#grimbox

Hey! Thank you so much! This sweet message made my day.

First, I want to say that there's no wrong way to play, and if you're having fun with "fixing" the scenarios, that's really valid.

But since you're asking, I'm going to assume you want to spice up the stories a little, and I can offer my perspective and some additional tips that may help.

I'm also a big control freak tbh. The way I approach gameplay and storytelling is to get a really strong sense of who I think each sim is. I'll read their bio, look at their personality, their interests, and their relationships. I also take a lot of inspiration from other storytellers in the community, blending my favorite parts of their characterization of some of the premades. I'm not above nudging personalities, interests, or changing aspirations if I get a certain sense of sim's character that doesn't mesh 100% with how they were created. A good example of this is Herb Oldie. I always make him a Pleasure aspiration, not Romance, because my view of the Oldies is that they're adventurous and spontaneous and love to have a good time (especially together). Once I have a sense of their characters, I direct my sims to do things based on who I think they are. Sometimes I do make them do things based on their wants. I also make them do things based on the wants they don't roll (for instance, John and Jennifer Burb got divorced because they weren't rolling wants for one another, John was rolling wants for more children, and Jennifer wasn't). I also force the realization of some of their fears. So, for me, how I make my sims engage with the world is a combination of what they want, what I believe their personality to be, and what will cause them to experience ups and downs in their life. There's also the added randomness of ACR, but I generally haven't had that cause too much havoc for relationships. I know some simmers find ACR to be too much, but I keep a pretty tight leash on sims that I feel just wouldn't cheat, so it's mostly a tool for letting sims partner of their own volition when I don't direct them towards a match I'm shipping.

The other thing that I think can really help if you're wanting to add something new is Random Occurrence Scenarios (ROS). You might have seen this done by other simmers, but this is basically a way to randomize some events that can happen to a specific sim or household. You use this tool in combination with a ROS file. Lots of simmers have posted their files and/or what's in them... here are just a few. I find that the scenario you roll can cause you to have to consider how to make it work within the story, or think about how other sims would react, or put sims in a new situation that gets you as a player out of your comfort zone. I usually use ROS when I don't have a plan for a given household in a rotation. I can get inspiration, or something really dramatic might happen. And the great thing is you can still have a measure of control, because no one is going to judge you if you say "nah, I don't like that scenario for this family," but it also invites you to go, "I didn't think about this as a potential event, but I'm going to roll with it and see what happens." It's that little push to, like I said, put you out of your comfort zone.

For Oak Hill, I've currently only thought about adding Riverblossom Hills (I'm actually in the process of prepping those families to add them to the rotation). I think it's a great addition due to the similar vibes and the potential for plantsims in play alongside witches and werewolves. I don't have great suggestions for uni or downtown. To be honest, I've only ever used Downtown (or rather @katatty's makeover) in neighborhoods that aren't Nowhere County. In Nowhere County, I use Copperhead City. So, for me, if I added a downtown to Oak Hill, it would just be the Downtown (an empty version). I don't often play uni, and I don't think any of them fit the vibe of the neighborhood perfectly, but people can go to college anywhere, so my suggestion would be think about which sims you think would go to college and what sort of school they'd want to go to. I personally feel like most of the teens in Oak Hill give me state school vibe, so I'd attach SSU. Alternatively, because I added Riverblossom Hills, Jules O'Mackey gives me major fancy liberal arts school with a slight European vibe, and that's Académie Le Tour in my book. It also comes down to if I want to add sims or not. I'm more likely to download an empty university if I just want my teen sims to get that experience together and with randomly generated dormies, but if I have ideas for how the premade YAs fit into a neighborhood, I'm more likely to add a premade uni.

Thank you! I'm pretty proud of my dialogue (which is why most of the writing in my posts is dialogue) and glad that the personalities come across in how I write the sims.

Thank you! I'm really enjoying writing Dina. I have a strong vision this time around, and it's a lot of fun for me to play it out.

I actually haven't addressed it, but I'm happy to answer your question.

It's not abandoned, necessarily. I still have the save file and all backups. I've just set it aside, for the moment.

Strangertown is big and (slight spoiler) will be getting bigger at the end of the current round. The way I typically play a neighborhood, I go through each family and play them for 2-3 days at a time, but Strangertown works different, in part because of the size, and in part because of the focus on more outlandish and interwoven stories. There's a lot of planning that goes into how to play a round of Strangertown. There's more posed scenes. All of this together makes it difficult for Strangertown to hold my attention at this current moment in time.

I'm having a lot more fun with the game currently hopping around between a bunch of different neighborhoods and just playing, for the most part (I can't entirely help myself when it comes to creating a story with posed scenes, but it's nowhere near the same scale). I've got a lot of stress in my life, so I'm just trying to do what is most enjoyable for the time being when I have a brief moment to play. I had a leave of absence from work last month due to health issues, which allowed me to play a lot more, but I'm back at work now and just moved to a new apartment. Money's a bit tight because of the leave (disability payments used the quarter where I wasn't working full-time, so I did not get a lot of financial assistance), the holidays, and moving. There's still so much to do to get settled in the new place. I've been trying to play through 3 days of the Chao-Townsend family for the past couple weeks and I'm only through 2 days XD None of this is meant to imply that I feel you were pressuring me in any way. I'm not making an excuse, because none was called for, I'm just musing about where I'm at with life and the game. I suppose I'm venting, really. I feel quite scattered in real life, and it impacts my attention span in the Sims.

I should say that things have improved in the last week or so because I've been getting more serious about finding a good balance for myself and I'm planning on doing a lot with stress management in 2023. If any of you have tips or resources you can point me to, I'd welcome them.

Poor Audrey, but at least Galatea and her went on to be, I assume, happy. Mike and Christine have three bolts in my game, so I can definetly see how that happened XD I still find them an odd match tbh, but the sims have chemsitry with who they have chemistry with! It's also almost guaranteed Linda will be a widow for quiet a bit... Carl is older. Sad that Karma is also gone, but I'm sure Linda must have made other friends (I hope). Scott in my game is gay, and I'm crossing my fingers that he and Tank will hit it off. I think they'd be cute and their family situations are similar, so I think they'd be able to understand one another... but they don't have much chemistry, I've learned, so they'll probably both find other sims in college or from the downtownie pool. Oh well! They'll be friends, in that case.

8. What about your story are you proud of?

I’m proud of the reactions that my stories cause. The example that comes to mind is the scene between Circe and Vidcund. That scene had a lot of people worried and/or facepalming, and I’m proud that I can entertain people that way. I hope my stories are often that entertaining for my followers.

12. Do you actually play the game or do you just use it as a storytelling medium?

I actually play the game, and my gameplay becomes part of the storytelling. It does vary based on the neighborhood, though. Strangertown has a heavier emphasis on pure storytelling, whereas Nekojima is closer to gameplay that's dressed up as storytelling. Beyond just what I post, I also play neighborhoods that are mine. There's still quite a bit of intervention to push certain narratives on my sims, however. I can't help it! I want to tell stories with the game, and sometimes gameplay needs to be supplemented with my own chaos energy.

26. Have other sim stories inspired you?

Yes, absolutely! Stories (and headcanons) by @holleyberry, @nappe-plays-the-sims, @strangetomato, @yakumtsaki, @pixeldolly, @simstralia, @katatty, @arielovessims, and @mdpthatsme have all inspired me (and that's barely brushing the surface of my inspirations).

31. Drop some random trivia about your story.

My favorite PSP character is Mambo Loa.