Morality & The Sims

[windy_moon]

No, I'm not Jack Thompson.   

I find I've developed a pattern of playing Pleasantview (my main hood) with a certain (twisted) moral standard, and I'm curious if other people have their own "rules" for Sim behavior. 

So far, no divorces other than Mary Sue & Daniel Pleasant when I first started playing.

Cheating, yep, there's some... I created more Romance Sims to start than I might have if I'd known what I was in for.   

I seem to have no boundries for Elders, especially elder women.  Maybe I figure they should get what they can get when they can get it!  I have the sweetest elder woman married to Mortie, family Sim, and yet she still finds herself in these situations where she ends up cheating on him.  All of the elder men in the neighborhood pine for her.  Mortie has no clue and it's best if he remains in the dark, yes?

Teens and unmarried Sims seem to bounce around a bit...how like life is that....but my married with children Sims, nun uh, there's no cheating and there won't be while this Sheriff is in town. 

I tend to be overly introspective as to what my Sims play is revealing about my own nature.  I'm a faithful, relatively happily married woman with two children.  When I'm Mama Goth's age, will I be jumping in and out of hot tubs with anybody who asks?   

(I am also a hypocrite.  When my 13 year old wanted to change somebody's spouse, I did it in SimPe for him because I didn't want him to act out an affair and divorce.)

How does your neighborhood run?

[J. M. Pescado]

Very mechanistically, purposefully, and directedly. If I set out to do something, no matter what it is, I will succeed, invariably with formulaic precision. About the only thing that DOESN'T happen is something going wrong, because I am too awesome for that.

[dizzy]

I don't act as "censor" in my neighborhoods, but I also don't encourage a lot of romantic behavior. I find the sims to be childish and brutish in their social expressions in general, so romance tends to be a frequent eyesore.

I am most disturbed, I think, by the highly aggressive nature of sims. This has become compounded in Nightlife where sims can go from being good-natured and amiable to being furious enemies in literally seconds. My initial reaction to this is to want to make the sims get along, but I realize that this is all just part of making the sims more marketable than it is playable. It simply isn't possible for me to expect the Sims to play like a Simulation, I guess. 

[Gus Smedstad]

I vacillate a bit on this.  Most of the time everyone but Romance sims sticks to their first relationship.  Until Nightlife I was running the "Teens Keep Loves" mod, so generally everyone settled down with their childhood sweetheart.  I'm debating reinstalling this mod since it's supposed to be Nightlife compatible.  The problem is that it kills much of Nightlife's dating gameplay if Sims never develop a second relationship.  The first relationship sets their sexuality, so you can't let them pick their own interests initially.

All of my Sims are heterosexual, by the way.  I don't play gay sims for the same reason I don't watch gay romance films.  I'm not wired to enjoy that.

Sometimes my Sims seem to completely lose interest in their partner.  They stop rolling "Talk With...", "Flirt With..." etc. Wants for that Sim.  When that happens, I occasionally will have them start pursuing someone who they do roll Wants for.  In that case I'll break off the old relationship rather than have them cheat.

Naturally the main exception to all this straight-laced monogamy is my alter-Sim, who got 3 wives when I first started playing The Sims 2.  OK, 1 wife and 2 live-in girlfriends.  The problem was that getting any WooHoo in was a nerve-wracking exercise, since the other two had to be asleep or off the lot.  I started developing a Pavlovian response where I practically expected the "Bwong!" jealousy noise and a round of slapping every time he got any WooHoo.  After a while I dropped 2 of the 3 because it was just so much more pleasant to WooHoo anytime he got the urge.

Jealousy seems like a more serious issue now that Nightlife is here.  Not only do they get Furious, but the LTR relationship now drops to -50 or worse, instead of cheating just hurting DR and keeping the Love flag.  Plus they start hitting and arguing with the cheater autonomously.  I'm toying with doing the 3-wives thing again with a new alter-Sim just for the challenge under the new rules.

 - Gus

[Inge]

Along the lines of the wrong sim getting the apologise option, how come both sims become furious with *each other*?   Why isn't it just the wronged party who gets angry and refuses to sleep with the other?

[windy_moon]

Very mechanistically, purposefully, and directedly. If I set out to do something, no matter what it is, I will succeed, invariably with formulaic precision. About the only thing that DOESN'T happen is something going wrong, because I am too awesome for that.

LOL, that is your morality, I do suspect....above all, be productive and logical at all times.  You make your mods to that end and even though productivity isn't necessarily my end, they are great for my kind of game play.  I don't know how I ever threw a party without 'bathroom uses you', for instance.  All those annoyances get in the way of making nice happy stories.

I am most disturbed, I think, by the highly aggressive nature of sims. This has become compounded in Nightlife where sims can go from being good-natured and amiable to being furious enemies in literally seconds. My initial reaction to this is to want to make the sims get along, but I realize that this is all just part of making the sims more marketable than it is playable. It simply isn't possible for me to expect the Sims to play like a Simulation, I guess.

*concerned look*

I know.  I don't have NL installed yet, but all of this talk of enemies and fighting, I'm squirming in my seat just reading the threads (which I can't stop reading of course   )

I'm hoping there are mods that I can use to tone down that behavior when I do install.  I welcome a little game imposed drama, like the chance cards (which I play faithfully and accept the outcome), but I don't want half my neighborhood enemies with the other half, not fun.

The game started off with Lillith & Angela enemies.  I've worked hard to turn them around and it's made a great storyline, but I don't want to have to do that for 50 sims, repeatedly.

Oy!

[Gus Smedstad]

Along the lines of the wrong sim getting the apologise option, how come both sims become furious with *each other*?   Why isn't it just the wronged party who gets angry and refuses to sleep with the other?

It's the slapping.  No one likes being slapped.  Though this seems to vary, I've had a few jealousy episodes recently, and the cheater doesn't always seem to get furious.

Since you mention it, the apologize option really bugs me.  The way the wounded party has to apologize and the cheater can't apologize is completely whacked.  It's like they're dogs.  If you accidently step on a dog's foot, they get all apologetic - "I'm sorry!  I'm sorry!  You hurt me, I must have done something wrong!"    Sigh, dogs are such doormats.

 - Gus

[sadiebutterfly]

It's the slapping.  No one likes being slapped.

The slapping is the only aspect of sim behaviour that really squicks me. I don't care if you caught your girlfriend flirting with someone else, hitting her round the head is WRONG. I wish there were non-violent ways of ending relationships in-game, so couples could break up amicably without me having to mess around in SimPE.

My Romance Sims tend to be completely amoral and have affairs and random children all over the place. Most of the others are monogamous. I've only had one divorce (Dina and Don, after she found out he'd fathered Nina's baby). Daniel and Mary-Sue were living apart when he died, but a divorce would have put their grandchildren into aspirational failure so I didn't bother.

[rohina]

I've been playing the cheating according to my sims' wants recently. It's kind of a morality experiment. So the romance sims do lots of cheating, but last night I was astonished when a previously faithful family sim rolled up a want to flirt with her best friend, and then wanted to make out, then woohoo (so she did) three times in a row at a comminity lot. It was as if she had suddenly decided to have a passionate affair. The guy was science, and had the romantic wants too (at least to start with. I think she wore him out.)
I have also found there are sims who are apparently quite content to live their entire lives without any romantic interaction wants whatsoever. One I am playing is a male popularity sim, the other is fortune. They're both single although they have lots of friends. The fortune sim wants to marry money, but he doesn't have any desire for romantic interactions which might help with the attraction of a spouse.

[nothingbutsims]

I find myself enjoying content neighborhoods.  I rarely create a romantic sim, nor do I play their households (Don Lothario or the Caliente sisters).  I even got Lilith Pleasant and her sister to be friends  .  There's so much crazy fighting and flirting in the background already that I don't want to add to it.  I like to have as much peace in my families as I possibly can.  If a sim rolls a crazy want to have an affair or flirt with someone else while they are married, I certainly won't give in to that.  Yea, maybe it sounds boring to some but I hate all that slapping too and the fuming for weeks over someone cheating.  Lilith Pleasant's fiance was flirted with by the damn cow mascot at college before I could stop HIM.  They have since graduated and gotten married and she still stomps her feet in her husband's face and fumes about a broken promise and he didn't even do anything!  It was the stupid cow's fault.  No, I don't like families and neighborhoods like that.  Give me peaceful anytime.

Edit:  Rohina - I love your picture - he/she looks like one of my cats

[Hook]

I almost never think in terms of moral and immoral.  Sims are electrons and pixels, and any "morallity" is enforced upon them by the players. 

I prefer to think in terms of "efficient" and "inefficient."  Having a smoothly running neighborhood is efficient.  Having everyone slapping and fighting is inefficient.  I'm a Virgo, I prefer efficiency.

I have enough neighborhoods and families that there are many families that I'll never play again.  In those cases, I don't care if their relationship goes south and my romance and pleasure Sims pursue them the same way they do townies.  Some of my existing families are off-limits to such behavior tho... except by autonomous townies, of course.

Hook

[Regina]

It sounds like many of us have the same mindset when it comes to playing:  we don't want a neighborhood that is chaos because it takes too much time to try to fix everything, so we all try to prevent it to begin with!

I also tend to add my own moral base to my game.  I've been happily married for 21 years and I'm also old-fashioned enough I don't believe in divorce (if two sims can't get along the one can move out and live on their own--but they aren't going to get involved with anyone else unless they don't have a spouse).

I do tend to think single sims should be able to play the field, so to speak, as long as they don't get too carried away in their relationships.  I don't mind at all when some of them grow up and marry their childhood sweethearts, but that shouldn't happen all the time.

I don't find it very practical to fulfill all of my sims' wants all the time.  I much prefer spouses who spin up wants for interaction with their spouses, and if they have a want for an interaction with someone else I consider it much like I do my own real life.  Just because I'm married doesn't mean I can't look--I just prefer not to act on those feelings.

[sanmonroe]

I don't understand theis "morality" thing?

[Inge]

I like to see my sims doing things I would hate to see humans doing.  I definitely don't think it is right for a man to beat up his wife for any reason even having an affair.  But I laugh like anything when I see the Sims doing it.   They really are like undisciplined children with an IQ less than half that of an undisciplined child, and that's part of what I enjoy about them.   I find myself saying things like "well why don't you try going *that* way" and it gives me a laugh when I see the sticky situations they get themselves into during periods when I am not controlling them.   I mean, there is always the no autonomy mode if you have very fixed ideas about what they should be doing.

[Motoki]

Having everyone slapping and fighting is inefficient.  I'm a Virgo, I prefer efficiency.

LOL Well good luck keeping things efficient with Nighlife then. Since I installed it, my whole neighborhood has been slap happy and it usually happens with 2 sims that I don't have control of on that particular lot (but may well be my own playable sims from another lot) and they just go at it constantly. I swear now if these sims look at another one cross eyed it ends up in a multiple fights and as arch enemies. I think my neighborhood has more enemies than friends now.

[J. M. Pescado]

I've been playing the cheating according to my sims' wants recently. It's kind of a morality experiment. So the romance sims do lots of cheating, but last night I was astonished when a previously faithful family sim rolled up a want to flirt with her best friend, and then wanted to make out, then woohoo (so she did) three times in a row at a comminity lot.

That has a lot to do with the "random flirt" chain. Basically, in the core game, anytime a sim satisfies a "Talk To" with another sim of appropriate gender, they nearly, without exception, ALWAYS want to flirt with that sim. There's nothing deep and subtle about it, it just always comes up regardless of aspiration or personality, making absolutely no sense once you realize what is happening.

[rohina]

Edit:  Rohina - I love your picture - he/she looks like one of my cats

Thanks. Polly is a bengal; she's got kind of an awkward personality, but she is nice looking. I love Hook's kitten picture. It makes me go "awww" every time.

[rohina]

That has a lot to do with the "random flirt" chain. Basically, in the core game, anytime a sim satisfies a "Talk To" with another sim of appropriate gender, they nearly, without exception, ALWAYS want to flirt with that sim. There's nothing deep and subtle about it, it just always comes up regardless of aspiration or personality, making absolutely no sense once you realize what is happening.

I do have the romancemod installed, and this particular sim had never wanted to flirt with anyone but her husband before. The talk to then flirt wants seem to come up more with some sims than others. I do find that those random flirt wants do not always lead to wanting more romantic interaction, and in this case, it was the three times in succession that was so amusingly outrageous.

[Hook]

I love Hook's kitten picture. It makes me go "awww" every time.

Thanks.   The Evil Cat's name is Mouse.  You'd look evil too if you were a cat named Mouse!

Actually, the shadow in the picture is from my labraor retriever, who seems to be laying on top of the cat.  Which probably accounts for the sour expression.

Hook

[Marvelleaux]

FUBAR gameplay strategy:  micro-micro-micromanage

[LFox]

I play my sims with an iron fist they have no free will, only my will.  They sleep when i want them to, they eat when i want them to and they'll date whoeever i want them to.  I also plan my houses towards effiency since if you don't your sims will waste hours walking around the house to get to things.

As for the morality it's basically however i feel it should be but mainly it's keeping my families happy and together.  Of course the romance sims don't follow this aspect and flirt and woohoo with anything that moves.

[reggikko]

I used to play everyone as monogamous, now I go more with the Sims' aspirations and personalities. Although I'm very married, I have a very open mind when it comes to sexuality and so long as no one is hurting anyone (unless the other person *wants* to be hurt <g>), I have a very live and let live philosophy of life.

I play gay/lesbian sims, straight sims, and bisexual sims. Not everyone in the world is straight and I like for my game to reflect that.

[Andygal]

I like my sims happily married with 1.5 kids and (since I got Nightlife) a car. I've only had straight couples, I don't have anything against homosexual people, in fact I am hugely in favour of gay/lesbian marriage, i just love the genetics/generations/child raising aspects of the game too much to have non-reproductive couples in my game. My married sims do not noramlly cheat because I disapprove strongly of such things. They often do not marry their first love (they have romances with townies as teens a lot and I only sometimes feel like putting the townies through college), but once they are married they stick to their partners like glue untill the Grim Reaper parts them, I have had some sims that had a brief fling after their spouise died of old age before they died of old age, but that was because I wanted them in platinum and they spun up a want to flirt with a good friend of their's and I thought "what the heck, he'll be diead in two days, his wife's already dead, no harm done".

Romance sims of course, do not always follow these rules, I've had a number of bisexual romance sims, and a number who cheated on their spouse. I have one in college now (I am going to change his aspiration soon though) who had fun with every girl in his dorm before moving into a priviate residence, and then he had more fun with them afterwards (he only got to woohoo one of them in the dorms because I didn't want him being caught).

a few things that I do do that are differant are that I don't always make the woman take the man's name, sometimes it is the other way around, and I routinity make my sim's woohoo before marriage (though they usually only try for baby before marriage if one is a Romance sim with a fear of getting engaged/married and I want them to have kids.

[J. M. Pescado]

My sims, unless Romance sims, pretty much remain faithful until their partner dies. Then they're free to play the field, although they pretty much never remarry. Hey, like it says in the contract...

[Azkar]

My sims tend to stay faithful.  Personally, I don't have too much interest in destroying their marriages by having them cheat.  I do have a romance sim, though, that lives by himself in a little disco shack.  He woohoos anyone who walks by the lot .