Only one Mayor and Head of SCIA at a time.

Sims are required to stay in those positions until there is a L9 successor. Once I did have an "election" for Mayor, which was really just a popularity contest. The incumbent, Banana Broke, won easily; Senator Sarah Spadina went back to her lifestyle of scandalous parties.

I'd like to implement taxes, but haven't gotten around to it.

Thanks! I just didn't even know about these extra things other players do! Id probably do the whole school thing if my computer wasn't so slow. I try to keep my lots as small and simple as possible.

I think you'll find that most players develop rules overtime to keep their game interesting and challenging to them. There is not right or wrong way to play this game other than playing for your own pleasure.

While I do have taxes and most business owners have to take out bank loans to get up and running (loans with whopping interest rates I might add) this is primarily to add challenge and realism to my game. It's actually somewhat difficult to amass a great fortune this way but many of my Sim legacies have still managed it.

Oh and they have to pay for weddings either the parents or grandparents pay or the couple in question have to take out a loan. The more elaborate the more expensive with a minimum price set at 10K. Even a cheap courthouse wedding will run you a few thousand in my game.

Most of my other rules are mod/hack enforced so I don't have to think about them. This would be anything from no 20K handouts to the eternal banning of the dreaded sea chanty.

Only other rule I can think of that I enforce is my rotation cycle which is currently set at 3 days per household.

Most everything else falls under game play style for me as opposed to rules.

My Sims tend to be faithful, non-aggressive and fun loving, even my romance Sims abide by a code of honor and tend to leave the married couples alone. Then again my downtown area resembles Las Vegas so they can usually find enough willing partners to keep them satisfied. This is because I play them this way and Sims are trainable. I don't choose to play supernaturals but there's no rule against them.

I did just think of one last rule I use and that is born in game Sims that turn out to be boring, it does happen, get a 50/50 shot at either an untimely death or becoming a townie. I also use random dice rolls to decide aspiration, likes and so forth.

Hmmmm there are a few of the attraction traits I never use not sure if that's really a rule or just the fact I dislike useless things. For example I find the whole cologne thing totally pointless, my Sims don't buy it so therefore they never use it. So in my mind that attraction aspect is totally pointless. Same thing with servos, there aren't any in my game so what's the point of be attracted or repelled by them?

Still all this developed over time and with a bit of a learning curve and it's all about what makes it fun for me.

Servos as a turn-off are useful for Romance sims you want to be particularly "easy," as we say. You know, as in "She's just his type - breathing."

Very situation-specific turn-ons like cologne are for sims you want to characterize as being particularly cold - the work-absorbed scientist, for example, whose spouse needs to make a special effort to get his/her attention for that "try for baby" attempt.

I have a (very rough) randomization system for various things like the turn-ons/turn-offs, but there's no actual rules for applying it. Everything's on an "as appropriate" basis. A teen whose random turn-ons are gray hair and glasses, for example, gets a re-roll for the gray hair but keeps the glasses. I may just roll a four-sided die to see which hair color is the real turn-on, or I may roll d12+d8-1 (which gets me roughly the number of turn-ons I use if, when counting, I skip the inappropriate/contraindicated ones). Or I may decide to play God and choose turn-ons that will make that compatible star-sign teen over there into a three-bolter, or particularly ardent, or cold, or homoerotic.

And individual sims or circumstances get their own rules, which is a different thing from laws in play. No law requires that Hi Thyme be dyslexic and unable to skill with the bookcase; that's just me deciding that's the way to play him.

They are sets of random events for your neighborhood.

The first link has a Word document with lists of random events. You roll dice and select an event based on the dice roll. I believe that the procedure is explained inside the Word doc.

The second link has lists of random events in a Text file, which can be used with the program at the beginning of the thread. You run the program, point it at the Text file, and it selects a random event for you. Basically the same thing, but you don't need dice. To understand how to use the program, read the entire thread.

If you don't have dice and don't want to run the program, you could just print out each of the events and put them in a hat, then pull one out when you want a random event.

There's nothing special about these lists; you could make your own. However, someone has already gone to the effort of creating a long list of random events which are Sims 2 specific. Even if you don't like these lists, you could use them as a starting point. Then, remove the events which aren't interesting to you, and add new events as desired.

Here's a small sample of events from the list:
"Car repairs: Deduct from funds d100 x 10. Place vehicle in Inventory until paid off
"Stock Market Crash: Deduct from funds d100 x 1,000
"Repo Man Rampage: d4 for number of visits (do not pay any bills until the repo man has shown up d4 times)
"Being Blackmailed: Pay Sim with lowest LT daily OR Sim with highest furious state d100 x 10 every day for d6 days"

I believe that D100 means "randomly choose a number between 1 and 100". D4 means "randomly choose a number between 1 and 4". The program will do that random selection for you. So, the program might tell you "Stock Market Crash: Deduct from funds $67,000".

That is a random event.

@ Deryn and macaroodle: WOW that's crazy intensive and I totally applaud the commitment it must take to remember all that.

I mean really the most I do is I have a small set list for the attraction traits where I have them grouped in 6's by similarity and then roll a dice twice to determine what set and then what particular one. And the turnoff must be a supernatural because that way there's a higher odd of at least 1 bolt across the board for attraction. I'm not heavy in math so taxes and stuff in that area make my head hurt too much to try to implement in game. Right now i'm also trying to figure out a way to do personality/aspiration because rolling a dice isn't as fun for that because I keep rolling the same ones all the time and I'm a firm believer that when it comes to die rolling the first time is final. Doing twosies just feels wrong LOL. Attraction and aspiration are the only two things I really try to halfway control myself. Though Katya has some very interesting proposals for careers I may have to steal.

d + Number means "die with that many sides," although "d100" usually means two ten-siders with one declared high. You can get special percentile dice with the tens on one and the ones on the other.

Polyhedral dice make it much easier to randomize things! A d3, for example, is just a d6 in which both 1 and 2 pips = 1, 3 and 4 pips = 2, and 5 and six pips = 3; 1-24 can be generated with a d20+d6 -2; and so on.

Many tabletop gamers are also dice fetishists, so stores like this one cater to people who want their d100s to be actual single dice with 100 sides:
http://www.greathallgames.com/aacc/adice/adicePoly.html

Not many rules. One of my neighborhoods is called Mount Olympos, and only the gods and goddesses are allowed to use elixir of life. The mere mortals have to age and die. Other than that, it's a lawless society.

I have a bunch of 6 siders for the aspiration rolling. That way I can chose a dice randomly for rolling so I'm less likely to keep rolling the same numbers over and over.

This is great. I'm totally stealing this idea!

There is another idea that comes up from time to time, that is, of having a one of a kind position in the hood for playable sims, like a mayor. I've been thinking of doing that, but can't quite see how it can be done, unless you ALWAYS manage to have a sim close to being a mayor once the old one is dying. I can't see how to make it work so perfectly. When I tried to make it work in my hood, there was no mayor most of the time: either a sim didn't reach the top of career yet, or a sim died and there's no replacement who's reached the top yet... So for now the mayor is a townie.

Although it works with vampires, because they don't die. The queen happens to be a vampire, but her council lacks playable members most of the time, I already gave up on that.

I started out using the ones that Mootilda linked to and have added to my list over time. Sims might win the lottery or be audited or die from illness or become a vampire. I have a few related to pet adoption and a few related to child adoption. One is for a "whoopsie" pregnancy with the next person to walk onto the lot. I also yanked the "Name everybody Bruce" one from the VDSL challenge. That sort of thing. Sometimes I'll roll ones that don't apply (like a vampire rolling to become a vampire) so I'll just ignore it or I can adapt it to fit the sim. Like with the vampire, maybe I'll adapt it and have him create a vampire instead if he seems like the type.

akksgurl, it would be nice if you would be willing to share your random event list. Do you roll dice, or run a randomizer program, or do you have some other method for choosing?

The Mega-List of Mini Challenges is a cool ROS-type program:

http://chitina-sims.livejournal.com/4054.html

Though I gotta admit something about rolling actual dice really does it for me. The old tabletop gamer in me. *huggles dice bag*

That's the set I have:

oooo - all yours match. Mine never did. I've lost sight of them. Dunno where they are.

One rule : "Follow Master haricots' command!"
Oh, two. Everytime the mayor has thought bubbles with a Sims' image and a red cross, means that I will kill that Sim. Pretty fun, eh?

'Simmigrants' - this needs to be an official term! Not sure what for but it's brilliant :D

I use a 6 sided dice to roll for aspiration - either in CAS or when children age up to teens. In CAS when choosing zodiac sign, I roll the dice twice and then add the numbers together. For CAS turn ons, I roll twice and then multiply the numbers together. When they age up to teens I leave them with the turn ons that they were originally assigned.

If a sim commits a crime I send them to a kind of jailhouse. It's a totally normal house but I just put free will on and sit back to watch.
Also, any sims taken by the social worker are adopted by the local childrens home, because I don't like them disappearing into some bottomless pit.

this is my system for aspirations:
predestined hobby=aspiration:
Nature=family
Arts and Craft, music and dance=either pleasure or romance or Fortune
science, Tinkering=knowledge (dah!)
Cuisine=Grilled Cheese
Film & Litrature, Games= pleasure
Fitness and Sports: Popularity or Fortune

Wow, it is amazing seeing all the variations people are playing. I believe I'm pretty lenient when it comes to my Sims. However due to not having a working computer (I'm stuck accessing this site on my phone) I haven't been able to make any progress. I plan to start implementing some real laws and such once my hood is bigger and more developed.

is there a way to get the grilled cheese to show up as something other than a secondary aspiration?

Use the ReNuYuSenso orb at less than gold aspiration.

I've just realized that this means, there is no way at all for a perma-plat sim to have a Grilled Cheese aspiration? That is a major limitation of the game. Is there any hack/mod that can help a sim get a permaplat sim Grilled Cheese aspiration?

There is no such option even in the debug mode. Even though debug mode does have the option to give 'grow up' aspiration to adults.

I think you can set it in SimPE.

So how does this tax things work ? I've read it so much on here I'm slightly interested on putting it into my game. :D

I'm interested in making sure lots in the town mesh together to create an aesethetically pleasing place, so all homeowners must pay to make sure their fencing and lighting follows the same pattern as their neighborhood. Historic streets use the 'old town' lamp, while streets on the periphery are more prone to using the large overhead street lights. There are some areas reserved for specific building types: in Pleasantview, for instance, 'modern' homes are barred except for in the area where the Calientes and Don Lothario live. Trailers are also relegated to a certain street -- in Pleasantview's case, where Brandi Broke lives.

In my oldest neighborhood, Pleasantview, all males must join the military for a full season following university. Unless they became engaged while in University, they must live in the military camp. This is a way of building friendships among Sims who didn't interact when they were younger. Although females are not required to join the military, anyone seeking public office must have service experience, preferably at least two seasons' worth.

In all my neighborhoods, glass ceilings exist -- I prefer Sims to be promoted in realistic ways, so I will put off their skilling until I think they've "served their time" in a given job. I only let Sims get a job if it makes sense: people who are about to become elders don't suddenly become supermodels, only young people are allowed to start the Athletic career (unless I'm pretending they're taking up golf), and so on. I only allow one sim per hood to have certain jobs -- Chief of Police, Mayor, and so on.

I like arranging my Sims' social circle around their career. Businessmen often befriend one another, for instance, as do businessmen and politicians, or businessmen and lawyers. Intellectuals -- teachers, scientists, historians, authors -- are another group. Those involved in 'city government' sometimes go on business lunches together.