So, I'm in the middle of doing testing on a couple of postal-system mods I've always wanted to try. When I do testing, there's time for me to reflect on my playstyle and how I like the way in which I'm running my game. As often happens, I've come up with something that I'm not entirely satisfied with.

I find I enjoy my playful sims less than my serious ones, I guess because I tend to think of them as unreliable. And let's face it, playful sims *are* unreliable compared with their serious counterparts. Their attention span is shorter, which means they much more often decide to just stop doing something on their own that you meant them to keep doing. As far as I have observed, they even seem to have more trouble completing your commands in the first place, being quicker to abort an attempt to go and do something that you have asked them to do if any little thing gets in the way---serious sims just seem to try harder to go over and do what you ask.

Sure, playful sims have some virtues. They're somewhat more likely to seek out children and pets, and I enjoy sims who do not neglect those members of a household. And whereas serious sims will often choose to neglect their Fun or Social needs to clean a tub or put away dirty dishes, playful sims generally make sure they take care of those two of their needs just fine.

But on balance, I still just don't enjoy them enough---to the point that I occasionally townify them as teens if I already find them annoying then. (Why teens? My game generated very few townie teens, and also, my experience has been that sims I don't enjoy tend eventually to have children who grow up into adults I don't enjoy, so it seems to me that I might as well townify them sooner rather than later.)

So for example, Pascal Curious' half-alien daughter was born with 10 points Playful, and although I've made him Encourage her down to 8 points Playful, I'm thinking about the fact that I just townified Sofia Baldwin (and, honestly, felt glad to be rid of her), who had 7 or 8 Playful points. For the most part, sims I do enjoy tend to be no more than 6 Playful, though this is not an ironclad rule.

Yes, I could have Pascal encourage his daughter all the way down to 6 Playful, and I'm sure I'd like her better. But is that really how I want to run my game? True, I do calculate each sim's achievement level a la Katya Stevens and lauratje86 and others, and only my high achievers (like Pascal) will be made to encourage offspring at all without rolling wants to do so. So not all my sims will be encouraged to become Serious even if I sometimes wish they would be, because it will depend on whether or not they have a high-achieving parent who can do it---so that will consistently guarantee some diversity among my playables.

I am not starting this thread to ask anyone how I should play my game. But I very much would love to hear thoughts from the community on this. Do you like or dislike some personalities much more than others? Do you notice patterns in which personality traits you enjoy better? How do you handle the ones you don't like?

And in particular, if you enjoy your Playful sims quite a lot, what do you love about them, and do you play them differently from Serious sims to take advantage of their Playfulness? And if you don't enjoy Playful sims, how have you tried to deal with this dislike?

I find serious sims rather boring. To be honest, I'm playful myself. What am I doing? Playing computer games....
Yesterday I enjoyed two sims endlessly playing rock-paper-scissors and I was happy they got couple of hobby points in games...
My playful romance sim abandoned his freedom to marry Tara Kat and raise two daughters and her cats. I think her cats were reason why he was happy to join family. He never complained.

Personalities - I dislike only totally good and totally mean personalities.

Honestly, whatever you like or dislike is not about how many personality points a sim has, or what aspiration, or whatever. It's about whether or not you're embracing that sim as an individual with a right to be who it is.

From what you say about why you don't like them, I'm thinking you're a goal-oriented player and you want sims to achieve certain goals and you think there's a right way to achieve them. So when you find yourself getting impatient with a sim for being unreliable, ask yourself questions like this:

Whose goal is it?
If it's your goal, not the sim's goal, why should the sim care about it? What is that sim's goal?
If it's a goal your sim shares, is this the right way to achieve it - for this sim?

Let's see if I can put together an example. Dixie Land is an extraordinarily playful Fortune sim (truth) who is also nice, lazy, sloppy, and outgoing. Say her LTW is to top the Medical career. You decide that this is the goal, so you send her to University and try to get her top grades in order to get the University starting level boost, but when you set her to cleaning the dorm bathrooms to get cleaning skill points she makes faces at you and drags her feet and if you haven't timed your orders just right she takes so long to reach the bathrooms that the order times out and the next thing you know she's watching the dance channel on TV or jumping on the couch. When she finally opens her grade bar all the way up, you tell her to write a term paper, but her fun turns orange and she quits when less than 50% done. You send her to the telescope for logic and she quits to jump in puddles or dance with a random dormie. She rolls wants to join the sorority, to play with people, to go on dates, to do anything but skill. Unwilling to take the time for all that, you seize on her fortune "earn money" wants to set her to work in the cafeteria, hoping to get her aspiration up enough that she'll obey your commands to skill, but she always quits before she's earned the required amount. When she finally graduates and gets her medical job, you have the same problem - she's constantly tired and fun-drained and refusing to do the things you tell her to do. It takes her so much time to skill she never gets out to make friends, let alone marry anybody. You begin to hate her because you feel like she's refusing to knuckle down and do what's good for her.

So what if - rewind to college. Instead of telling her to clean the bathrooms, you get her fun up playing pinball and then tell her to read for a cleaning point. As soon as she gains one - just one - you tell her to stop and go do something fun. You let her join the sorority, but get rid of the pinball game, and put in a chessboard and a parrot. You let her throw parties, date, and invite over her friends outside the sorority, go to the swimming pool to pick up guys and play marco polo. Her OTH is nature so you let her put in a garden. Suddenly her grade bar is wide open because she got the charisma point she needed talking to the bird and the body point she needed playing marco polo and the logic point she needed playing chess. So you decide as soon as she gets back from class you'll have her writer her term paper but when she gets back from class the grade bar is as full as it can go - there's no point in writing a term paper! She graduates with a fiance and lots of friends, gets hired at the boosted level, and gets four promotions in a row before she needs to skill again. Of course it's those pesky mechanical or cleaning points which are no fun to get - but wait, she's been keeping up her gardening and has a gold badge. She also has lots of friends to keep in touch with from her University days. So you have her plant a lot of eggplants and put together a couple of social groups - College Friends, The Old Gang, The Medical Group - and direct her to do necessary chores, take her social group on outings, and drink eggplant juice regularly and you stop worrying about the skill points because sooner or later, whether as an outing reward or from drinking eggplant or because she was maintaining her fun bar at the level necessary to carry her through the chore of cleaning up her own shower mess every day and unclogging the commode every time she or her equally untidy family clogs it, the points will come to her. Or maybe she'll guess right on a chance card - it happens. But right now this minute DRAMA happened on the last outing and she has fences to mend and that's the goal for today, not the LTW - the LTW will happen eventually, but she needs to make up with her oldest friend whose husband she accidentally flirted with right now...

Or maybe, you should've changed her aspiration back in college, at Junior year. Maybe she should've been a Pleasure sim instead of a Fortune sim. Or maybe the LTW is a pipe dream and she's not really that ambitious and she will work for you just fine if you treat her as someone who wants to go into the medical field but doesn't have to bust her hump getting grades ahead of time. Maybe you need to think short term instead of long term for her. Maybe you think her goal ought to be "get a skill point" but her real goal is to smell all the roses and pet all the puppies she can reach right now.

I used to get frustrated by Pleasure sims, so I took one of the Tricou Girls - Night Life Hair, in my game Beverly Ku - and I sent her to college and I decided: Okay, I'm going to find out what makes a Pleasure sim tick. Anything Beverly wants to do, the one that's physically possible and gives the most points right now, that's what she does. No locking wants, no consideration of consequences to her or to anyone - we're talking pedal-to-the-metal instant gratification. And she does it Big - not just buying clothes, but buying as many outfits as I can stand to scroll through and pick in one session at a time, even if it nearly empties the household funds. Not just flirting, but flirting the guy she selects as the hottest in the room, never mind if he's her best friend's fiance and is standing next to his best friend, who is still hanging out in his undies after your morning dream date.

And Bad News Bev became a legend, first at SSU and then downtown after she graduated. She floats through life on a platinum cloud leaving her friends and relatives scrambling to pick up the pieces in her wake. She wouldn't know a long-term goal if it bit her, she is a surprisingly good mother to the three kids she's had by three different fathers (two of them married to two of her closest friends), she has a dedicated husband who loves her a lot and even fathered one of the kids, she has been the originator of circumstances that caused major decisions to be made by people one or two or three degrees of separation from her and changed the storyline of Drama Acres forever, she has been gobs of fun to play - and she taught me to enjoy playing Pleasure sims. Which is all I needed her to do.

The only person who has to be pleased is you. But if you listen to your sims and allow them to have their own agendas separate from yours - you will find you're pleased more often.

Thanks to both of you, Annaminna, and Peni, for responding already. I appreciate both of you taking the time to comment.

I'm especially honored, Peni, by your response, in which you put together entire sample scenarios for my consideration. That must have taken quite some effort, or if those things just pop up off the top of your head, then, well, I am unworthy.

You might, though, be underestimating my willingness to let my sims be who they are, Peni.

It's true that I started as a resource-management--oriented player. I discovered Sims 2 after I'd been tablet-gaming for a little while and enjoyed games that allowed me to create some semblance of a complex and intertwined system, like Townsmen or the Rebuild series by Sarah Northway.

Little did I know that a game like this one existed and could do everything (and more) that I'd only thought was a pipe dream in my gaming fantasies!

So it's been quite a journey for me to where I am now, which is looking to appreciate my sims more as individuals, just as you say, rather than as essential components in a system that interests me. But yes, I'm hoping to continue evolving that way---that's part of why I made this thread.

Now I play exclusively to sims' wants. I do honor every sim's LTW by putting them in that career track *if* they ever want a job, but they never skill or make friends with the aim of being promoted unless they tell me they want to do either. Family sims may never roll the wants to skill for their careers, and Knowledge sims may never roll the wants to make enough friends to get promoted. All good. Because the thing is, I'm quite OK with them not making their LTWs ever, if that's what happens. Heck, I'm OK with them not attending college or failing out of college (which almost half of my sims do). To me, those are priorities they set, or do not set/have, for themselves, and I want their stories to reflect those goals, or lack thereof.

Heck, actually, Pascal's alien daughter is already permaplat---I have hacks in place to prevent that from occurring too early in life from the LTW getting topped off, but her family got a genie lamp recently. And so the first three sims in her family to roll the want to make a wish (see what I mean about playing only to wants?) got wishes. And for her, I had her wish for Peace of Mind. Because being highly playful AND a child and with a Games OTH, it seemed to me that that would be the thing she would want most: to always be happy.

So I actually try really hard to play them in accordance with who they seem to be, even though that may not give me the opportunity to play in an achievement-oriented manner. But that is OK, in part because the megahood is large enough to provide me with lots of chances to play sims that I can be achievement oriented with; that is an especially fun part of my game, you see, but I do not insist on all or even most of my sims letting me play that way. And I promise that I don't resent them for it either; I try really hard to see what they *do* want to do.

Therefore, these things would not happen when I play...



Oh, Peni. These things that you list...they make me feel so misinterpreted that I am a bit sad. Perhaps I simply know no good way to express my discomfort with the Playfulness that *doesn't* seem like I'd want those things, but no, no. I am not that player.

I would never insist that a sim get those top grades, nor care that she misses the starting-level career boost, nor as I said, ever care if she achieved or didn't achieve that Medical LTW. *Unless she herself does*, based on the wants she rolls and the things she does autonomously, you see? If she rolls wants to make Dean's List and do a term paper, then I will help her do these things.

And you know how? I'm going to lock that term paper want BUT invite those sorority gals right over or start a date right then, because that's what she wants, and if that's so, then I want that for her. I love dates and rushing Greek houses, and I cannot imagine being "unwilling to take the time for all that." Why play at all if such fun things are a waste of time? (I am sure we agree on that!)

So once she gets into that house or gets a dream date (I've no problem managing either, though I also will adjust my playstyle to match the particular sim's level of experience and social clueful/clueless-ness. Maybe you don't get dream dates ever the first time dating someone, maybe you've a natural knack for it...what kind of sim do I think you are? That sort of thing. That makes me happy, to give them individual lives.), then she can do that term paper, because now she's happy enough to. If she can't manage it in one shot? Who cares? If I want to lock it overnight, she can do it tomorrow. If I decide something else is probably more interesting to her by then, oh well.

And as for hating her because she refuses to knuckle down and do what's good for her...again, no. I hope that I have already covered this above, but I do not decide what is good for my sims. They tell me what they want, and that is what happens in their lives, as best as I can help them achieve it.

Here, we agree:



Exactly! This is why I have hobby dorms, plus Greek houses. Nature sims don't need mirrors except for Change Appearance. Why not have them talk to the parrot if they must skill Charisma? It's what they'd rather do anyway. No need for exercise machines for a Games sim when Marco Polo will make them happier, either.

Of course, in my game, I set limits on skills (Sim Blender), and if they're up against theirs, those limits only get lifted for a specific want to skill, so sometimes they talk to the parrot or play Marco Polo as much as they like, and they'll never earn that point they need for their grade bar to open up, because those are my rules. But you see, that is perfectly OK with me. I have no trouble with it at all if they are expelled because they never rolled a single want to skill. If that means they can't ever achieve their degree-requiring LTW career, that's OK with me too. I will still play them, and happily.

In that case, if I feel I'm doing OK at playing to who they are and what they want, what is the problem that I am having? Well, you're actually doing me the service of helping me narrow it down! And I thank you for this.

Because it's this type of thing, though a bit reversed...



And I think that's it. Bit embarrassing, really. The distinction isn't that I expect things of them that they don't care about. It's that when I ask them to do things based on their wants (and perhaps those wants ARE to jump on the couch, say, which is just fine with me)...why is she over there cheering at the cheerleader?

Which means, I think, that I am frustrated because so often, I find it difficult to help Playful sims fulfill their simplest wants.

Pascal's daughter keeps rolling a want to play piano and ends up playing Red Hands with Lazlo instead. Either way, her Fun was maxed already, so it doesn't matter really. But it makes playing to her wants irritating, and that makes me irritated with her.

In the end, I think it's just that I wish the sims' behavior was a bit more in sync with which wants they roll. Sure, I understand the character-development potential in Nervous Subject Wanting to fall in love and yet hating to flirt. But little wants, wants like Play Piano? I tried to help you do it. You like playing piano. And here you are not anyway. How can I help you??

And I guess that's my frustration. I want to help all my sims have the lives they want. The distractibility of Playful sims makes that tough. The fact that Serious sims do what you ask means they fulfill the wants they roll. And I suppose that makes them more rewarding for me to play. But I'm trying to figure out how to treat Playful sims in a way that makes them as rewarding too.

Oh, I always do the example thing - I don't think well abstractly. And I don't think you expressed yourself badly, just couldn't take into account all the ways somebody coming at it from outside could read it. All communication is like that.

It can indeed be frustrating if the sim in question won't cooperate to do what she wants, but - this is a key rule of characterization - contrariness is revealing. Don't you know people like that? They want something and yet they get in their own way when it comes time to do it? Heck, don't you do that to yourself, sometimes? So if this is a consistent pattern, maybe there's a backstory with it. Maybe there's a medical disorder. Maybe there's a Fatal Flaw. Or maybe it's just a Quirk. Any of those things can be used to create interest. Let's see what we can do here (with the understanding that this is me thinking about how I would play it, not me saying how you should play it; one of the advantages of doing this is that sometimes I present The Exact Wrong Thing so definitively that the Exact Right Thing leaps out at the listener).

Pascal's daughter is a child. She already has Peace of Mind - she is permaplat - therefore filling her wants has no effect on anything (except influence points) and is essentially meaningless. Perhaps there is a level at which she understands this. Perhaps she feels that she should be using her permaplatness to do something more meaningful than filling her passing fancies, but can't think what it might be. Perhaps she needs to experiment to figure it out; or perhaps she needs direction from outside. Some people need leaders. I think in this situation I would just free-range her and watch what she does on her own, regardless of the wants panel. It's astonishing how often you can interpret a meaningful pattern into what your analytical brain understands to be randomized behavior, and how often that presents a strong character arc to you. Leave her alone and watch her till she grows to teen and base your choice of aspiration on how you interpret her behavior.

Perhaps the wish for Peace of Mind gave her access to ancient wisdom and she will be a powerful guru once she learns to process it, someone for whom everyday material wants, though still present, are simply not important. At the other end of the spectrum, perhaps it's turned off a part of her brain that creates distress and conflict and she's arguably got a mental disorder.

I play largely to wants, but we should not forget how often we ourselves go through our days without doing anything that is recognizably in our wants panel. Sometimes it's because we recognize (or erroneously believe) that the want is a bad one; sometimes it's because we let our fears control us instead; sometimes it's because circumstances are such that we have to prioritize other things. During my Year from Hell I seldom filled wants for anything except specific foods and Read Novel, because I, as 50% of the mentally and physically more-or-less sound people at any given time in my circle of friends, could not prioritize things that normally would have mattered. Somebody had to clean that bathroom right now and the only somebody who could do it was me. If I had been permaplat this would not have been a problem - I would have gone through my days doing all of what was necessary instead of the bare minimum my aspiration levels let me do. And my sims have times like that, too.

Maybe this little girl is someone who takes care of everyone around her because she, in herself, is fine. Or perhaps she has a Destiny, a Greater Purpose - something that her playfulness uniquely qualifies her to do. That could be a huge long-running story arc! Think about it.

Peni, thank you for treating this with such seriousness. It's a great forum for that---we are serious about this game, lol.

You've said so much that I want to take in, and I have to go out for what may be a while. So I'm going to take the opportunity to think about what you said. It doesn't immediately strike me how I could also apply this to other Playful sims, but I'll let it percolate. I like the specific ideas for Pascal's daughter! And it strikes me that I will be a better player if I can learn to make similar adaptations for other sims, even if they don't have her unusual circumstances. (I don't want to only be OK with highly Playful sims that have special stories, lol.)

By the way, especially chuckled at this:



Will write more after I've come back later.

(And folks, please feel free to jump in if you're still reading past the walls of text! Would love to know if others are struggling with this too.)

For me, playful Sims are easy in so many ways. Party boring? Water balloon fight! And playful Sims will ALL take part, and there can be 10 of them taking part in the water balloon fight, and they will have the time of their life! They make friends easily, because they will play catch with as much as enthusiasm as anything else - yet they can be serious when necessary, and still love to discuss books or film (or whatever) .

A child has to play, I believe, even if not all the time, it is good for the development of muscles and brain cells. So playful kids probably has an advantage in the Sim world as well.

And she will skill - by playing chess, for playful Sims love chess; and she will learn to clean if you teach her to clean up after herself instead of having a maid, and she will learn mechanical skills if you get her the hobby train thing, for playful Sims love that (and I think those are the skills needed for the medical career) Balancing wants and what needs to be done for a Sim is a challenge of its own. Enjoy Pascal's daughter, and have fun.

But don't all sims have their own special stories? It's one of my principles of sandbox gaming that every person is the hero of her own story, and that it's on me to make decisions that reflect that. So the stories pretty much generate themselves.

But I also have a very intense playstyle. When I play a lot, I play the heck out of it. And not everybody needs or wants to play that intensely all the time. In which case, it's as well to have a number of different strategies for dealing with sims you aren't enjoying much. Turning them into townies is also a perfectly legitimate one, as is establishing different rules for problem sims (this is the sim I fill fears for! This is the sim I only ever free range! This is the sim who tries out this feature I never use!). As is, in worse case scenarios, dropping a satellite on one. But that's a strategy of last resort, not at all suitable for sims with characteristics you just don't have the hang of. Any technique that lets you find the best way to enjoy a particular sim is a good thing.

Playful sims make me smile. I love the little animations they have which are only autonomous and only available to them that they will do at random with the household items. I won't spoil the surprise, but since one of my favourite things is seeing what happens when you leave sims to free-will themselves into shenanigans, I recommend that you leave her unattended for a while and just see how she surprises you.

One thing I have discovered later in my sims journey which I love is dressing sims according to their personality. Click the spoiler to see my rules (more guidelines or suggestions, really) - you might not agree with my interpretations but I find that it really helps in shaping a sim's personality, and it really adds some interest to the random things that they do which fit their personality.



I have a LOT of sims, and in most of my hoods there are always one or two kids at any time who are both Outgoing (not afraid to stand out from the crowd or look "different") and Playful, and so they will go around the neighbourhood, yep, to school and everything, dressed as a pirate, or a fairy, or a dragon. Why not? And those "annoying" actions are suddenly so much funnier when you have a little pirate (or whatever) doing them.

I've been enjoying reading these walls of text, but have been unsure what to add. Reading this made me realize that it is my playful sims that I tend to lose track of. Playful sims are the ones that cause me to say things like "of course he's playing in the bathtub instead of bathing the toddler" or if it's raining, "stop jumping in puddles, do you want to get struck by lightening?" I don't see any correlation between sims I am not having fun playing with and their personality, though.

With playful sims, the queue dropping doesn't really bother me. A lot of my households are large and the sims that drop items from their queue to do something else can add a bit of randomness to the lot, and sometimes some humour. Sometimes what it's adding is challenge (to keep up needs and aspiration), and I like things that make the game more difficult.

When I do have sims that I can't connect with, don't enjoy playing, or don't understand, I tend to let them act autonomously for a bit while I think about how I am playing their lot and how I see that sim's story. I've got guidelines for how I do things like direct skilling and lock wants that are based on how I interpret that sim's personality, but within those there is a lot of room to play each sim differently. I also have lots that are either challenges like a trailer park challenge, or are being played differently from regular family lots like a military barracks or a cult. Sometimes after watching a sim act on its own, I'll change how I view that sim's personality and so will change their motivation level (that's rare - I think I've only done that twice). Usually their actions give me a better idea of the sorts of things to direct them to do or a new idea for their story. Sometimes the sim gets a new hobby/activity - playful and outgoing sims may become karaoke fans, or join a sports team. Sometimes I decide that the sim will be moving to one of the special lots (either one they are really well suited for or comically bad for - playful and lazy might struggle with the regimen in the barracks, but that could be part of their story). I have to admit I like watching playful sims as uncontrolled members of an asylum or isbi challenge.

I've currently got a teen with 0 neat and 1 nice points in a house where half his siblings are neat and they are mostly mad at him for trashing the bathrooms and for irritating them. He had been annoying me by making an already challenging house more difficult (it's my baby/season lot with too few bathrooms), but I recently changed how I view him and his story, and I'm now looking forward to playing him again. As he grows up, I plan on having him become a mean grimy sim living on his own, and I'll have him trash his house as best I can. He can pick fights and make enemies (well outside how I normally play, but I think it will work for him). Once he's gotten weeds, broken plumbing and appliances, and dishes everywhere, I expect he'll eventually meet a demise by flies if he doesn't end up in my 'hood's jail. At that point, a neat sim will move in to his old house as a messy lot challenge.

I would have to agree with stitching. Despite being messy in real life myself, I don't really like sloppy sims. It's the burping and farting. I think it's gross. But actually, even that ended up endearing when I noticed that one particular family would just burp constantly through their meals, laugh at each other, and carry on. I don't know why it was suddenly sweet when it was them - it really made no sense! - but it just was.

And I have to laugh at the expression a neat sim pulls when they dine with a sloppy companion.

Each Sim, to me, has his/her own story, but playful Sims do have some things in common It would be boring if all their stories were the same! I don't even have a queue, Sims do one thing at a time in my game I believe in real life in doing one thing at a time, I do not multi-task, or try to master multi-tasking, and so I have my Sims doing one thing at a time as well. That does mean that I sometimes have to slow down my playing even more; and that I have to use my fingers quickly Yet I have to get to know every Sim, and for me it is impossible to do if I just queue a lot of actions up for each one.

No and 1 nice point Sims have been part of my hoods, and I had some fun with them as well If you play them according to their needs, their reputation goes up (!!) every time they beat somebody up. And my Mr No Nice Points, although not having a lot of friends, is intensely loyal to the few he does have - and will beat up anyone who gives them grief.

I play Kipling slower than I have ever played a lot before - I intend this one to outlast my four and a half years blown up hood

I will admit to not reading very much of the walls of text. Perhapes make bold any questions you have.

I enjoy all kinds of sims, but I especially enjoy those with extreme personalities. The one thing I could not stand was the lazy sim slouch since to me it looked nothing like being lazy and more like they had just run a a marathon. That I modded out. I am also someone that uses motivation levels and I really need some more playful sims since I need some low motivation sims-who else is going to take on the NPC jobs? I have far too many college graduates. What do you have set up for your low motivation sims that could make them interesting to play? Perhapes think of something just for them.

I really want each sims personality to show, so having one sim choose to read a book and another choose to go play in the shower, and another stealing the paper, that is what I want to see. If all of them chose the book that would get boring. Sloppy sims make for extreamly amusing meals since any neat sim eating with them is sure to get the funniest disgusted faces from their belching. Or as they toss food around I can imagine what the neat sim is thinking. I think part of it is slowing down and noticing things and appreciating the small things. A lot of people I have noticed play too fast. They skip passed things that are funny, cute or interesting on speed three and never stop to look at what they are missing. Is the meal time just about quickly filling the hunger bar before going onto something interesting or is the meal itself interesting.

I've always avoided Pleasure Sims due to the silly and rapidly changing wants. Adults bouncing on chairs didn't seem sensible. But after playing this game for 12 years, you got to change if you don't want to get bored. I play my version of a BACC challenge, and cities come with all types of people, and therefore pleasure sims are needed. I had a plan, if you have seen the original publicity material for the sims 2, Maxis had two different types of sims living in an apartment together in total unhappiness. That's why I attempted to do with my two male sims.

Royce is shy, sensible, a bit lazy and very neat, he's also the bank manager and a knowledge sim. His roommate Hawke is the total opposite. Hawke is a Pleasure sim. He's also a criminal with a great sense of humour, as well as being outgoing and a total, total slob. I imagined him as a handsome football jock, but when we got into CAS, somehow he came out with a stone rock jaw, twinkle eyes that just said "pleasure is my life". He's such a joy to be with, everyone adore's him including me. I think he's as thick as two planks, he doesn't seem too clever, so it absolutely makes sense for him to be jumping on sofa's, and the next minute swimming and changing his mind every second and then forgetting what he planned to do. Most of the time he doesn't do much except party downstairs with all the neighbours. Royce adores him, because Hawke challenges him to be more social, and Hawke makes the bathroom a mess so he get to clean even more. Royce really loves cleaning. Sometimes Hawke's downstairs till very late, which is great for Royce because really loves being alone.

I love when I get to their rotation, I'm fascinated by what thing Hawke will want to do next. Unfortunately the Maxis experiment failed, these two opposites in every way (race and sexuality included) are the very best of friends. I liked Hawke so much, I made even more pleasure sims, but these are teens who I also created to be mean. So far their doing well, even if their idea of fun is a noggie to the head.

ETA: About Hawke's wishes, well I know Hawke, if he gets a wish say to play piano, it's because he saw someone do it one time and he thinks that'll he'll be a concert pianist with his first try. I usually point him towards the dartboard instead.

Play piano is something I would let them do on free will. How much free will are you giving them? Perhaps you are trying to direct too much. Most sims if given a near by piano will at some point attempt to play it. Just leave it to her. Also who says all adults are sensible? Most of us here are over 40 and very into playing games.

I am not sure that Pleasure Sims are equal to Playful Sims (although it is certainly easier if they are playful)! It is often those in the high stress careers that are the most playful (go and look who is at the golf course )

I often make playful sims pleasure sims. Serious sims I generally make knowledge or fortune.

Well, I'm no help with the discussion because I've never had a problem with playful sims. But some of the behaviours sound fixable. For example, I don't use it anymore because it stopped hammocks working in my game, but Pescado's noadhd might fix the not sticking with stuff problem.

noadhd.package

Removes ADHD (Sims repeatedly stopping and starting an activity). Sims will tend to finish what they are doing before doing something else (so no more pick up a book to read, and immediately drop it to go watch TV).

Or there's Cyjon's More Fun.

http://www.cyjon.net/node/341

I don't know if either of those will help, but sims not sticking with activities has for me been a problem with all sims.

Wow, I am stunned and grateful to see all the responses this thread has gotten. Just one more (especially amazing) example that makes me more glad all the time that I decided to stop lurking. Thank you to everyone who's been responding.

@Peni Griffin, thank you so much for adding your expertise on characterization to this mix. I have definitely found my game more and more rewarding as I flesh out sims' personal storylines. Really like the idea of not trying to play to my Playful sims' wants, particularly if I have felt frustrated already in attempting to do so, and just letting them free range for a while until I have a handle on who they are (stitching, you mentioned that as well). Maybe it will actually help if I think of Playful sims as having Wants, sure, but also as less intent on achieving those Wants, because they live in the moment more. And that would also explain getting distracted on the way to fulfill a Want.

That is, thanks to this discussion, I think I ought to give myself permission to be bothered less by Playful sims' greater difficulty in fulfilling Wants, say due to higher distractibility. Perhaps in and of itself, fulfilling Wants is a goal-oriented, Serious sort of behavior. Which means that focusing on those maybe should be less important, if I'm going to be true to who my Playful sims are!

For example, now I'm starting to think that I could consider my Playful sims to have a "hidden" want to be free-ranged, as Peni puts it. I mean, some very Serious sims give me the impression that they almost prefer to be directed, because they are always looking on their own for constructive, responsible stuff to do. Maybe I should be more open to the fact that perhaps Playful sims actually somewhat prefer not to be directed---and that is the message in their distractibility!

Thanks also to stitching for validating that indeed it's more work to keep Playful sims in high aspiration. Now it's occurred to me that if that bothers me...I already use BoilingOil's Reward Catalog in my game (mainly because I play with No Free Food , and the Catalog allows me to make aspiration points a secondary currency for buying top-off quantities of food for the fridge). I only rarely have been using the Catalog's boost-aspiration function, *but* if the fact that the extra trouble fulfilling Playful sims' wants bothers me, why not top them up to gold occasionally using the Catalog...after they've been free-ranged for a while? That would reflect that I've already done something that makes them happy---getting to do whatever they want.

So I'm thinking that perhaps the whole Wants system is really too goal-oriented to properly accommodate playing Playful sims as they might prefer to be played. And the occasional RC-based boost of their aspiration to gold could serve to remind me of that---maybe just for a while, until I am better at remembering that they don't want to be directed all the time. And Peni, your sharing your personal experience about your Year from Hell is helpful as well in reminding me that all my sims should be played as less Wants oriented in times of stress. Thank you for being willing to disclose.

For me, then, that appears to be the key. It's already not been important to me for any sim to skill or meet other outside goals...except as a sim's Wants panel dictates. But maybe I should be recognizing that having and actually acting on Wants are in lockstep only for Serious sims, and that the essence of being Playful may be that Wants are still (often) short-term goals, and Playful sims don't necessarily want to focus on any goals at all.

One thing that I didn't mention is that I always roll for primary aspirations at teen and typically change them only if they make it to junior year at university and only if I feel the aspiration isn't interesting or fitting at that time (which can be two entirely different things!). I had it in my head that this could reflect the maturation that might happen at uni. Also, when I implemented that rule for myself, I was trying to avoid setting everyone up for success, because I know perfectly well how to do that and preferred to ensure that I shook things up a bit.

I actually have loved having Serious sims with Pleasure aspirations, for example. And I only learned that by randomizing. (Enough that it inspired me to give Circe Beaker a Pleasure secondary and then rerolled her LTW, with the result that she wants to be a Prestidigitator and is highly entertaining: a nasty, fight-starting sim who pranks with water balloons, autonomously mops up the resulting puddles, and then keeps on ignoring the annoyed other sim to fulfill her Want of Jump on Couch---after which she may fulfill her promotion-oriented skilling want by SimVaccing her guest. That sort of thing has made Circe a further twisted, short attention--spanned joy for me to play.)

Perhaps that ties in with the recurrent mention in responses here of Pleasure sims. Funny thing is, I don't mind Pleasure sims at all. Nope, they don't have true life goals according to their wants, though again I will honor whatever LTW they have by putting them in the right job track or trying to get them all those dream/first dates. But that lack doesn't bother me. So perhaps I can find some way of tapping my willingness to accept Pleasure sims to further increase my acceptance and appreciation of Playful sims as well. More thinking to do.

@simsfreq, I actually have very similar (and similarly extensive) rules about dressing and making up/hairstyling teen and older sims! Find it great fun also to have their appearances thus telegraph what they're about. Heh, had to laugh because that not-wearing-white thing is one of my principles also when dressing sloppy sims. Unless...I do have some white shirts with enough graphics on them to hide dirt, like the one in the upper-left corner in the first pic of this download. So a sloppy sim who loves fashion (per Interests) might get to wear that. But yes, I totally agree that what Playful sims wear should be very different from what Serious sims wear. Oh, and I do hats and facepaint (full-face makeup) for some Playful sims as well; my Outgoing sims and Playful sims may also dye their hair, so a natural brunette might go blonde or red (as a teen with permissive/fashion-loving parents, and certainly as a YA or adult).

So thank you so much for sharing your ideas there; I found it a fun read. And you did remind me about dressing the Playful children up, which is something that I've neglected to do. You're right---a little pirate getting into mischief is extra funny...and a good reminder to me that that kid is Playful.


I love it too! I've often wondered why it did not make for the tiniest hit to STR, like just a point. It should if the Neat sim grumbles about it, I think, though to do it right probably there would be a bigger STR hit if LTR is low, and a smaller or no hit if the LTR is high or maxed. Er, yeah, I guess I begin to see why that wasn't done, heh.


And yet I'm so glad that you jumped in, @stitching. You are always thoughtful. And I like that phrase---"losing track" of the playful ones! Yes, that's what happens. I suppose that part of my discomfort, if I'm perfectly honest, has been that this makes me feel like I'm not doing well at playing them. So perhaps now that I'm going to think of them as *wanting* not to be kept such close track of, I can start to let go of that.


I hadn't thought about it, but you know, @Justpetro, that highlights a part of my playstyle that is surely why Playful sims frustrate me, especially in larger households. Because I quite enjoy the challenge of a larger house, but to handle those households, I use the pause button constantly (OK, actually I use Pause all the time---I like to check on each sim individually; agreed, @joandsarah77, that playing on high speeds seems a bit pointless in a game as full of lovely small moments as this) and fill or half-fill pretty much everyone's queue. So everyone's made it down to breakfast after using the bathroom or finishing homework or feeding the fish/cat/dog or whatever, but Mr. Playful hasn't actually bothered to make it, as he was asked. And I've only just noticed, and that's really annoying.

But if I didn't play that way (queuing up tasks), then it would bother me much less that Playful sims queue-drop. Now, creating queues is fun for me, so I doubt I'll stop entirely. But if I'm going to insist on loading up queues, then maybe making better allowances for Playful sims would be smarter. Like, have that high--Cooking skill, high Playful sim make breakfast first thing in their queue if I think it's that important, and then I can queue up what's less important for after; if they queue drop showering or whatever, then they go to work dirty, but that isn't as important to me as making sure there's breakfast for everyone.

In other words, I know I dislike it when Playful sims choose to be irresponsible in ways that affect others. So (as might be Peni's advice) I can either make it a story point when they do it (no one got breakfast because Mr. Playful decided to play on the swingset instead), or I can set up queues more effectively, so that they are less likely to queue drop what affects other sims most and can be more free to queue drop what doesn't affect others so much (like whether or not they get a shower).


LOL, I did not know that winning fights had that effect on reputation. Funny! Agreed---I actually love Grouchy sims, the Grouchier the better. Shy and Grouchy, Active and Grouchy, doesn't matter...everything is somehow more fun with Grouchy sims. I would probably say I love Grouchy sims to the same extent that I have been uncomfortable with Playful ones!

And yes, Sloppy sims are not my favorite either, mainly because they aren't just Sloppy for themselves but are inconsiderate to others (farting on the table after they get up, regardless of whether others are eating). That makes them, I think, unnecessarily obnoxious.

I agree with @Annaminna as well that 10 Nice sims can be annoying, perhaps because I so enjoy the effects of Grouchiness. The crying and unwillingness to defend themselves is again something that I'm not sure is a good expression of Nice. Though I know Peni has mentioned before about 10 Nice sims being happy to go to bat for others they care about.

Ah, hi there, @Charity! You've just posted as I'm wrapping up this response, and thanks. Heh, I already have noadhd, but I'll see if the Cyjon mod is something that might help. What annoyed me, though, about Playful sims was the queue dropping, rather than quitting something they were doing (which for whatever reason I don't mind so much, except for cooking---the reason I got noadhd). It does seem that I'm getting a handle, thanks to this great discussion, on how to deal with that better...maybe.

Anyone who wishes, please continue to add your thoughts. I would love for this to be a thread that many people get inspiration from (and share thoughts in), not just me.

I love playful sims! Perhaps because I can relate to them I've never noticed that with the queue dropping, though.
A large majority of my sims have specifically two lazy/neat points, so getting a neat sim makes me happy - finally someone I won't have to play mum with and tell to put away their dirty dishes and stuff all the time And also for the sake of variety - most of my sims end up very active, sloppy and outgoing (since I don't make new ones myself, so pretty much everyone is born into the game), and as much as I love those, I'll be glad to have someone lazy or neat or shy for a change.
I also love sims who are either very grouchy or very nice. Some of my favourite sims have one nice point each, although one of them is actually a total sweetheart. That sim also has two neat points, yet he's very good at keeping the house tidy, and he's been that way since he was a teenager and constantly would take the trash out and pick up stuff from the floor left by his equally sloppy family members. I think it's nice how their behaviour can sometimes still surprise you. My most popular popularity sim is very shy and very serious, and therefore I'd never imagine he'd make as many friends as quickly as he did. On the other hand, he's also extremely nice, so I imagine those three personality traits combined would make him very pleasant to be around

Wow. A place for long posts! I should fit right in here.

But this time, it won't be so long a post. I had STARTED to make one, but meh. I'm not in a long post mood right now. I'm not quite myself today ... I'm dealing with very sad news in real life.

When making a user-made, I almost never make zero points in any category, nor do I make more than eight. I would think an overly lazy/active/clean/nice/sloppy/etc. Sim would translate into an aggravatingly annoying person in real life!

And I kind of like playful Sims too, in moderation. The world can sometimes seem too solemn.

Apart from that, I always have at least three points in the lazy/active category. That is a holdover from my seeing my really lazy ones slouching. I couldn't stand the slouching. A mod got rid of that, fortunately, but the tendency to not make a Sim overly lazy still remains.

But they're not annoying, they're charming and show off unique animations!

IRL annoyingness is related to tiredness in the beholder and inconsiderate behavior rather than personality points.

Heh, I think pretty much any sim can be annoying momentarily, at least if you play with free will on; stuff sometimes just happens. But I also agree that they are all charming as well, and most of the time. Otherwise none of us would love this game the way we do. (Editing to add: Nor would I have been bothered enough by my discomfort with Playful sims to start this thread, lol.)

Mostly I find that when I'm getting annoyed, it's logistics which are at fault, not my sims. So either I've built a house terribly and the flow is non-existent, or I'm playing some sort of challenge where there are far too many sims in a much-too-small space.

Playful sims . . . well, they irritate me, too. Just like people who act like them do. But they fill a role in the game that would otherwise be empty, and the game wouldn't be as much fun. They're the drama vectors. Always and always, if there's a sim who acts without thinking about the consequences, an impulsive sim--the one who wants to plant a garden but never gets around to taking care of it. The one who wants to get engaged without thinking about if their partner expects commitment. The one who wants a baby and doesn't realize it's not a doll, but it needs actual care. Those are playful sims. Not all playful sims don't think things through, but all sims who don't think things through are playful. In some households, like the Curiuos-Smiths, it's no big deal. Wanted a baby? Don't want to care for it? Jenny or Pascal or Lola or Vidcund or Jane or someone is on top of that. In other households, someone will be stuck doing the work who resents the work. In yet other households, there's no one to pick up the slack, and the baby gets neglected. So if it weren't for the playful sims, I'd be missing that aspect of behavior.