiver for the most part and he lives a more normal life than she does, has a gf ect. It is fun to look over at what she's doing when I'm playing on him though.
Linus is a sim I based of the Stardew Valley (game) character. He lives outdoors, has a tent and even a little helter-skelter garden. I decided to give him a guitar for fun and he fishes for his dinner some days. He has a cooler so he's not going to starve either way. I often turn off weather effects now but in that save game I kept them on .. eventually I got him traits to better withstand the elements but not block them completely. He likes to play in the rain, gardens on his own, plays the guitar on his own and of course sits by the fire (there have been a few fires for him). He has a radio in his inventory .. sometimes I place it out on good days. When I sent him to Granite Falls he met the hermit and became fast friends with him then more.. Sometimes he invites the hermit over and woohoo bush or tent get used. I gave him Loves Outdoors and Loner traits and I'm not sure of the other (and not in game right now). I do know I'm really satisfied with how he turned out.
On EA forum Stories and Legacies board and on QueenOfMyshuno.tumblr.com
If I had to put a number on it, I'd say their personalities are determined about 50% by me and the backstory I've given them, 25% by their traits, and 25% by the way they act in game. However, one of my all-time favorite sims definitely had more control over determining her personality than I did. I've played her many different times over many different save files, so when I first created her, I thought I had a good idea how she'd act. She quickly proved me wrong!
Numbers aside, some saves really take me by surprise when curveballs pop-up into my story. It doesn't happen all too often, but I love when the game triggers an event that totally reshapes the way you think of your sims and their personalities.
Anyway, it's been so interesting reading everyone's different approaches to creating their sims on this thread. Some of these comments have really inspired me to create some new sims!
The Sims is like an animated book written word by word as you play along. The different characters become more and more fleshed out the more time you spend with them and observe them. Knowing their three traits and first aspiration kinda gives you the same basics as reading about a character on the back of a book. Actual reading/playing then feeds then your imagination and perception with further input which in turn builds and expands the character's personality. It's pretty cool, actually. And because everyone is different, we all get a unique experience
A smile is the prettiest thing you can wear
Time enjoyed is never time wasted
@Nindigo I agree with you completely. Very well put!
On EA forum Stories and Legacies board and on QueenOfMyshuno.tumblr.com
Yes, I completely agree with this. It's like a book or film but you can spend time on the details that would get cut out or glanced over to the extent that you want to. You can develop the characters as much or as little as you want to.
The balancing act is to what extent it's a blank slate and to what extent it is not.
If I do recreate him he would have his honey room again and I would decide who or who not to kill by gifting them honey. If they accept the gift, they live! If they don't....