I must admit I'm a control nut with my Sims. When I have free will on high I still end up making most of their decisions for them

i do free will on high...with bigger families i just cant keep track...theyd all be standing around stomping their feet and shaking their fists at the air!

I run free will on high. When I'm shooting pictures for a Comic, I do hit the pause key a lot, and I sometimes use the Pose Player... and yet, I still run them with free will on high, because they do delightful things sometimes. I believe MinghamSmith would agree, the Sims sometimes ad-lib better than we could have directed them.

I try to just let them do their own things but when thy stand there complaining that their hungry or have to pee then decide too read a book I'm like

I play high free will. I want to watch them sometimes, see if they bring the drama. Especially while on a community lot.

I always play with no free will.

I play with high free will, but I control them a lot by filling up the interaction queue to the max. So I dont get much randomness, which I sometimes regret, but alas I am a control freak when it comes to my sims...

I have Free Will turned off, because I know that, if I left them to their own devices, they'd do stuff I hate, like flirt with people who are not their designated ones - even if neither of them has the Flirty trait - destroy relationships, clog up their damn relationship panel with tons of people they'll probably never talk to again...

C-A

Interesting point. I am OCD about the things my sims do too. I want them to go out and about and do their own thing, but if I call someone Father Bishop and have him live in a church, I do not want to see him throwing shapes in a nightclub. So I play with free will on and set Twallans SP to make sure no-one changes clothes, job rank, accomodation, or starts a relationship that I didn't instigate. They can pretty much do anything else.
With free will off, you have a scenario where they are staring at walls all the time, and I don't want that. TS2 was worse for this.

That's me in a nutshell. I always try to work against my own control-freak tendencies. Doesn't always work that well but high free will is a must.

I have my game on high free will but they don't really have much of a chance to do what they want seeing as I'm too much of a control freak >.< Toddlers and pets can do whatever they want. Any other age group I almost always have a long queue set up.

Free will is on, Pause button is used quite a bit over here.

I have Free Will on but i'm always trying to micromanage them.

You kinda have to, cause sims is stoopid.

I play legacies, so even though I have high free will on, I do control what they do quite a lot. Me and my simmies have come to a bit of a compromise: they let me control their action queue and make them do things, if I let them control the overall story by letting their wants lead the way.

I have free will turned on, but I do tend to micro manage. Mainly I will choose one member of the household to manage and just let everyone else do what they want to do... free will is especially helpful to me after Ambitions, when I had a sim join the firefighters for the first time, it was extremely helpful that I didn't have to worry about what his wife was doing at home while i controlled him at work. I just kept double checking to make sure they hadn't burned the house down.

I always have free will on high but I do like to keep an iron grip on their life decisions. That seems to be the norm, judging from this thread. I suppose the nature of the game attracts players who enjoy wielding god-like power I leave free will on because I tend to play favorites and ignore the less interesting members of my larger households.

Yes its always good to try diminish ones more bad traits. The operative word being try

With toddlers I'm a bit more lenient, though. If my little virtuoso wants to pound on the xylophone, that'll give the child a head start in guitar, piano, bass, AND drum skills--which means more Fine Arts credits down the road. I just make sure to occasionally select them to check on their motives. As long as they've learned their three toddler skills, they can pretty much do what they want.

You have to watch them, though, if they have to walk a huge distance to get to a toy or the potty chair or have to walk around something...they'll plop down on their rear and start crying.

While I like Neat Sims, what honks me off is when I direct them to shower upon waking up--and the first thing they do most of the time is make the bed. It wouldn't be so annoying if they didn't have a baby or toddler to take care of.

I'm another that puts on high free will but then I try to queue them up as much as possible. I swear if I let them pick their own social interractions, it will be something offensive to the other sim, though. I didn't have that problem in TS2, but in TS1, I once had a sim maxed out playful and nice. He was ALWAYS trying to tickle people if I let him choose the actions. This always made the random sims he attacked angry. I ended up having to micromanage him.

And why... why why why is it that when you have a stereo on the lot, there is always one sim (without the athletic trait I might add) that insists on working out every time he's left to choose what to do?

Free will on high but still control them quite a bit.

For a relaxing, normal play session I use high free will. It's almost impossible to snap screensots for my legacy with free will. Okay down on the bench sim 1...Okay, now sim two....Oh, sim 1 got us to make coffee. Gah, cooperate!

I do free will, though in some families I might as well not since they can't seem to do anything without my direction.

I keep them on high free will and still maintain their primary stuff, but periodically I'll just sit and watch them for a half hour just to see what they do

Depends on the size of the family,if it consists of 1 or 2 sims I play them with no free will,3-4 with low free will aaand more than that with high free will becuase I can't really manage them all that well,sometimes I just put them on 3x speed and high free will and just leave the room or sit there and see how they do without my oh-so-wise guidence .Results are always highly informative-not particularly well :D