I was curious about this. Of course you're supposed to get Free Time when you complete an ambition (or run out of quest points, right?), and it's supposed to be this boring thing where nothing happens but where you can actually play a little with your heroes without having to worry about completing quests. But I found out a couple of things, if it's useful for anyone.

First of all you can choose the Free Time quest anytime with the showallquests cheat, and once there you can enable responsibilities using the enableRespos cheat, and as far as I could see my hero's career bar was gaining XP, so I'm supposing at some point the active Sim will gain skills, career levels or whatever you earn by fulfilling responsibilities.

If you still have quest points (you can add them with the setqp [number of points you want] cheat, but it's important that you have at least a few left, I think) you can quit the Free Time "quest" any time and choose a new "normal" quest, but you probably need to use the the showallquests cheat again to have them show up in the quest book.

Now, I don't know if this affects the other rewards and achievements or if it jeopardizes finishing an ambition. It worked for me but then every game is different and you might have more, different, or less mods installed, so if I were you I would back up my game before giving this a try, seriously.

This would totally help my game. I like just playing them with their responsibilities, some of the quests are really tedious. I haven't done exploring the kingdom as is. So you just type these in the cheat window, or does something have to be enabled first?

Yes, I think (I'm almost sure) that you need to have the modified .ini file, and maybe the debug enabler mod?... It's somewhere in the "Mods" thread up there, I'm not home now but let me check later.

In any case if you're really fond of your kingdom I'd experiment this on a new one or be sure to have a back-up... I know, I'm extra cautious, but just in case.


Edit: I'm confused now because I'm not sure if the modified .ini file and Treeag's "testing cheats enabled" mod have the same function... maybe if you have modded your game you could give it a shot. I asked in the mod section, I'll update if I get the info.

OK, now I know (thanks PyroPete!), you need either the modified .ini file or Treeag's "testing cheats enabled" mod. I'm playing on Free Time now with responsibilities enabled and my blacksmith is getting almost to level 7 (and it's fun to actually not stress out about a quest for a while!), after that I'll go on a normal quest and let you know how it's going.

(Just a side note, before you choose another quest you have to quit the Free Time quest or the other ones won't show up in the quest book)

When you quit the freetime quest, will it reappear on the list of quests ?
Also you didnt happen to try to add responsibilities to an usual npc, did you ? I know you can add them to heroes, but how about usual npcs which you made playable ?

Yes, it re-appears every time you use the "showallquests" cheat, I think it's the second cheat in the list, it costs 0 QP.

And no, I didn't try to use "enablerespos" on a NPC, I almost did with my blacksmith's wife, but she couldn't interact with his market stall or anything so I thought "what the use?". I really don't know what a NPC's responsibilities would be because they don't have a "real" job, maybe go hunting and stuff? I'll give it a try, just to see.

So did you ever give that a try? I would be interested in seeing what responsibilities an npc would get. Not that I ever make npcs playable for much more than to change their clothes and hair and then make them unplayable again.

Hm, no they don't get responsibilities. Even if you give them a profession, I tried with my blacksmith's wife and made her a blacksmith too. She could open the stall and ask Sims to buy goods, but her husband had to come out of the house to deliver them to the client...