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A question for NON-Rotational players..
Chaotic_Moira
Posts: 482 Member
In every generation of the franchise, I have been a rotational player. It didn't even occur to me some people didn't play this way until Sims 3 days. I think somewhere on the forum I came to realize it, and it always interested me. I have always wondered what the motivation of a non-rotational play style is, and how it functions..
Do you just play one household, and then when they die, keep playing that house with new sims, or their kids or something? Do you let them die, and then switch to a new house in the world? Or do you play multiple families, but all under their own save, so there is no crossover in their stories?
Something else?
If you play multiple saves, do you ever have the same sims doing different things in different saves? Marry different sims, different job, different personality, goals etc..
What is it that draws you towards this play style? Do you just enjoy switching everything up a lot? Maybe the idea of managing a whole world just doesn't appeal to you? I am curious on your thoughts.
Do you just play one household, and then when they die, keep playing that house with new sims, or their kids or something? Do you let them die, and then switch to a new house in the world? Or do you play multiple families, but all under their own save, so there is no crossover in their stories?
Something else?
If you play multiple saves, do you ever have the same sims doing different things in different saves? Marry different sims, different job, different personality, goals etc..
What is it that draws you towards this play style? Do you just enjoy switching everything up a lot? Maybe the idea of managing a whole world just doesn't appeal to you? I am curious on your thoughts.
Features I'd like brought back from the dead.
| Picture in Picture mode | Custom Paintings | Preset scenarios for resident sims | Placing my own lots |
| Saving my own Buy Mode collections! | Saving an outfit in CAS | CaSt. Smaller is ok | Open World |
| Picture in Picture mode | Custom Paintings | Preset scenarios for resident sims | Placing my own lots |
| Saving my own Buy Mode collections! | Saving an outfit in CAS | CaSt. Smaller is ok | Open World |
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Comments
In my case, I only play families that I create in CAS and focus on that one household. I guess all the other Sims in the world kind of act like extras in a movie and I'll only use them if I have a Sim intend to marry one (even that is a rare occasion as I'll usually create someone for my Sim to marry and make them run into each other) I guess I was raised playing like this, when my sisters were playing the Sims 1 I would watch because I was too young to play and when I did get to finally play I played the same way as them.
I allowed my sims to age but usually set to long lifespan, unless I felt like things weren't progressing fast enough. Once my founding sim died, I would choose my favorite of the next generation and move on with them. Sometimes I kept them in the same house, sometimes I would make them move somewhere else.
As for multiple saves, I mostly concentrated on one save but when I got bored, I would start a new one. Sometimes I would revisit the previous save. Other times, I would delete it.
I rarely replay a sim even now. The only exception is my founder in my Westbrook legacy.
What drew me to the playstyle was I didn't know rotational play was a thing until TS4. Like I said earlier, I started with TS3, and it had story progression. I only began playing rotationally when I got attached to the Westbrook family's second generation, and then the third, and so on. With no story progression in TS4 (until recently), I didn't want them to not have a life outside of growing old and dying.
I like playing non-rotationally, at least through the first generation. I usually rotate when sims from the second generation become young adults. I prefer to have sims in my rotation to have some sort of connection to each other (family, friendship, same world/neighborhood, etc).
I'm still learning exactly what works for me as far as rotational play. I don't think I'll ever exclusively go back to non-rotational but who knows?
I started off with a single female, Julianna. She married Edward and they had triplet daughters. Juliette, Hannah, and Isabel. I played the triplets through toddler-hood then aged two of them to child. Played the child sims until they'd gained skills and then aged one to teen. At this point I had a toddler, child, and teen.
Eventually I aged Juliette to young adult, Hannah to teen, and Isabel to child.
Juliette's story is here.
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/989440/this-is-what-happens-when-you-raise-a-teen-for-4-years/p1
They are all young adults now.
A few days ago Juliette gave birth to a daughter. In preparation for Little Campers because I no longer had any kids in the household.
Juliette's daughter Amelia.
She's since aged to child.
During the course of raising the girls I also focused on having their parents complete many skills, aspirations, careers, etc. Currently Julianna is working in the gardening career to become a floral designer. Edward recently reached the top of the Business career, the investor branch. He quit his job, enrolled in University for the Distinguished degree in Communications which will allow him to start at Level 7 of the business career management branch.
The family also owns several businesses. Two bakeries, two restaurants, a spa themed retail shop, and a bridal salon.
I've also created extended family members. Julianna and Edward's parents. Their siblings, spouses, and children. So there are lots of family get togethers and the kids always had lots of cousins to play with.
With the birth of Juliette's daughter the household is getting a bit crowded so the next thing I need to do is get Hannah and Isabel married and moved out to their own households. I won't play them but they'll be invited over for family get togethers.
Sometimes when a new pack releases I'll move the mom, Julianna, out to a new household and just play her in order to focus on the new pack.
I've never played rotational because I just love focusing on one family. And aging is off, no one dies so I'll be playing this family for a long time.
Some saves I'm playing through one story line, then I start a new save.
Other saves I'm playing through a legacy of some sort, where I play with one family and their kids, grandkids, etc. I usually play on normal or use MCCC to make a custom lifespan.
and other saves I'm technically playing multiple households, but that's because it's a test save and I'll play with a new pack or mod for a sim week or two before making a new household to test something else. I have a Scenarios save that's similar, in that it's one save where I play through each of the scenarios that interest me, then make a new household for the next scenario.
I have tried rotational play, but I get too wrapped up in seeing the current household make it to the end of *their* story to remember to switch.
I could never get used to it with TS4, although I guess years ago it was kind of necessary, otherwise you'd end up with literally a ghost town. Then of course I started using MCCC and that took care of that problem. I have played TS4 rotationally from time to time but I can never get used to it. I have tried.
I don't have aging on for my active household and age kids up when I feel like it.
Now TS2 is a different situation because when I play that, yes I do play rotationally because it feels like the natural thing to do, otherwise nothing moves around you and you have these families that never progress or age or anything so I do go into those other households and fiddle around with them to keep things moving along.
I guess with TS4, I'll take the grown up children and start them in a new save sometimes? That's how I usually play, although I occasionally play generations and stick with that one family until gen 10 or whatever but I just can't get into the rotational groove. I stick with that one household unless I need to go into another household for something quick.
TS2 is the only exception with rotational play. And I guess TS1 but that was so many years ago I can barely remember that but you did sort of have to play those families rotationally although nobody ever aged up by the game's design. Kids stayed kids forever and then there were just adults that never aged. Your options were to make an old looking adult or a young one and that was that.
I never play rotational; that play style has never interested me in any of the games. I always also start with a Single sim, large households are just annoying.
So basically I carefully sculpt my starter Sim, play with aging off, and play for sometimes IRL weeks before making her find a spouse etc. I usually only play 1-2 generations in a save then restart with a new save and a new single Sim, mostly because the randomized Sims that happens after the premades die are so awful and I can't spend a literal lifetime fixing all Sims in the entire save.
I generally play simselves as the heads of households, each in a different save. Their personalities may overlap, but the way they interact with the world around them is different, as are the variables you mentioned (careers, spouses, backstories, etc).
If one is allowed to die (some are immortal in one way or another), then I'll consider his story concluded, with any lingering threads as headcanon. Even if they haven't died, so long as they get to the "golden point" (a place in their stories wherein anything past that would be underwhelming), I'll consider their stories concluded as well. When this happens, I'll move them and their immediate families to a special save wherein aging is turned off, they live in their family homes, and are siblings to one another. It's kind of like a heaven for simselves.
I'm a big fan of the multiverse, be it in fiction or reality. It's been this way since I was young, and the thought of other versions of myself (as well as other universes with different rules of existence, and other realities parallel to our own) has always fascinated me. I also get bored of the same story from time to time, sometimes coming up with new ones I want to explore. Whilst most of those end up as one-shots and are deleted afterwards, some persist, and I can switch between them based on what I feel like on a given day, or if I get into a creative slump with one of them, I can take a break from it, and still play the game.
Managing a whole world of people with differing personae may seem akin to managing multiple saves with different people/versions of the same person, but where the former is like playing co-op with the game itself, the latter is more akin to marking a page in one book, and picking up where I left off in another.
I just have no interest in connecting their stories (directly), or seeing recurring characters (unless it's of particular interest to me to have a character appear, but as a different version of said character, fulfilling a predetermined role). For the most part, I like new faces, and the chance to get attached to new NPC's (I rarely use ones I've made myself).
@KyreRoen my particular style of rotational play means time management is simply not a problem. It's pretty chaotic
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity....
The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
I tried rotational play, but became quickly annoyed that my family would move forward (often in ways I did not want) while I was out playing another household. Having a micromanager's heart, I could not abide by that, so I went back to single household.
Unpopular Opinion: My least favorite life state is toddler. My most favorite is elder.
Back on topic. My play style with single sims was to use them as a sort of simself to be and do things that I'll never get to be or do in the real world. I did that to explore all the things I couldn't. There were different reasons for that, not least of which is there's no way to be a part of all the different career paths I would love to have followed. But my sim could. In every save they could follow a different career path or live a different lifestyle. That's why I played with just one sim so that I could experience those different paths more deeply. Now that I'm a rotational simmer, I've come to realize I still bond with my sims even in that style of gameplay. I can still experience al those things, with maybe a little less emotional involvement.
I still have an emotional investment in my sims. When I'm off with one household, I'm in nervous mom mode with all of my other households. How are they doing and feeling? Are they ok? Did I remember to turn off deaths in NS for them? Are they remembering to go to work? On and on. It's probably for the best I was never a mom in real life if my sims can turn me into a nervous wreck worrying about them, what would a real kid do to me?😁
I play with aging turned off, and I rarely age anyone up. So pretty much my sims never die. I just either keep playing them, or I go to a different save to play a different household. I often play one save for several weeks at a time, and then move to a different one, eventually coming back to the first one, but not in any kind of strict "rotation", just whatever I feel like doing. The same goes for the few saves where I do have more than one household.
Each of my saves (and therefor each of my households) has a different focus. I have households living in almost every world I own (but in different saves). Some are single, some have partners, some have kids, some live with roommates. I've got a scientist, a detective, an actor, a musician, a fashion consultant, a photographer, a social media influencer trying to get famous, lots of sims that don't have official jobs but make money in various other ways, and some sims that I cheated more money for at the start so they could just be rich dilettantes. I've got a guy who's training hard to climb Mount Komorebi, a guy who visits Batuu to do odd jobs for the scoundrel faction, a couple sims solving the Strangerville mystery, a couple sims dealing with living in a haunted house. I have mermaid households, alien households, vampire households, spellcaster households, and human households.
Pretty much, I just am always coming up with new ideas I want to try, and I create new saves for each one in most cases. Some I continue to play with for a long time, and some I just try for a bit and then lose interest. I have around 10 saves I am currently playing a lot, and each of them has only one household that I am playing. I have another 10 or so that I'm not playing much at the moment, but could definitely start back up with at some point.
As for what draws me to this playstyle... I don't know. It's just how I have fun. Following the path of "most fun" for me, this is just where I ended up.
In my current save I started with Johnny Zest, then he married Lulu'aina from Sulani and moved into her house and they then raised their two children Kainalu and Makani there. Makani never really caught my interest, so he and Danika Huntington are now NPCs with their child J Huntington IV and I have moved on to play Kainalu, his wife Anita and their two daughters Destinee and Nyla (both Johnny and Lulu are dead, they are buried in Sulani where Makani and Danika live as well). I am debating which of Destinee and Nyla I will go with for the future, and might actually try to play rotationally for a while until I have figured that out. Destinee is set to age up to young adult soon, so she's bound for uni (I think, maybe, she hasn't decided yet though Anita is saying it's not up for debate.)
What I like about staying with one family is that you get quite attached to them, you get to know them. When I move from one family to another I get detached and lose track of the others.
Those randomized Sims are incredibly awful! That's why I play with careful breeding of the premades to make sure they have pretty kids
Time management is a factor, but it's one of multiple.