Premade Families: How do you use your non-essential characters?

Nikkei_Simmer · January 2020

When you play a pre-made household do you focus on the entirety of the household as a whole branching out into all of their experiences or or do you just focus on one particular member of that family and develop their story while using the other characters in a periphery role supporting the main pre-made member of that household?

Nikkei_Simmer · January 2020

I use the unneeded characters as peripheral characters that still interact with the main characters

My own answer

I tend to use the latter; the rest of the family being peripheral characters meant to support the main characters of the story -The Founders and the Heirs in each subsequent generation: especially in my legacies.

My first generation of my legacy, I linked the FounderGeneration in with the parents who then became the Pre-Founder Generation who had their own little supporting role helping the Founder generation out - typical in an “Asian family” in real life. The main family (the heir takes care of the preceding generation.

It is generally held that the oldest son of an Asian family takes over as heir. It is considered a family obligation to take care of one’s elders.and of course as my main male character was classified as Asian, he thus became the head of the family upon his Dad relinquishing the role to him.

River, as the founding female half of the Founders, chose to agree to take their parents into their home even though she, herself, is not Asian...naturally, which also tends to be the case in real life though as always, there are exceptions to the rule.

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It’s a lot of fun to play a legacy. And though I haven’t gotten to the third generation, I’m still intrigued. Hopefully I can make it through this legacy without being tempted to do a reboot to align it with the more detailed FF.net version, I’m working on.

Turjan · January 2020

I try to tell their story as well alongside that of my main characters

I guess I overdo it. I'm playing on an epic timescale, and I would say the list of families in town that I haven't played yet is shorter than that of the ones I played. My founder has children in several other families in town, but I've also taken completely unrelated families on vacation, their members as part of the university household, or just the current romantic interests of the teens with them to one of the vacation homes.

That said, I don't play them all equally. Families are sorted into different tiers, like the rotations caste, a semi-protected one, and a few others. I decide this on a whim.

jillbg · January 2020

I try to tell their story as well alongside that of my main characters

I used to, at least. I have moved the families that were most interesting to me from their homeworlds and to TwinTowns where I have used their main backgroundstory to create an other, interacting with my Grey Witches and Vargas' brothers

mw1525 · January 2020

Hi! I play with the entire world. I wanted to participate in your poll, but the option I would choose isn't available. That option would be 'I have no Non-Essential' Sims.' Although, I'm probably deep in the minority with that answer

!

Everyone (pre-mades, DLed or created by me) in each of my worlds has a role or a purpose which isn't categorized as 'Main or Supporting'; they are all components of the collective. I focus on all Sims equally for the entire town or world. I play a custom house of 5 no differently than I play a pre-made single Sim household. In my games, the focus is on a Sim's role and what they bring to the table to help my world (and other Sims) to continue growing and developing. It really is a case of the (their) community raising itself.

In doing so, I watch as the (my) Sims stories and lives naturally unfold without (much) intervention from me. When I do intervene, it is to straighten out (some of what I consider) "wrongs" to Sims which were created by EA's Sims Team. Or, to create some lot or venue which provides them with more options and opportunities.

Aaeiyn · January 2020

What ate you going on about? I’m confused

Uh, the only option that has me play all of the Characters...not sure if I picked the right one, but I did like that Option.

EDIT: I swear I didn't see this, as an option "I try to tell their story as well alongside that of my main characters". Whatever.

EDIT 2: You know what, I did, but I didn't like calling one of my Characters as a "Main" Character. I think that was my issue

ZeeGee · February 2020

I can’t vote cause I don’t have any nonessential characters. They’re all essential!

SquirrelTail15 · February 2020

I use the unneeded characters as peripheral characters that still interact with the main characters

I've put my answer because it's what I do the most - in my legacy save, I tend to keep the main heir as a protagonist, and then later their first kid. But I don't play premades a lot.

sarabeth2984 · February 2020

I try to tell their story as well alongside that of my main characters

I try to explore everyone's personality and have them inreract with each other as friends, enemies, and family. I am a rotational player so I feel like I have a lot of legacy families lol! Although I will say, I tend to develop favorite premades and focus more on them.

Evalen · February 2020

I play with my whole family, if premade you are talking about are the sims that EA puts in, I do not play with them at all. I only play my family and everyone is important.

ChampandGirlie · February 2020

Non-essential characters are townies for me. I may have edited them or played them a bit but I'm not invested in them. All of the playable sims are ones that I'm interested in. I'm interested in the whole household when I play.

I don't have playable sims who are just in the background. I follow them all. If I lose interest but still want to run into them in the world then I mark them as unplayable.

igazor · February 2020

What ate you going on about? I’m confused

I find the question to be borderline offensive (not seriously) to certain sims. I mean, do we really expect them to go around saying things like, "How do you do, I am a non-essential character" or "I'm just the spare heir, don't mind me because I just don't matter much"?

All sims in my worlds are important to me, even if I have no intention of ever playing them myself or their assigned role is to run a cash register or clean houses. I'm not going to push the progression of upwards of 250 resident sims per world myself though, hence the value of NRaas StoryProgression and the tools we have to keep an eye on households townwide especially while the actively being played ones are all busy doing things that take a fair amount of time and don't need to be watched over like sleeping, reading, creating something, or working/going to school in rabbitholes.

bekkasan · February 2020

What ate you going on about? I’m confused

I don't play premade families.

Surreal · February 2020

I try to tell their story as well alongside that of my main characters

I never used to play pre-made sims but I have been lately - mostly because I wanted to steal their houses but that's a whole 'nother story.

But in playing pre-mades, I play the entire household. It's a family unit - no-one is non-essential. But that's true of any sim household I play, whether pre-made or not.

phantasmkiss · February 2020

I use the unneeded characters as peripheral characters that still interact with the main characters

When a non-heir moves out, one of the first things I do is invite them over to give them a house key. I've started limiting how many kids my families have because I have a hard time letting go at all. I used to have tons of kids and marry them all off, but I didn't like rotating because it meant leaving my main household and I didn't like not being involved at all.

Solution: fewer kids, house keys for extended family. They walk right in all the time, but I don't have to have a bedroom for them and they don't count toward the 8-Sim limit.

As for pre-mades, though I don't select them to start out with, I almost always marry into pre-made families, though. If the rest of the household is their family, I want them involved. I turn on aging for that household and adopt them. They become mine. If the rest of the household is unrelated, like the Roomies household, I leave them separate so that I can marry someone out in a future generation.

My eventual goal with my main save, which is admittedly only in its third generation, is to marry into all the premade families. So far I've got Johnny Zest and the Goths. Even though we know Johnny is related to the Landgraabs, my mental canon is that he only told his wife before he died, so in several generations I'll say no one knows. o.o The game didn't make them related, but I'm holding out as long as possible.

TL;DR: I marry the pre-mades and give out house keys to keep Sims close.

igazor · February 2020

What ate you going on about? I’m confused

@phantasmkiss - I really like the idea of house keys for various reasons, but am afraid I've never heard of this before. This must be a TS4 game or EP feature rather than TS3 or are they from a mod? We're on the TS3 section of the forum here.

phantasmkiss · February 2020

I use the unneeded characters as peripheral characters that still interact with the main characters

@igazor I got lost and didn't realize I was in Sims 3 chat! Yes, it's from a Sims 4 expansion. So sorry!

JustinRide · February 2020

I try to tell their story as well alongside that of my main characters

I don't usually play premade families, but when i make larger families through generations of playing or from CAS i'll tryo t develop all of them! :3

Steffstar · February 2020

What peripheral characters, I gravitate towards single sims

I tend to gravitate to single sims. Honestly, I normally only play one sim, even if I pick a family, and concentrate on that one's story.

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Premade Families: How do you use your non-essential characters?

Premade Families: How do you use your non-essential characters? 54 votes

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