Hello, all!

Well, I'm new here, but not new to the Sims 2 or Mod the Sims. I frequently read on here, but never posted or anything like that, so I hope I am doing this right! I did a few searches and couldn't find a thread exactly like this yet The topic I am most curious about is: other Simmer's backstories and characterization for their Sims!

Well, I have read a few posts here and there concerning backstories that I found inspiring, or even threads such as 'Why do you think the Calientes are poor?' which deals with backstories, controversial characters, and characterization of these characters. And what I read was always fascinating to me, especially because there are so many different and rich interpretations floating around out there. I love how many different scenarios people can come up with.

So, my questions are, how do y'all find is the best way to determine backstories or characterize your Sims? Do you use their memories, or form your own opinion? What if they don't have as many memories, such as Premades in the newer neighborhoods, or CAS Sims? Do you play them a bit and let it all fall together by watching their character, and if so, what are the things you watch for or notice the most? Or, do you have a premade plan for your character and fit a backstory to this plan? And finally, which Sims get backstories? All, only CAS Sims, only your favorites?

For me, some things were just obvious through memories (such as the fact that Don Lothario was in fact romantically pursuing Bella Goth before she was abducted by aliens). I also have a backstory about he and Cassandra Goth that is quite simple. They met in college, and she was a senior while he was a sophomore. Everyone was surprised when outgoing and gregarious Don Lothario started going after studious and in-the-background Cassandra Goth, Cassandra included. Which is part of the reason she is so naive and lovestruck with Don in my game (at least, she starts off that way in Pleasantview). This wasn't from playing them or getting to know them...it just felt right to me.

I do form opinions by playing and watching behavior, though, too. My most recent example would have to be the relationship of Regan and Cornwall Capp. I decided their marriage was arranged, and that the Danes were a well-respected family, one of the few allowed to take on the great Capp name of royalty. It also became increasingly obvious to me that Cornwall doesn't give two farts about Regan and is a bit chauvenistic (though, he will, on occasion, be sweet to her). She, on the other hand, has grown to love and even adore him. And, Cornwall is 'in charge' of the marriage in a way that old-fashioned males could be. I determined these things by a variety of factors. Firstly, Regan has more bolts for Cornwall, and also wants interactions such as talking, playing, etc, with Cornwall, while his mostly revolve around physical interactions with Regan, or have nothing to do with her at all. Double that with his not-so-innocent interest of two-bolter Jennifer Burb in the Duplex next door (nothing has happened, at least yet) and it wasn't that hard to figure out. As for Cornwall being the head of the household, even though Regan is the Capp...Consort calls Cornwall and arranges Capp dinners and get-togethers, not his own daughter. I also saw this through Regan's desperate scrubbing of the toilet after she had the morning sickness of an accidental pregnancy. She didn't want Cornwall to see it yet, as he doesn't want kids (though she didn't want them yet, either), and she wasn't 'supposed' to get pregnant yet and he could possibly be angry with her. (Of course, it was just as much his fault as hers, and IRL that man would get a huge piece of my mind ). This most recent iteration, though, is different from others, where Regan was normally the only strong Capp woman, determined to follow her own goals and ignore the royalty and family problems, despite her old-fashioned family's misgivings of her career being so important to her. So this time is quite different for me, but still fun to play.

With interpretations on, for example, Brandi Broke, though, I am stuck. There is the idea that she killed Skip, or that she is the sweetheart, and I honestly still have no idea. I need to play the Brokes again, though...and Strangetown!

So, now that I am done babbling I would LOVE to hear all about your rich and detailed backstories for your Sims, and all the little creative details of how they came to be that you can think of. I am all ears!

Wow, you've though of a lot of rich backstory! I really haven't put to much thought into it. Skip Broke's death, in my mind, was truly an accident, but it wasn't just that it fell in, but Dustin pulling a prank because he was mad about him disapproving of his relationship with Angela. He never meant to kill his father, just torment him a bit.

I've only seriously read up on the characters in Veronaville so for the premades there I try to play out there lives according to what was found in SimPE and sim wiki then make my own interpretation.

Use the memories as a backstory. Some sims who had a bad childhood will end up troubled adults and rich sims who have had everything can suddenly get fired and loose it all. I like to mess around with the premades. divorcing couples who have less than 2 bolts, turning others gay, switching partners, adding/removing children. Adding blessings and tragedies.

Make it more realistic for me anyways. The backstory and memories is important also the aspiration and the astro sign.
I love to micromanage so I have notebooks dedicated to writing down special info on certain Sims, planning out their career and possibly college from the day they are born, I try to find their special hobby as soon as possible so I can prepare them. I also take that into consideration when planning and also their interests.

For Brandy, I just play it as Skip ran off on her, he was a drunk anyway so she's better without him. Dustin is troubled because of his father's negative influence. Now that he is gone, Dustin is taking baby steps to get a better life , even if that means going to college for Literature to get ahead in the criminal career. Brandi is pretty, so I'm trying currently to find a good family man for her who will love her children as his own and be a positive role model. Eventually they will leave poverty and go into middle class. Brandi loves to cook so possibly she can run a small home business selling fresh baked goods. After Dustin graduates college, I hope by then he met someone good, he might consider marriage depending on if his mother married and she is happy. He has fear of starting his own family, so he wont end up like his father, but I will make sure he will turn his life around a little. he wont be a total goody two shoes but he will make a living for himself without ending up in my prison.

lol those are my plans for the Brokes anyway.

I´m of the make their characterizations up as you go - kind. I start with the kind of world I want to play in and define a campaign. That can be anything from to "Standard Pleasantview has to deal with a sudden influx of homeless imigrants from the family bin" to "A prehistoric valley is shared by 4 distinct tribes and next year a cold period will start". Often this campaign has a longterm goal my sims have to meet. for instance "Drive out the intruders by winning a brawl against each of their mercenaries" or "Gather all vacation memories and marry the princess of Takemizu (any female teenage Takemizu sim is eligible) before the other faction(s) do(es) the same".
Once this initial setup is done and lined out to my satisfaction on paper, a process that can range from 24 hours to two weeks, I pull characters into the campaign, usually a good mix of Maxis premades and OCs. I go with a rough sketch of the premades that rarely ever changes. For example Don is always a slobbish doctor and astronomer with a love for the ladys. That´s the Maxis provided core of his character around which I create the different incarnations depending on the campaign played. Memories or Maxis storytelling screenshots are a great start, but if something needs to be retconned, so be it.
I love to think about how a character will react to my campaign goals and events and how the society they live in will have shaped their backstory. Buzz Grunt the protector of a refuge for alien hybrids and abduction victims will be different from Buzz Grunt who fights in a war between Strangetown and Belladonna Cove or Buzz Grunt the weretiger ambassador to werewolf dominated Desiderata Valley. Or Buzz Grunt who fought in WWII and joins the space program afterwards, only to meet german warcrime offenders as co-workers.
As you can see, for me the world around my sims and the overall story is more important than little details along the line of what might be Ripp Grunt´s favourite movie. Sometimes my sims show me their preferences, sometimes not and it´s okay either way. I set them the stage, they tell me their stories. I´m sorry if this sounded too vague. I guess I just don´t like restrictions much, not even self-imposed ones.
(As a shameless self promotion, you could check out the tag Ginger Newson or Loki Beaker in my simblr and compare how they change in each of the scenarios that I had them in during the last year. I think then it will become clear that without a distinct world to react to I wouldn´t really know how to come up with interesting personalities.)

For me, Brandi is still heartbroken over her husband's death, but she's soldiering on. When I got her together with Don Lothorio, I always imagined her ignoring gossip of him cheating on her, because she wants her second marriage to work out.

I don't really think about backstories that much. I check the premades' memories for a bit, read their bios, but I don't make any assumptions of my own. I don't really care too much about what happened before but rather what's going to happen next, and I usually go with Maxis set ups (ie if two Sims are in love, I'm probably not going to break them up, but continue the story in that direction for a while).

Ooh, characterization and premade backstories! I could probably write an essay-esque rant about those, but I'll try not to. Hmm. Firstly, I like to take things like their personality (of course), PDH, LTW and interests into consideration - I also play with "sanity-controlling" mods for those so you don't get too sudden fluctuations in interests, for example, or an LTW that doesn't suit your interests at all. Then there're the actual quirks they show in gameplay itself -- for instance, a mean Popularity sim who keeps rolling wants about getting friends but always has bad conversations and irritates people would be somebody who wants to change for the better, but keeps falling back into their old habits for some reason. A lazy Fortune sim with zero interest in Money who only rolls wants related to their hobbies would be passionate about succeeding with the things they love, and caring less about society's conventional definition of success. The trick with backstory and characterization is to have enough to keep a storyline but not too elaborate to run into "OOC missteps" while playing, I think

CAS sims are a bit more difficult in that regard, because you could paint up this perfect backstory and then when you load the lot, they all have mismatching PDHs, interests and autonomous behavioral patterns. Easy enough to fix in SimPE or the like, but it can get a bit annoying. That's why I prefer premades in that sense, especially in cleaned up neighborhoods, because they've already been modified to match their backstories. The autonomous behaviors can be a bit tricky, though, but I make it up on the go; for instance, in my previous game, Tank had the biggest crush on Lola Curious after growing up (he wouldn't stop following her around even as a teen, from the first time he met her), so I decided that he only went along with his father's ways to appease him, in a way to compensate for General Buzz' grief over Lyla's death. Since Tank had had several aspiration failures before succeeding in wooing Lola, General Buzz was just happy with his son not being miserable for once, and decided to approve of the match. After actually meeting the girl and seeing that she wasn't so bad after all, he did a turn-around and stopped holding such a prejudice against aliens. (Which would also explain why he was now friends with Johnny and Jill, not to mention being a two-bolter with Stella Terrano.)

There are also plenty of interesting takes on the EAxis premade backstories floating around on the web that inspire me. Skell's "Fortune and Romance", for example, a Pleasantview prequel featuring Dina and Nina Caliente as the main characters, put Michael Bachelor's and Dina's relationship in a completely new light for me. Since I'm going to do a reboot of my game soon, I'm planning to really incorporate him into my Pleasantview storyline this time. It also made me like Dina a whole lot better than I did when actually playing her -- in the past, she was always just a vapid, superficial gold-digger who couldn't care less about Mortimer or his family in my games. I strongly recommend that story, as well as MDP's Sims 2 Bustin' Out, for some alternate takes on Pleasantview

Speaking of my reboot, though, I'm planning to use a new aging mod - as well as introduce the concept of non-college YAs/prolonged adult lifespan - to avoid having college YAs graduate with all of their non-college high school friends already middle-aged. In order to make ages line up in the original EAxian 'hoods, that also requires some fiddling with SimPE to alter the premades' ages - which, in turn, also alters the story. Brandi, for instance, would be a non-college YA, but the equivalent of a sophomore one. (She'd be something like 2-3 years younger than the Caliente sisters and Don, who're recent college graduates, considering Don is a medical intern.) She got pregnant as a teenager and had to opt out of college, something she always regretted even after giving birth to Beau. She and Skip fought about this, and she decided to leave the house for a while. Skip was exhausted from taking care of his sons and their financial problems alone, and while repairing the broken pool ladder one night, he slipped, hit his head, and drowned. Since neighbors knew about their rocky relationship at the end of his life, rumors started to go about how that pool incident had happened... Dustin, having had a bad childhood due to this, decided he couldn't take it anymore and went on to become a rebel. He also blames his mother for his father's death - not because he believes those stupid rumors, but because her being around might have saved Skip since she'd have been able to discover it in time - which explains their bad relationship.


EDIT: Oops, turned out to be an essay anyway. I hope you don't mind long reads :P

I do write back stories when I feel like it. However - great backstories in Widespot by @PeniGriffin here on MTS - and a great hood to download and play as well.

Pleasantview Sims:

I think the Calientes and Don Lothario are up to their eye balls in Bella's disappearance (especially since a glance at Caliente's family tree reveals their relationship to aliens), and it's a big scam to get the Goth's money. The Goths are from The Sims 1.

As for the Brokes, although I think Dustin is a gentleman at heart, I think that Dustin has become part of a gang out of desperation, and that the fight with his burglar friend was initiation. Being that Dustin is a "street hawker," he's probably a fence for goods stolen from residents and retailers. Skip's death could have something to do with the gang (or a rival gang). Or, since he has the name "Skip" and the family is "Broke," maybe he owed someone money, and they sent a rouge skip-tracer to kill him. I would say he's eventually going to get caught, and he's probably going to bring Angela down with him. Hopefully Beau will see this and decide he doesn't want to follow his brother's footsteps. The Brokes are decedents of the Newbies from The Sims 1, and Broke is probably a reference to their financial situation.

As for the Pleasants, Daniel and Mary-Sue's marriage is toast, and neither one of them are really close with either of their daughters. Angela is often seen as the golden child and hated by some Lilith fans, but I don't see her that way. I think they're both good girls at heart but have a rough time due to their family situation (of course, they could have it a heck of a lot worse, like Dustin Broke). Daniel Pleasant is from The Sims 1.

As for the Dreamers, Darren is a widower with a talent for painting, and feelings for Cassandra Goth. He wants to make a living selling paintings. His unilateral love of Cassandra Goth may be seen as a creepy obsession, or maybe he just can't muster the courage to tell her how he feels. His son, Dirk, is in a relationship with Lilith Pleasant. The name Dreamer is probably a reference to Darren's dream of becoming an artist.

Wow, I have so enjoyed reading all of these so far..Thanks everybody!

I am also wanting to do a reboot of some sorts, with a lot of Sims 1 characters incorporated such as the Newbies, Gunther and Cornelia Goth, the parents of Sims 2 characters, and just give all the families more depth and history. (I just downloaded Old Town!). I can't wait, in particular, to play again with Melissa and Chris, and Claire Charming, and weave them in with Sims 2 Characters and an older Pleasantview...yeah, I have a big project ahead of me, I think.

As for the Brokes, I am liking all the different variations I am seeing on here! I still haven't quite figured out mine yet, lol! I would like to play Brandi from a younger time in her life, so maybe I will figure out exactly what I want from the Brokes as I play them...

I will also be downloading Widespot, of course. I have read lots about it on here already and I'm looking forward to that

@SnowyDreams, The young adult thing was also something I had been thinking about doing, too. I consider young adult to be from 19-23 or so, and the adult age starts at about 24, so I would set that all up accordingly for the Maxis characters. Then my Sims can also go to vocational school or a two-year school 'from home' per se, and not just a four year, and I could have varying degrees for varying jobs. As for 'Fortune and Romance'...well, I did go and have a look at it and my GOSH, I just LOVE it so far. While there was no denying to me that Dina loved money and wouldn't say no to a rich man to take care of her when I first played the Sims 2, I could never shake the feeling that there was something more to her, a deeper character, I suppose. Same goes for Nina. And I just love the various characterizations in that story. Pretty sure I burned straight through the first seven or eight chapters last night already, haha, so thank you for that wonderful recommendation! I am so inspired now to write more coherent stories Even though I think I would be exceptionally bad at all the posing and picture taking!

@Enki Wow! That is something I haven't heard of yet, a campaign type style! I have no idea if I would enjoy that sort of play style or not, though I am guessing not; I am not such a goal-oriented player, even though coming up with the 'ultimate goals' that you are talking about would sure be interesting. With all the different variations you have, the character change is also probably fun to see After all, people's upbringing and surroundings would change everything, like you said. That is super cool!

I usually just build the backstory from the characters' memories, the house description and the current relationships they maintain and then build it up from there. Take the whole Pleasantview story, from everything I saw, I determined that Dina Caliente was some sort of gold-digger and dated and married the elderly Micheal Bachelor so she could live the good life, but after he died, she needed a new source of income, so she turned to her wealthy brother-in-law, Mortimer. However, there was still the issue of her sister-in-law, Bella. So, she called up her alien cousins and told them she had a great subject for them to test out. And then, bam! Bella is abducted, Mortimer is left vulnerable to Dina's advances. Don is innocent in her abduction (I still think he tried to seduce her, though)

Another example is Olive. Her becoming a serial killer was not because she was evil, but because she made bad choices. Her first kill, Danielle Greaves, was an accident; she snapped and she regretted it, promising to herself she'd never do it again. And she wouldn't have, if Earl E. Demise hadn't left her. She confronted him and snapped again, killing him. From then on, she had to kill everyone else who found out her secret, whether it was a husband, an in-law, a family member or even a random townie. Having killed so many, Death became a frequent visitor in her home, and he came to love her, a love which bore Nervous. However, Olive didn't know how to care for another life; how could she when all her relationships ended in death? So, she neglected him and he was lost to her. Since Ophelia moved in, she's had to cut back on the killing, but if her secret is threatened again (say, by one of her victim's meddling ex-husband), she won't hesitate to kill again

Oh the fun of backstories. I don't really bother with the EAxian families for various reasons, though I did enjoy testing a particular game modification on the Pleasant family as that particular family was perfect for my purposes.

Really, I feel like EA didn't put enough into their background. It felt so blank yet choreographed all at once.

I prefer my own sims, handmade and stories developed over time.