I really can't stand it when people judge others based on what they do in a life-simulation game. For instance, IRL, I'm pansexual, female, sex-positive, ex-Christian atheist, and about as egalitarian and socially-liberal as it's possible to be. But in game? I have a neighborhood where men are strongly subjugated in just about any way you can think of, where they are literally bought and sold, and I have done the same only the opposite, with women being the commodities in a different neighborhood. I have played a scenario that was sort of "Amazon" but in a modern setting: An all-female society where men were periodically "captured" from other societies, used for breeding, and then sacrificed. I have played puritanical religious-conservative societies with complex rules governing behavior and with harsh consequences for breaking those rules and where, indeed, all the couples were heterosexual. I have played neighborhoods where it was a literal crime -- punishable by death -- to have a heterosexual relationship and all breeding happens through surrogacy and/or artificial insemination.

....And then I have the happy, fluffy "The world as I would wish it to be"-type neighborhoods where the gay/bi/straight split is pretty much equal and money isn't a concern and everything's shiny and happy and everyone just loves life.

Now, compare those nasty games I described with my real-life views. Do you see a correlation? No, you don't. Why? Because those are all, to me, thought experiments and/or interesting sociological hypotheticals to explore as well as a worldbuilding challenge in terms of coming up with how the society works and a ruleset to play by and, as the big ol' cherry on top, a gameplay challenge. As in, making outlier societies like those described (and others!) work with (modded) game mechanics. To me, these sorts of situations are actually WAY more fun to play than the happy, fluffy ones because of the various challenges associated with them. There, I said it. Judge me as you will. I really, truly couldn't care less.

Now, back to the OP. I think it might actually be fun to do something where, say, one hair color or eye color would be seen as the "mark of the devil" or something and you try to breed it out of an entire neighborhood over successive generations. You'd have to be careful about who you breed with whom and keep track of genetics as the generations pass. And to make it more challenging, I'd have other rules like having to have a certain level of chemistry between a breeding pair as well and that certain Sims -- say, the first-born of a household, for instance -- must breed even if they have the non-desired characteristic. It would be especially fun if you made one of the dominant hair or eye colors the one you are selecting against. Basically, it'd just be a little artificial selection neighborhood. I think it'd be fun and I'm going to do it one day, but if you like the idea, feel free to use it.

You know, if you always used dice rolling before, maybe you should try going by attraction and seeing who your sims pick.

Well - when it comes to real life, as far as i am concerned, the sims are as far removed from it as can be.

I am, first of all, not American, but South African - and poligamy is legal in my country. In fact, our (fortunately now) former Prez had 6 wives - one has divorced him and then went to try and become the next prez herself. A second one was kicked out of the house because she allegedly tried to poison him. He then married a 24-year old (he was 76) who was pregnant with his child; and cameramen filming her looked quite ridiculous, because they were not allowed to look at her. The poisoned one decided then that she was not poisoned so she went back. Which means the former prez is back to 6 wives. He has also been engaged to a woman for years and his kids are more than - well, last count was 22. (this is the real world I live in).

Now I can imagine that, if I should make a black sim with 6 wives, not a lot of people may understand where I come from

But then, I don't blog my game - so I may have done that, poisoning and ll, already in my game anyway

Well, justpetro if you played that and blogged it I'm sure you'd have many, many faithful readers. They always say "truth is stranger than fiction" for a reason.

Yes, this. I do like "realism" in the sense of, say, not using same-sex pregnancy mods, but we're talking about a game where people regularly get abducted by aliens (and bear their children) and no one gives a crap what color someone's skin is (even if it's green) or whether they like to go to bed with people who have the same plumbing as them or not or whether or not they're fat or...the list goes on. Sure, if you WANT to, you can make the game reflect reality with its bigotry and all as much as you want. But to me that's rather boring. I get enough real world...in the real world and it's depressing enough there. I like my extreme "out there" scenarios, nasty as they can be sometimes. They're interesting BECAUSE they're "out there." And also safely not real. They aren't always nasty, though. Some are the opposite of nasty, and I wish they WERE real.



Aw, Zuma got ousted???! Bummer! He and the drama surrounding him was so entertaining. But then, I probably think that only because he had no effect on me. I probably wouldn't be nearly so amused if I was South African.

Hahaha He was pretty entertaining, but then, so are all our politicians, to be honest
I could make a whole hood with our politicians - a huge one since we have 48 parties Which often leads to a 10% party shunting everyone around - tail wagging the dog. Not sure if I can make them, though, I don't think Sims are stupid enough.

African politics in general seems to be entertaining, what with literal brawls happening in the houses of government and all that. The US is boring by comparison, although as partisan as things get here these days (with just two parties), it really wouldn't surprise me if a literal brawl happened in our Capitol building one day. Which is sad. Then again, most of our legislators are guys aged 70+, so a brawl might result in multiple fatal strokes/heart attacks...which might not be a bad thing....

Uh, what was the topic again? Oh yeah, Sims! Y'know, Simming real-world political figures from all countries might actually be fun. Maybe set 'em up in a ridiculous Fight Club sort of scenario and see who wins in the end.

@iCad - Zuma, of course, will be the winner of any fight club - nothing to do with his political skills, but he is fit as hell and can still do Zulu warrior dances perfectly (and they are physically demanding - dancing well is sort of required to be a politician around here, because South Africans dance when they are angry, I guess).

(I don't want to get too serious because it will go off topic, but our new Prez has some substance at least, and if he can win over enough of the Zuma faction in his party, some good may come out of it. Cyril Ramaphosa has been around for a long time, from trade union leader to President; he is also the man who helped to write our constitution and the man who brought McDonalds to South Africa and breeds buffaloes. Which means some citizens now suffer, apparently, from Ramaphoria. He is a Venda, which means he hails from my area of the country - the Salt pan mountains in Limpopo - and he is very, very smart. And can dance quite well too He will be a perfect knowledge/fortune sim with other evil sims around him trying to stab him in the back).

Anyway, I don't try to imitate real life in my game - what other people see as realistic sometimes just make me shake my head I just play because I find it fun and to see how many families I can have living in reasonable harmony in the end (of either the hood, or my patience, because while my first big hood did that fireball into space thing, the second one is still going, but because of all the sims, now is quite chaotic and no ages or anything else are even remotely in sync. Still fun, though, having my retired rock stars on a final rock tour (idea from @Peni Griffin) to Twiki Island before they will come home to die (will miss the old buggers, but they have been around for a long time).

I've always thought that's how wars should be fought. Whoever's idea the war is has to fight the other leader and winner takes all.

Aw, geezer rockers. <3 Like the Rolling Stones. Even though Keith Richards looks like he's already been dead for at least 10 years.

Zuma or Ramaphosa would definitely beat Trump; I know for a fact that Donald Trump cannot dance. But if I had to pick a Fight/Dance to the Death rep for the US from amongst its legislators, it wouldn't be Trump. I'd go for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who's a bit of a spitfire for a first time Representative and she's young (29) and can and will dance, as evidenced by a video of her doing so in college that went viral. And you know, I wouldn't count out Putin. Apparently the man wrestles bears as a hobby. I'll bet he can dance, too.

...How on Earth did we get on this amusing topic??

Anyway, all silliness aside...The whole point of the game is to make it what you want it to be. It's a sandbox in every way. It's all good. So if you want "realism," OK. If you want the opposite of realism, groovy. If you want to impose your own particular real-life worldview on it, whatever it is, fine. If you want to do outlandish stuff, great. If you want to run social experiments in it, like I kind of do, wonderful. If you want to do monstrous stuff in it, fabulous, and it doesn't mean that the Simmer is a monster. If you just want a world full of puffy clouds, sunshine, flowers, rainbows, and frolicking pink unicorns where love and happiness reigns because you want an escape from a crappy/boring real life full of drudgery and/or woe or just because that's what you like and think is fun, good on you. And if you want to make representations of real-world politicians dance/fight to the death...Well, I want to see it, so I hope you share.

EDIT:

Well, that might certainly make them think twice about all the petty, posturing, chest-beating bickering that they do! :D

Now you're making me very glad we don't choose politicians with dance-a-thons but for me that's more than enough political discussion. I come here to escape that kind of nonsense.

And that's also the reason most people play video games, as a form of getting away from the real world so whatever they want to do in their imaginary place is up to them. I remember some years back my son making fun of me for playing Minecraft in peaceful mode. Simply put, I just hate monsters and killing but love the exploring and creativity part. we put together a server and he played with me in peaceful and afterward he said, "Wow Mom, I can see why you like that!" Yeah, it's amazing what you can accomplish when all your energies aren't spent on just trying to stay alive isn't it?

In the end the world is a weird place and I know my vision of a utopia wouldn't be the same as someone else's, so neither do I expect my Sims game to be.

The level of our PM's dancing skills showcased very well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUebaodcUgc

In my Strangetown hood, I paired up Gallagher Newson with Stella Terrano (some of their kids were cute, others - not so much). Ajay Loner and Bella Goth (one kid, very cute), Johnny Smith and the cheerleader from Uni (big mistake genetics-wise), and Julien Cooke with Georgia Newson (absolutely gorgeous kids). I usually play mostly hetero couples because I like mixing genetics. It's interesting (to me at least) to see what the kids are going to look like. I don't have the mod that lets same-sex couples have kids (does anyone know where to get it?). So, my gay couples are impregnated by aliens. Trish & Trent Traveller had a son, Tyler, who is gay and married Gerard Landry. I let each of them have a child with aliens. Both kids turned out cute, but Tyler's daughter is my favorite sim in Strangetown. Like someone else said, my game is usually about breeding. IRL, I would never dream about having as many kids as my sims do. It's just the way I play the game. To each their own...

If you don't use Inteen, then there's twojeff's "Preg for All Genders" on this page: http://www.simbology.com/smf/index.php?topic=14.0 If you DO use Inteen, then there's a Flavor Pak for same-sex pregnancy that you'll need to install.

I often use the aliens for my same-sex couples, too. But if certain requirements are met in a neighborhood -- namely at least one playable Sim high enough in both the Medical and Science careers -- then I allow "genetic engineering," which means I'll use the Sim Blender to create a pregnancy with both Sims as genetic contributors. That's an option if you don't want to go the mod route, but it is something that you'll have to deliberately do, of course. It won't just happen naturally in-game.

EDIT:

Well, I'm sorry to say that I don't think the Wombat Wobble is going to beat the Zulu Warrior Dance.

Well, here Zuma is dancing - and not a warrior dance - and he will be very, very hard to beat in a dancing contest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBc1n5HqXxs

And here is President Ramaphosa (watch him put his speech in his pocket when he realises he is going to dance a bit longer ) too : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tODbLm6Hn8

There's a local song here: We've got the beat, we've got the beat - everybody else has the money, but we've got the beat

Trust me, Mmusi Maimane - our opposition leader, can bring the moves as well, and he is a lot younger too

Which means, I guess, that in my local politician hood, all of the sims will have the music and dance hobby

Jeez, reading through this thread almost felt like reading the comment section of a news article these days. Had to remind myself this is just about a...game. *sigh*

@Fearless Butterfly - You or anyone else that likes the genetics aspect of the game, but would like things tweaked a bit, might want to check out More Realistic Genetics by simNopke. I've been using this since it first came out in a set of simNopke's unpublished mods on their Tumblr, and now use one of the updated versions.

If you've already seen it, then ignore me.

But if they're unpublished then how can they be downloaded? Neat. Will have to look at them later.