When Bad Things Happen to Good Sims

[skandelouslala]

Perhaps I am rather twisted, but I get strangely excited when an unexpected disaster occurs for my sims. Switches things up a bit.  Most of my sim families live way too happy lives.

It was quite the highlight for me when Alex Goth and his entire family of 4 perished in a kitchen blaze regardless of my efforts to stop it.

[Pegasys]

Heh heh, maybe there's something about Alex Goth - his family of 3 was the one of mine that perished a few days ago: Mom w/wish to be vampire died after unsuccessful attempt to get to the Energizer (located outside); Son taken away by Social worker after Mom died and Dad (Alex) was at work; then that evening, Alex died after repeated frights from an angry ghost.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Ity's odd, when I just had sims2, if the stove caught fire I just used to send my sims outside to look at clouds - and they used to do it!  Now you can't even get them to have a shower!  I don't object to disasters happening, but I do object when it happens because the programmers have made it impossible to queue actions which sims aren't capable of simply "losing", and since NL it happens all the time!

[Renatus]

If I want to have a story where everything happens just as I plan it, I write it, I don't use the game to act it out.   

[ZephyrZodiac]

Don't you even have a plan of sorts in your head when you play?  And then your annoying sims go and screw it all up by getting wasted!

[skandelouslala]

Ity's odd, when I just had sims2, if the stove caught fire I just used to send my sims outside to look at clouds - and they used to do it!  Now you can't even get them to have a shower!  I don't object to disasters happening, but I do object when it happens because the programmers have made it impossible to queue actions which sims aren't capable of simply "losing", and since NL it happens all the time!

Lucky you..cause mine always refused to do anything else when disasters were happening. 

If I'm desperate to save a family for my own reasons during a fire or something I'll use the teleport feature of Insim to get them away. 

[sanmonroe]

Ity's odd, when I just had sims2, if the stove caught fire I just used to send my sims outside to look at clouds - and they used to do it!  Now you can't even get them to have a shower!  I don't object to disasters happening, but I do object when it happens because the programmers have made it impossible to queue actions which sims aren't capable of simply "losing", and since NL it happens all the time!

Thats why with the release of Uni I just started putting auto-sprinklers in all my houses. Still get the panic and bad memory without the moth drawn to burning death idiocy.

[gethane]

accidentally sending your green aspiration sims to use the energizer is my most common disaster. Sigh. Almost killed the father of a toddler and twin infants this morning accidentally. Miraculously, he lived. With lots of effort from me.

[akatonbo]

Thats why with the release of Uni I just started putting auto-sprinklers in all my houses. Still get the panic and bad memory without the moth drawn to burning death idiocy.

For me it depends on what kind of impact I want a fire to have on a particular household -- if I'd rather ignore them, they get sprinklers; if I'm likely to snap a couple of pictures and snicker, I'll use the alarm.

[Renatus]

Don't you even have a plan of sorts in your head when you play?  And then your annoying sims go and screw it all up by getting wasted!

I have a loose idea of what I will make them do next, but it is second to rolling with whatever happens. If someone gets themself offed and I want them to live, I'll make a sim that knew them go into the Paranormal career and get the Ressurect-o-Nomitron, with preferences on someone who wants to ressurect them or see them as a zombie. I have to really want them back, though - if no one really cares they get to stay dead. Most of my first gen seed families were either elders or children, and since all of the elders have since died and Uni was mandatory for the kids, I now only have three adult sims who can't get into the Paranormal career.

[ZephyrZodiac]

You could, of course, just buy it!

[Pegasys]

But that's so cheaty. I have to justify all the time I spend pushing the kids through Uni somehow.

[ZephyrZodiac]

If you didn't cheat at some aspect of your game, I doubt you'd be here!  Some people would even argue that using JM's Critical Fixes  is a form of cheating, and we should accept the game with all its Maxian flaws and limitations!

[gethane]

but we all have a different comfort level for different "cheats"

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, of course!  There are quite a few things I wouldn't dream of using!  But I played the base game for a long time without any cheats at all, and now I think I've earned the right to use a few!

[Renatus]

I could just buy it but it would be a lot harder for me to justify it in story context.  It's a pretty extreme thing to be able to ressurect someone and just dropping it in out of the sky would bug me... I'm tempted to get one of them going all mad scientist, though, maybe be a vampire or have a zombie servant that lives forever, and has one of those. So anyone who needed to resurrect a loved one could pay in some manner (a dramatic one, of course) to use it in the first place, and then pony up the cash for Grim as well. That could lend itself to some tragic stories - say, a pair of young lovers, one dies in an accident, but the other is so poor that they're elderly by the time they earn enough to ressurect their sweetheart...

[ZephyrZodiac]

Sounds a good story!  (And buying the resurrect-o-mitron doesn't mean you have the cash, you still have to acquire that!

[Renatus]

Yeah, but how would have the sim gotten it?  It's all right though, I don't mind one earning it... haven't had anyone die before their time anyway, although I am just barely on gen 2 (3 babies!). It remains to be seen if there will be any need for a mad scientist, all the drama is sims with three bolts for their spouses deciding they need to plant a kiss on some girl who flirted with them once. Oi.

[ZephyrZodiac]

The parting shot to your story could be that she resurrects him on the day before she is due to die, and then falls down dead with the shock!

[Renatus]

Oooh, that would be sad! I can't bear to engineer accidents but I could, ah, forget to put in fire alarms...

[ZephyrZodiac]

Or you could make it on her very final day - but no time for the wedding to take place!  So then, he has to resurrect her.................

[vilia]

Yeah, but how would have the sim gotten it? 

You could move in the mad scientist (with the resurrect thingy in her pockets), call grim & have the person resurrected.  The family is so greatful they give the mad scientist a pool table, a car etc (hey maxis reckons they've fixed the bug), then move the mad scientist out and back into her own home...

[ZephyrZodiac]

Except the Mad Scientist doesn't earn the resurrect-o-mitron - it's the reward for the Paranormal Career!

[Renatus]

I know, I'm just calling the hypothetical weird immortal with the resurrect-o-nomitron a mad scientist on principle. It could just as easily be a charismatic and immortal vampire cult leader (to keep with the actual job title), who exacts a high price from those who want to join his cult. A deal with the devil sort of thing, or sommat.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Now that would be some story!