RandomStuff: Configurable "dice rolling" program

[J. M. Pescado]

I found that knowing the "right" answers to the chance cards led me to ALWAYS choose the 85% option.

Well, sure, it's the logical thing to do, for the most part. I don't actually always do this, but whether or not I do really depends on the cost/benefit analysis. If in a given situation, I'm looking at 85% of high yield/low penalty vs. 15% of low yield/no penalty, I might go with the 15% anyway, despite the reduced odds, simply because there is no penalty.

I wanted to throw in a little randomness into it, to shake things up a bit.  I'll still be right the majority of the time, but I'll get it wrong often enough to upset the smooth running of my sims' lives.  For those chance cards where the odds are 55/45, I would hesitate to call 55% the "right" answer, but I'll still be picking it more often than the 45% option.

Chance cards that close, I tend to pass on anyway. I'm not a gambler by nature, and only play the cards when the expected yield of success outweighs the expected cost failure by at least a factor of 10 anyway, unless it's purely money.

[Kyna]

That's the gamer in you.  While I'm a bit of a gamer at heart, when I choose to play the Sims I want a little more unpredictableness, and follow the storyline that develops from accidental job loss or sudden promotion.  I don't want to plan it, real life sometimes throws plans into a heap, and I want the same for my sims' lives.  The money, meh.  Money is in no way a limiting factor in this game.

All I've really done is lowered the odds of being right.  And gained a bit more exposure to the outcomes of the lower probability answers.

BTW, not relevant to this thread, but related to chance cards.  I've noticed that there's a glitch with the Seasons careers. 

When a sim loses their job from a chance card, they go to level 1 in the career, they don't actually lose their job.  I had a playground monitor lose his job last week on a chance card (went with the 75% option and lost), he came home immediately and instead of losing his job he was demoted to playground monitor.  Not much of a demotion, or a job loss.

I've seen something similar happen before in another Seasons career, but the sim wasn't level 1 in the career.  Instead of losing his job as I expected from the text in the result, he got demoted to level 1.  That was just after I got the EP, and I don't recall which career it was.

[Li'l Brudder]

Okay, I've added my coding as a txt file because Pes cannot stand having something be convenient.

[J. M. Pescado]

I'm going to stick with straight logical probability analysis, where the best choice is the one with the greatest expected value. If you just are hellbent on being wrong for variety for some strange reason, why not just do so arbitrarily?

[Kyna]

I want it to be random, rather than a decision by me. 

If it wasn't random then my decisions would be skewed by how much I liked that particular sim or family.  Bad things would happen more often to sims I'm not fond of, and I'd still find myself mostly in my "happy families" rut with the sims I like more, as it's harder for me to deliberately screw up their pixellated lives.

If I leave it to the roll of the dice (or Hook's randomizer program) then it's less of a deliberate decision by me and more a matter of chance.

For much the same reason, I'm also adding random death to my text file.  I'm currently fiddling with numbers and testing to get the percentages right, using an idea I stole ... uh borrowed ... from this post in the accidental death poll topic.

[nekonoai]

I looked at the career list that was posted earlier, but I think there's definitely some careers missing. Does anyone know where I can find a complete list of careers? or a list of careers by expansion pack they were introduced?

[Kyna]

Original game careers:
Athletic
Business
Criminal
Culinary
Law Enforcement
Medical
Military
Politics
Science
Slacker

Uni careers:
Artist
Natural Science
Paranormal
Show Business

OFB Job:
Employee*

Seasons Careers:
Adventurer
Education
Gamer
Journalism
Lawyer
Music

*Not a career track in the sense that a sim can't advance via skills + friends, but it shows on the job/skills screen in the UI as their job if they are an employee.

[Aggie]

Somewhat related question: does anyone happen to have a list of JadeElliot's Random Occurrences that she had up on her site (before it went under)? That was really awesome terrific.  I thought I'd use this neat little program to shake up my families a bit when they get a little boring.

[Zazazu]

Somewhat related question: does anyone happen to have a list of JadeElliot's Random Occurrences that she had up on her site (before it went under)? That was really awesome terrific.  I thought I'd use this neat little program to shake up my families a bit when they get a little boring.

Someone needs to find that girl, drag her back kicking & screaming, make her give up the goods, and throw her back. She had too much good stuff to disappear.

[JenW]

I meant to go through and divvy up the names into different types, but in the meantime I'll share my name files in case anyone wants to use them with Hook's groovy tool. Lots of different nationalities, normal names, unusual names, a few fantasy type names.

[jrd]

Hehe, got my full name in there.

If you can leave this up here for a day or so, I'm rolling it into my live.package :-)

[JenW]

Heh yeah I swiped names from various creators and Simming peeps When I first compiled all these names I was going to make my own live.package, but I'm too lazy and I never finished it Help yourself

[Li'l Brudder]

Hey, Denimjo, I've got it copied over in a .doc.

For all the trouble I went through to get this (exploding posts, RARing a mutant file, converting the original file type, etc.) I expect a bah.

[Aggie]

Thank you, Li'l Brudder!

* Denimjo double checks to make sure she put the apostrophe in the correct place.

ETA: Would it be considered poor taste to post a config file to incorporate JadeElliot's Random Occurence Scenarios here (with proper credit issued, of course)? I'm going to try contacting her through PM, but I'm not sure if she'll get the message.

[Hook]

Demimjo:  If Jade doesn't mind, I think it would be great.

Edit:  Note, lines are limited to 256 characters.  If it's longer, it will be cut off.  And the remainder discarded (I think).

Hook

[Aggie]

Yeah, I've hit the character limit. I'm trying to think of a way I can summarize a few of them. Also, I notice that if you hit the limit, the remaining characters get shunted to a new entry. XD I've tried to make sure I've chopped them all down a bit.

Okay, I've got a test version of this handy if anyone would care to try it. If Jade has any objections, she can PM me and ask me to take it down if she likes (although I can't see why she would). Bear in mind that for convenience sake, I've made a separate heading for each category. If you want a truly random event popping up, just remove all the headings and you should get one from any of them.

I've also included a couple number generators at the end: 1 for d100, d4, d6, d20 and d12. Feel free to alter as you wish. If anyone has any ideas as to how this could be improved upon (bearing in mind the character limit), please let me know.

ETA: I've also added one that chooses one event from all categories (along with the number generators).

[Hook]

... if you hit the limit, the remaining characters get shunted to a new entry.

Darn, I was afraid of that.  It's easy enough to make the limit longer, but it would be a new version of the program.  While I *have* a new version (one minor bug fix and a bunch of extra stuff, including ability to generate a random number on the same line as an entry), I'm not ready to release it yet.

Some of those entries are funny.  But one, Project Due, I don't think it's possible to write a novel in 24 hours.  Last time I looked it took 30. Give 'em 36 hours and hope they have Platinum Punch and an energizer handy.

Hook

[Kyna]

I use Monique's computer, so I was thinking of changing "project due" in my game to writing several articles, with higher career levels needing to write more articles than lower career levels (for the sake of "realism").

I am considering something like: career level 1-3 write two articles; career level 4-7 write three articles; and career level 8-10 write four articles.  I need to experiment and play with the numbers a bit, work out how long an article takes to write, etc.  I'd like the career level 8-10 requirement to be something that my sims have to push themselves hard to do, but is possible if they caffeinate and stay up all night.

[Aggie]

I don't think it's possible to write a novel in 24 hours.  Last time I looked it took 30. Give 'em 36 hours and hope they have Platinum Punch and an energizer handy.

A lot of these options require cheats or hacks, but there just isn't room to add those. Perhaps if I added some notes into the config file at the end. *ponders*

[Aggie]

Pardon the double post, but does anyone know if this works on a Mac?

[Zazazu]

Hey Denimjo, Li'l Brudder, et al:
How exactly are you using these random occurences? Do you have a system to it?

[Li'l Brudder]

Mine has "Subtitles" using *(subtitle) and then providing no options beneath.

I create their personality, interests, career type, career level, hair color, hair length, eye color, gender, skills, business pwnage, type of business, name, skin color, fitness level, sim type, aspiration, whether or not they achieve their lifetime want, their orientation, marital status, children (yes or no), number of children, turn ons, turn off, and badges.

Good for townies.

[jsalemi]

Pardon the double post, but does anyone know if this works on a Mac?

It's a PC executable, so unless you have a Windows emulator, then probably not.

[Aggie]

Hey Denimjo, Li'l Brudder, et al:
How exactly are you using these random occurences? Do you have a system to it?

Well, the system that I use probably isn't the most efficient there ever was. I keep a copy of the .rtf file that Li'l Brudder so kindly provided earlier and use that to reference if I get something coming up where I'm not entirely sure how to enforce it. Example: The Psychotic Murderer option. I had to really trim it down to fit within the allotted space, so I just read off what's in the text file for elaboration. But I do have each section of randomness separately as well in case I want to have a random event geared towards something specific (like finances or family, etc.).

I do use the singular heading for the most part, though (the one with all of the options in one big list). So far I haven't had any deaths, but I fear my time will be up soon.  I also use it every three Sim days since my 'Legacy' family is getting really boring now that they've got the Education career reward. Maxing skills a day after becoming a child? Piece of cake. I haven't been brave enough to install Inge's awesome prison set yet, though, but I'm sure that'll be a lot of fun when a Sim has to be arrested when they're a single parent. 

[Kyna]

Hey Denimjo, Li'l Brudder, et al:
How exactly are you using these random occurences? Do you have a system to it?

I did one round in one of my neighbourhoods (3 days per lot) and used it on every lot.  Since some of the options take several days to fulfill, such as the herbalism course, I was thinking of doing it once a week.  I think I'll choose Sunday for their weekly date with fate for tongue-in-cheek reasons (what better day for these "acts of god"?).

I also wrote a "is today a good sim-day to die" random file, which I run every day at 6pm for every sim.  The odds get progressively higher as they go from teen/YA to early adulthood to later adulthood to elder.  That one also includes a "will loved one plead - yes or no" question.  I'm still testing this one to see if I get enough or too many deaths from it.  It has already made for some interesting storylines.