Do you roll dice, base it on childhood behavior, go by personality stats, or what?

I like to go by a sim's childhood behavior. Since I play for long stretches with aging off, I get a lot of time to get a feel for each sim's quirks and behaviors. There's also an element of family history, with some families tending more towards sims that seem to "fit" certain aspirations.

I don't. I let my small sims choose thier own path. After all, at one point or another they will offend me and face my fiery wrath, so there is no point in predestination or free will.


God, I really need help.

It depends, really. Sometimes I go by personality. Sometimes if they're very close to a particular parent or grandparent I'll give them the same aspiration as them. Sometimes if all their older relatives (from previous generations, not older siblings) have the same aspiration I'll give them that one regardless of personality.

If I base it on personality, I tend to allocate them as follows:

Outgoing, Nice (sometimes Active, Playful) = Popularity
Neat, Active, Nice (sometimes Outgoing) = Family
Nice, Shy (sometimes Serious and/or Neat) = Knowledge
Outgoing, Playful (sometimes Lazy) = Pleasure
Active, Serious, Grouchy (sometimes Neat) = Fortune
Outgoing, Grouchy (sometimes Playful and/or Lazy) = Romance

If I'm playing challenges, or occasionally just if there's no obvious aspiration to choose, I'll roll a die to pick their aspiration.

Depends on their personality. If I have a Sim that's neat and serious, Knowledge if I want them in a related career track, or even Popularity if I want them in the Law career track (neat, serious, and outgoing). It also depends on who I want to pair them up with. I might make one a Fortune Sim, but if I want to pair them up with a Romance or Popularity Sim, I make them Popularity instead.

The way I play, I typically have several children born in game at the same time. I look at their personalities, look at who they'd be most attracted to later on, when they become teens, and go from there.

You can have playful Knowledge Sims. Journalism (one of their choices) requires creativity, charisma, and cooking (Outgoing and Playful). Another career track they like, Dance, requires Body, Creativity, and Charisma skill.


I think someone should come up with a chart listing the preferred career tracks for each aspiration.

My choices are affected by:
1. How close children feel to a certain parent and how many good conversations they have together.
2. What kind of wants they roll while they are children. If they roll wants to learn skills one after another then I know for certain I have to deal with future Knowledge Sims, even if their parents have completely different aspirations. However, if I have a Popularity Sim who rolls wants to learn new skills, and the child's wants are more or less the same, then I know the child admires that parent very much and wants to be like him/her one day. So I will pick Popularity over Knowledge.

Last edited by Nalia : 26th Mar 2011 at 05:25 PM. Reason: spelling

I roll dice about 95% of the time, but I do have the occasional child sim whose wants 'fit' one aspiration and, in my mind, would not work with any others -- for example, a child who constantly rolls wants to make friends (Popularity), or one who wants to constantly skill (Knowledge). I have no indicators for a child to be Romance, and if I were to define Pleasure as sims who want to play games, that would be the vast majority of my sims, thanks to FT hobby wants.

When I first started playing, I assigned them based on what I wanted to play. Then I assigned them based on personality. Now I roll a randomizer, with one exception: all the elves in Prosperity get Knowledge as their primary and a random secondary. (Which is kind of cruel, since supernaturals don't get to go to Uni in that neighborhood.)

Some children, I will study their personality and put a lot of thought into it; some children's teen years sneak up on me and I have to decide on the spur of the moment.

Factors that contribute:
Relationship with older sims. This older sim can be a sibling, parent, grandparent, or friend, and it usually becomes important during the toddler years. For instance, the twins Naomi and Jeremiah Gavigan will be teens on their next rotation. Naomi is a clone of and best friends with her big brother Ezekial, a finance sim, so she'll be a finance sim. (Also possibly a lesbian.) Jeremiah is a retiring tyke, but he really looks up to Clovis Point, MVP basketbase player and serious dog with the ladies, who befriended his dad during his short, unimpressive athletic career, came home with him one night of great crisis, fixed all the exploding sinks, and then played with Jeremiah till the small hours while Mary and Nathan collapsed and Ezekial put Naomi to bed and collapsed. He now calls Clovis autonomously all the time. So I'm considering starting him as a Romance sim like his hero, with an option to change to Family during Junior Year. Pigeon Hawkins was practically raised by her finance sim big brother, who risked failing grades to stay home and take care of her as a toddler, so she followed in his footsteps.

Circumstances of the family. Ezekial Gavigan became a finance sim because he aged to teen when the twins were born while Nathan was between jobs. Sharla Ottomas became a family sim because she aged to teen as her grandmother was dying. David was about to leave for college and the twins were toddlers - any aspiration besides family would mean aspiration failure! Paul Curian is the child of two knowledge sims who can't get ahead in their jobs because despite working hard and skilling a lot, their low social scores and obsessive involvement with each other (even if you can get them to a party, they'll spend all their time playing and flirting with each other) mean they're always behind on friends at promotion time. They live comfortably but are unlikely to fulfill their LTWs, and he can see that. So he figures ambition and hard work are for the birds. He's a pleasure sim; but he's dating a knowledge girl and may mature into a knowledge sim in junior year. He's as low social as his parents, so a little time as a pleasure sim should build up a base number of friends he can rely on later.

Behavior during toddler and childhood years. Some kids gravitate toward one of the skilling toys preferentially. Toddlers who gravitate toward the bunny are earmarked as potential popularity or finance sims, toward the xylophone are knowledge or pleasure sims, and toward the shape puzzle are logic or finance sims. (Don't ask me how that parses with the skills needed for various LTWs; I'm going with my gut here.) Kids who prefer to dance to the stereo even before they can walk are romance or pleasure sims. Toddlers who persistently follow their parents and older siblings, ask the maid for attention, and cuddle the pets are family sims. As kids, they will continue to gravitate toward certain skilling objects - it's not unusual to get a chess fiend who heads straight for the board every time you take her to the park or to a friend's house - and their behavior toward other sims will also provide clues.

And sometimes none of the above methods gives me a clear answer when the birthday rolls around, because on the day I was playing I had forgotten he was going to age and I didn't pick anything ahead of time. On those occasions, I have my handy polyhedral dice and the knowledge that, if it doesn't work out, there's always junior year. I roll a 10-sider, with greater chances of getting Romance, Popularity, or Pleasure (the "immature" aspirations) than the other, more "mature" ones. Otherwise, I'd wind up with too many Knowledge, Family, and Finance sims, which I find easiest and most sympathetic to play. I don't mind if they predominate among the adults, but the immature aspirations should be commoner in the teen years, and they also make for good connector sims who can keep their more serious friends lively. Diversity is important to keep me as player from falling into ruts.

When it comes time to change aspiration or not during junior year, if their gameplay hasn't given me any strong leads (obsessive romantic interest in someone with an incompatible aspiration, consistent atypical wants) but the existing aspiration is not working for them, or for me - I can only stand so many philanderers, athletes, and Celebrity Chef wannabes in a neighborhood - I find that the smoothest transitions are Popularity to Finance, Romance to Family, and Pleasure to Knowledge. Popularity to Finance works so smoothly I don't get story hooks from it, but the little messes that Romance and Pleasure sims make which they then have to spend the second half of college and their early adulthood cleaning up are grist for the mill.

Interesting comments here. I give them an aspiration based on their personalities but it's a bit complicated. I make nearly all teens popularity or romance or sometimes pleasure if they seem that way out. I almost never give teens family or finance. If the child has been an obvious swot then they can get knowledge. I regard romance, pleasure and popularity as immature aspirations and family, knowledge and fortune as more mature, hence sims tend to get the immature ones as teens and the mature ones as adults. I will change most, though not all, when a sim gets the option in college. This is usually based on their behaviour and personality though it can also be based on their predestined role in the neighbourhood (if they have one, my ambitious politician and vicar both got popularity though the politician eventually got fortune as secondary where the vicar got knowledge). However, not all sims go to college and where that is the case, I will either give them their permanent aspiration as teenagers (a large proportion of these sims stay as pleasure, popularity or romance anyway though there are some fortune and family) or change it when they are an adult with the potion and/or debug mode. Basically I give them their aspiration based on what sort of sim I think they are or are going to be and use the secondary aspirations to give different slants to the primary aspirations. I will also give sims the same aspiration as a family member if they appear to have a lot in common.

I primarily roll the dice. If I strongly feel that aspiration isn't for them by that time in college when they have the option to change, I'll change it without rolling the dice. And secondary aspirations are based on personality mostly. I also roll the dice to choose turn ons, with a few exceptions - no one can ever be turned on by a supernatural.

I go by how i have my storylines set up as to who gets what. The only one that is used very sparingly is popularity as i only see that one for use in some teens and adults who's careers are more people oriented. Family, Romance, and Fortune are used alot.

I usually just pick whatever aspiration I want to play as. The only I roll dice is when I'm making sims for an asylum challenge.

I used to just pick the aspiration that I either felt like playing or that I thought went with their personality. Now I roll dice for them and allow them to change when they are in Uni if it seems neccesary.

I found that with my doing the choosing I ended up with too many Sims with all the same aspiration and some of them never got used. I'm not a big fan of the fortune aspiration so I would literally never choose it. Using a random option like the dice gives me a more well rounded populace and everyone doesn't end up a family of knowledge Sim.

This is how I mostly decide. The rest of the post is pretty much the same as what I do too, except I don't think I'd have had the patience to sit and type it all out!

I assign aspirations based on my mood at the time. Most of my sims will either be knowledge or popularity. I might assign romance only after they have already become perma-plat simply because I don't want to feel pressured to do the "20 lovers", "50 1st dates", etc. wants. Every time I've tried to fulfill those wants, they make me feel a long-lasting sense of disgust at the game and the sim that had that LTW.

If a sim reaches perma-plat very young, I may make them a romance sim while they are in Uni, but only if I can move them into a house by themselves. It just peeves me that every time I get romance sims in a Uni household, they are always wanting to woohoo their roommates, or the lovers of their roommates, with far too much jealousy permeating their lives. They can do all the drama after they graduate. So, I make them do all the shenanigans they want in a house all by themselves. This is basically the only time I enjoy playing a romance sim.

If a romance sim finds a lover they have 3-bolt chemistry with, and their status allows them to live together, they can no longer be romance sims.

I never ever make any family aspiration sims. And most of the pre-made sims that have the family aspiration are changed to knowledge or popularity. I keep some of the fortune sims for a bit of variety if their LTW doesn't interfere with their status in the community. Some sims can never have their own businesses, so I will re-roll their LTW. But if they keep rolling the same LTW that can not be allowed, I just change their aspirations to get a reasonable one. Although this is not a guarantee that I will actually make an effort to fulfill their LTW. Some pre-made families/sims I just don't like and so I don't play them with any real interest except to keep aging them, even if they have a child. (I have several cemeteries on large lots to fill up.) I do not feel the slightest bit guilty for neglecting the kid just because they were born in game.

I found that pigeon-holing my outgoing sims as popularity and shy sims as not-suitable-for-popularity just gives me popularity sims that are all too alike. It is interesting to have some shy popularity sims. Just like I sometimes will make very serious sims be popularity instead of knowledge. But, as I said previously, it is determined by my mood at the time since I try not to use any formulas to make it a bit more random and less predictable.

Fortune sims end up living lives of wealth/poverty/wealth/poverty. I don't have much interest in having a lot of sims that are wealthy. While I don't really care for making them dirt poor either, making the greedy, selfish fortune sims suffer periodically makes them much more fun for me to play. I give their money and possessions to the community or to needy families.

I evaluate my Uni graduates for a week or two after they graduate to decide if I want to change their aspirations. I know I get a chance in Uni, but at that time they still seem to be changing because some of my sims do a complete personality change the day they graduate. This sometimes includes a change of their love-interests. So, I consider my graduates on aspiration probation and won't let them age while determining what to do with them. I make them return to their parents home or get a bunch of other roommates for a week or so.

And then, with the story I am playing out, any of my sims may have their aspirations changed to suit what is happening with their family at the time, so I never consider their aspirations absolute or written in stone. Even my ruling family has had their aspirations changed and will have them changed again because different aspirations fit better with what is happening in their stories.

Last edited by cheshirekat : 26th Mar 2011 at 05:54 PM. Reason: oops

So true. I hadn't noticed how they change wants and behaviour just after graduation till I started role-playing with them. Some of them act and behave like completely different Sims. I, too, send them to live with their parents or in a starter's house alone for some time, waiting for them to develop and exhibit a certain pattern of behaviour. Living alone has the advantage that they will roll wants somehow related to their real needs, or what they feel it is important/vital to them. Very helpful when one of my Sims has to make up his/her mind between two loves.

I use a chart of what their highest interests are as well as their personality.
For Alexandra:
I use these from a previous thread:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...25#startcomment

Under my username..forgive a few oversights, but they were more or less complete "cheat sheets" of aspirations, careers and traits.

I started out by picking it based on personality, kind of, but then I realized that I leaned very heavily toward making sims with certain personalities/aspirations, so all their offspring were getting the aspirations that I find easiest to play (knowledge & fortune). After that, I moved on to just rolling the aspiration for game-born sims because it was more interesting--and easy enough to change if the choice really didn't suit the sim. But once I changed my gameplay style and started randomizing the personalities of my sims in CAS (rolling their zodiac sign and then tweaking it, rolling their aspirations and turn-ons/offs), I stopped rolling for the game-born kids as often. I do still randomize sometimes, though, because you still need to have someone with a totally unrealistic dream that will never be realized.

I usually go by personality, but I may start rolling dice to make things more interesting.

You'd think I'd've covered everything I could possibly do with aspirations, but nooooo....there are no limits to my capacity for verbosity.

When I'm starting a new large family straight from CAS, I tend to make the parents Financial and Family sims, and then build the rest of the family with maximum variability. So when I built the Iana family, Luz the breadwinner was Financial, her mother who was going to be stuck home with the toddler was Family, Lourdes was Romance, and Luis was Pleasure. I built the child Lucas and the toddler Lisandro with the intention that they would be Knowledge and Popularity sims, respectively, but when it came time for Lucas to grow up I realized that my rule against kids from Simmigrant families getting homework help without the Learn to Talk memory was making life at school way too hard for him, so I chose Popularity - even though he only has two social points. That left Knowledge for Lisandro, which he carries well, and the fact that I designed him as a Popularity sim should keep him from Knowledge Isolation Syndrome. Over at the Ottomas house, I may wind up doing the same thing. I gave Tommy Knowledge for an aspiration, and Samantha has had one daughter since the twins were born, so I've got six kids and the three oldest now have three of six aspirations. If I stop with baby Petra, I can have a 100% diverse set of Ottomas children.

Another thing that's occurred to me, but I haven't done yet, is that you could base aspiration on birth order. You could do this two ways: have an established birth order aspiration plan (so that firstborns were always Family, second-borns always Knowledge, third-borns always Pleasure, or whatever made sense to you). That obviously would be bad for the neighborhood as a whole by reducing diversity unless everybody had absurdly large families. The other would be more complicated, but more various as long as you started with a diverse adult population. Firstborn takes opposite-sex parent's aspiration (with gay parents, you might flip a coin, or designate butch/femme if that didn't revolt you too much), second-born takes the other parent's aspiration, third-born takes the aspiration opposite that of the oldest sibling's, fourth born takes opposite of second-born's, fifth born takes the leftmost unused aspiration, sixth born takes the rightmost, start cycle over if more children are born. Or any other pattern you pleased. When parents choose partners with identical aspirations, or opposite ones, the cycle might need tweaking, but for most families not much.

Under this second version, parents who chose small families would tend to reproduce their own aspirations - reflecting both the conservative tendency of first-born children and the larger investment of the parents in each child in small families - and parents who chose large families would start getting rebellious kids as their attention gets divided into smaller units over more numerous offspring; until the family is really big, when the older children start to supplement and reinforce parental influence.

Another birth-order rule to which, as a middle child, I am instinctively drawn, is to make the lastborn child a Pleasure sim, as the baby of the family is likely to be spoiled (unlike us middle children who are self-reliant, helpful, smart, perfect, and unappreciated in every way). That's what I did with Garrett in the Newson family, but he grew out of it in college. But he was the lastborn arbitrarily, since the game doesn't tell you which twin came first.

Unless the sim in question is based on a real person, I'll alays use a randomizer to pick both their primary and secondary aspirations, along with their turn-ons/offs. I used to choose them myself, which led to a plethora of Knowledge and Family sims, the odd Popularity one and very few Romance or Pleasure sims. Now I have a broader mix

That's one of my pet hates, so when I have born-in-game twins (triplets or quads get the same treatment) I name them alphabetically. As an example, in one hood Marisa Bendett had twin girls - Naomi first, Ruth second! That way I can always tell...

I almost never give a teen Family aspiration. Usually I do that as a secondary. And I almost never give them Romance aspiration...I can count on one hand all the times I've done that. That's because I tend to plan out future families...when they are babies I go into SimPE to find out their personality if I don't want to wait until toddlerhood, and I match them up accordingly.

I also would like to add more memory, so I don't usually have big families, in order to save space.

My sims get complex when they get secondary aspirations. I think for me personally when viewing them and storyline wise it makes it very more interesting for dialogue and personality.

So Don a romance sim who doesn't want to settle down or have kids will get the secondary family aspiration so he can be wishy washy about all that while still trying to stick to his persona of biug guy on town. Dina has Fortune so she too gets the secondary family so she has to waffle between starting a family or staying the corporate ladder climbing while searching for the rich boss to seduce.

Though after reading all these I just may add the personality and interests into it that they have and try to base it on that also to add another layer.

Not sure if it works with the pre-mades, but you can tell with born-in-game sims if you look in the memories -- the right-most twin memory is the first-born, and the left-most twin memory is the second-born (the attached image may give a clearer picture). I do try naming multiples alphabetically, but trips&quads does sometimes screw with this.

I've been able to keep married Romance Sims happy without a secondary aspiration...the occasional public WooHoo or meeting someone new (through chatting online) helps. And getting them engaged/married when they have not rolled that fear helps.