I've noticed that there's stuff about Genies and wishing and stuff.
But how do I come across a genie? (without cheating - I can already do that, though I haven't)
Thanks,
LilYFirE

To meet the Genie you need a magic lamp. The magic lamp is left outside your Sims' door by the Gypsy (match-maker). When your Sims' will be given the lamp is completely random, *but* it is based on life time aspiration level and possibly --I'm not very sure about that-- hobby enthusiasm. Once you are given the magic lamp you can use it and the Genie appears.

Hope this helps.

Yeah, that really helps. Thanks.

You get the lamp as a reward when you reach the top of your sims hobby. It's usually happens the day after they reach the top.

Not always. I have had Sims getting the lamp *before* maximising hobby enthusiasm.

I second what Nalia said, my Sims haven't maximized their hobby enthusiasm but still got the lamp

I got the lamp once, but I had no idea how I got it, or who it was supposed to go to. It was dropped off at a frat house and the gypsy lady didn't say anyone's name when she explained it. I used it on a random frat brother.

By coincidence, I happened to look this up today.

For a given house, the game checks every 48 game hours. There is a base 2% chance of getting the lamp which is increased by 2% for every sim in the family with a Lifetime Aspiration bar over 2/3 full, and another 1% for every hobby enthusiasm over 80%. That's every hobby for every sim.

For example you have a house with John and Mary. John has 2 hobbies over 80% but his LTA is low. Mary has 3 hobbies over 80% and her LTA is over 2/3. That means they'd have a 2% (base) + 2% (for Mary's high LTA) + 5% (for their combined 5 high hobbies) = 9% chance every 48 hours to get the genie lamp.

It is also amusing to take a look at who in the household gets the memory of finding the genie lamp. I once got it in a household with 2 adults and twin baby boys. Neither of the adults had the memory of getting the genie lamp. I didn't think any more about it until a bit later when I was checking their memories to see which of the twins still needed to learn the basic toddler skills and found that one of them got the "found genie lamp" memory while he was still an infant. Which was just totally random because it's not like infants have any hobby enthusiasm!

Thank you, Engram!
I had once a toddler getting the memory of receiving the lamp, but it was so odd that I couldn't believe it had actually happened, and tried to convince myself it was a game glitch. LOL