I was thinking about this earlier, and wondered if anyone else has personal rules for how you play? And are they the same for every neighbourhood, or do you have different ones?

I used to play way too many sims couples who were best friends as children, had their first kiss with each other as teens, got engaged at uni and then got married as soon as they finished - and it was boring. So now I have a rule that at least one person from every couple has to have at least dated someone else at some point in their life. I do have a handful of exceptions - I assume anyone I haven't played before adulthood has dated someone else as a teen/YA (that "mystery sim" in their memories), and Johnny and Ophelia have never dated anyone else and (assuming they live a similar length of time) probably never will. But it does make my sims' lives more interesting.

I've mostly played Strangetown, and while my rule has been good at helping my sims have varied romantic experiences, they've mostly only had children with one person. If we don't count alien abductions, the only sim who has had children with more than one partner is General Buzz Grunt (though Vidcund Curious is I expect about to be the second). So now I'm playing Pleasantview as well I have a new rule for to suit the soap opera theme there: as many children as possible should have a half sibling at some point in their life. There are some families already set up: Mortimer Goth, Darren Dreamer and Brandi Broke are all widowed parents looking for a new relationship, and Daniel Pleasant is a divorced parent whose new partner wants a baby (Mary-Sue may or may not have another child - but Angela and Lilith will get a half sibling anyway). And I've been having fun thinking about scenarios that could give the other children half siblings.

So tell me all about your personal rules - what do your sims have to do or not do?

I have many hoods, some with 2 or 3 subhoods, some with one college. All the main hoods are very different; they have their own rules (and weather). Each main hoods have similar subhoods, which follow the same rules. AS:
In Pleasantview it's 1960/70 houses, dress, and culture. Divorce is rare, even if one of them fools around. Surprise babies are put up for adoption, as are babies of unmarried women - unless a family member adopts the baby. Abductions are rare, and no one gets pregnant that way. No one comes back from the dead. Only the brightest teen, from the richest families, got to college.
I have a custom populated hood called Aileen Landing; it's like an extreme Strangetown, full of all sorts of aliens. Here, anything goes. Group marriage, babies from anywhere...lots of babies.
Generally, I like teens to find their true love and eventually get married and have 2 kids. Yes, boring
Just depends on my mood. Sometimes I want to play happy toddlers and pets. Sometimes I just let some ugly "romance" sim (men TOO!) have one opps baby after another (thanks, ACR) - they never stay with the mother long, and the mother never survives long.

I'm very curious about this idea, how exactly do you implement it in your hoods? Do you just have sims go out on multiple dates until they meet the right sim to commit to, or is it more serious wherein sims will have at least one committed relationship before settling down?

I've got a system down to determine how and if parents will teach their children toddler skills, or help them study homework, because my sims almost never roll wants to teach their children anything, and if I follow by the toddlers wants they'll always grow up well. I find this boring and silly, so my system works as follows:

A sims' Neatness + Active levels, minus their Playful levels. Depending on that final number, they will be a parent with Low Motivation, Average Motivation, or High Motivation.

High Motivation sims (Final score of 9 or greater) will always teach their children their skills, regardless of if they roll wants or not. They will also help their child with homework when asked, and if their child needs anything, they will be the first sim to attend to them. I picture these sims as super dedicated parents, and ones that want orderly households (why would a sim who is super neat be totally okay with their kids never learning to properly use a toilet, or an active sim just letting their kids crawl everywhere?). This level has a lot of overlap with SophiethePuffins' strict parent aspiration, and I follow her system for my own game.

Average Motivation sims (Final score between 8 and 5) will still take care of their children, but it's never their first priority. If they have other wants or priorities, so be it, let the kid fend for itself until it genuinely needs their help, or they autonomously decide to care for them. They will only teach toddler skills if they roll the wants for them, and ditto goes for studying unless a child prompts them with their own want. If a parent rolls the want for their kid to grow up well, they will teach a skill if it means their kid will be in gold or platinum aspiration when they age up.

Low Motivation parents (Final score of 4 or below) just suck. They will never take care of their kids unless they somehow, miraculously, roll wants to do so. I don't force them to do anything related to their child unless it's autonomous (even then I will readily cancel it if the sim has their own needs to attend to or if they want something more immediate), including care for the basic needs. Not every parent is interested or cares about their kids wellbeing or future, and I find low motivation parents are usually at a much greater risk or getting their children taken away (this is basically the only way I can play truly wants based and still have the social worker actually be a thing, otherwise she'd just sit in the default bin forever gathering dust). They will almost never interact with their children, unless prompted by the child themselves. Combined with a starting 0/0 relationship for all babies between family members mod, this can actually make situations like the Pleasant twins possible. Otherwise, parents will always be best friends with their kids even if they never interact with them once.

I don't touch nursery rhymes unless the parent or child has music and dance enthusiasm (why should that get its own special skill when none of the other hobbies have a leg up that early?). I also ignore buying child-specific items depending on the sim's motivation (a high motivated sim will buy any and every toy, low motivation sims won't bother with a crib even unless they specifically want it).

Any combination of motivated sims is possible, and in the case of mixes I always defer to the sim with higher motivation to take on the duty (or burden!) of caring for any children on the lot, and it doesn't have to be parents or blood relatives either. If both parents, for example, have low motivation, and they have a grandparent or another sim living with them that has high motivation, that sim will exclusively care for the grandchild/other child, and as a result have a much higher relationship. It can help create some more complex family dramas and dynamics than you'd otherwise get in vanilla Sims 2. Sometimes if a high motivation sim is just idling without any other duties I'll arrange for them to become a live-in nanny for any low motivation sims who can afford a higher salary.

My other rule applies to children and teens in that they only do their homework according to their predetermined interest in School (I have an age random interests mod since otherwise all children are automatically super interested in school). I will roll a die 0-10 each day when the child comes home from school, and if they roll the difference between their want and the interest ceiling, or higher, they will do their homework whether they want to or not (for instance, if Susie has a 3 interest in school, she must roll a 7 or higher in order to do her homework). If they don't roll the right numbers, their homework will sit there until consequences occur. Kids can be taken away, teens can be fired from their jobs (unless they fear being fired), and failures will happen unless a high motivation sim helps them or intervenes.

I find that since I've adopted this system I get a lot more variety in children's personalities and family dynamics. By default, child sims always want to get an A+ or do their homework, regardless of personality or interests, while teens, unless they're knowledge and sometimes fortune sims, will rarely roll any school related wants. In the future I might further tailor my motivation system more specifically to personality traits (outgoing sims will teach kids to talk, active sims to walk, neat sims to use the potty) but for now this system is simple and easy to keep track of, so I don't feel the need to further complicate it yet even if it's more realistic.

I don't have many hard and fast rules, because rules are made to be be broken. I play wants-based, except when I feel like the Sim would act differently in that situation or that's not how the story should go. These are more like general guidelines.

I usually have a parent teach at least one toddler skill even if they don't want to, plus potty training if I can get that done, but if the parent wants to teach the toddler skill and has the aspiration for it, they can use the smart milk. Children cannot do their homework until they get taught to study, so that's pretty important.

I focus mainly on wants related to social interactions and skilling. I will prioritize wants to socialize with a particular Sim over general social actions. Sims who have more wants for someone who isn't their spouse are more likely to have an affair. If a Sim is having an affair, and consistently has more wants for their lover than their spouse, they tell the spouse they're cheating. If they still don't have any wants for their spouse, they divorce. Similarly if cheating is discovered. Any Sims living in the same household who physically fight (excluding teen/child siblings) must separate.

Getting skills is usually related to a career goal or a hobby. I don't have the actual hobbies feature, so I decide on hobbies based on traits and what the Sim tends to gravitate toward. If children want to get skills but have no particular interest, I will try to get them one skill point in each category each time they want to get a skill. They also may be assigned a hobby based on traits (3to2 traits project), such as gardening, fishing, robotics, etc. Traits can also determine their aspiration; otherwise, I roll for it.

Teens can go to college if they get the want within three days of becoming an adult or if they have a locked want to earn a scholarship (i.e., if the scholarship they want is actually attainable for them) and they have at minimum a C grade in school. When they get to college, I check their LTW--usually, I haven't looked at it before then--and decide on their major based on that, or if the LTW doesn't require a particular field of study, I wait till they roll a want for a major. College students must roll wants to get skills, write papers, make the dean's list, or pass to actually be told to skill or do assignments. I also give them their remaining traits at that time. Sometimes, their traits indicate a change in aspiration junior year, which means a change in LTW and possibly a change in major. If they graduate college, they can get a job related to their field of study through the job board since they are qualified. If they don't have a degree or are fired from their job, then they have to take whatever is in the newspaper/on the computer.

If they don't have any particularly interesting wants and their children are no longer young and no longer need help with things, they usually focus on attaining their LTW. Elders will almost always focus on this if the LTW is still achievable. If not, I'll find a hobby for them. If they achieve their LTW, I usually let them free-will it unless they are needed to take care of children or do things around the house.

My rules in recent games are- no secondary aspirations and no aspiration benefits. I chose to do this because I found that my sims were all becoming too similar- I was seeing the same wants acrosseach household (because everyone had two aspirations) and also, sims weren't motivated to do anything because they were really happy all of the time.

There's no real point to having your fortune sim save up for a new bed, if he's already ecstatically happy from eating a grilled cheese sandwich, and he never gets tired anyway!

The only things I can think of that I do that I haven't seen other people do is resetting skills by life stage, and my system for rolling personalities of born Sims.

Most people that want skills to be harder do it by using harder skilling or something. That does not appeal to me since wants so often relate to skilling and that limits my Sims ability to fill wants. Instead they start over at ever age, getting to keep maximum 3 of their points. It makes sense to me, that each age is graded on a different scale. What's impressive culinarily for a child, is not really impressive for an adult. A 7 year old that can make mac and cheese, very cool. An adult that can make mac and cheese, ain't nobody impressed by that. So I reason that whatever skills they got in that age, are based on the scale for that age, and should be translated over to the scale pertinent to their new age. I don't have a strict rule for how the skills translate, I vary it depending on the Sim and their other personality aspects. A high skill in something that's very relevant to key aspects of their interests/personality, they will get a 3, something equally high but sort of irrelevant, will get a 2. Mid skills might get a 0 unless it feels important to the Sim.

In-born sim personalities I roll for myself, because I dislike how the game treats the upper scale of personality as if they are somehow better. So I have a system where I average out the personality of the two parents, and then add a random element that can add a little, or take away.

I think it's really just what fits in the neighbourhoods.
What I mean is for example, a gadget kiosk won't exist in my medieval hood, nor will vending machines, computers, TV's, anything that does not exist in that time period. I also limit what Sims can do in that neighbourhood. They can only of course meet Sims that are passing by their house or in community lots but not meet them through the Chat With... interaction or by calling them. In community lots, people that sell something can use the vintage cashier only (Aunt Julianna's old Moneymaker that came in OFB I think?). So, my only rules are the obvious things.

There are no rules cos free will is on, the PTB work in mysterious ways you know?

Huh, I thought of making this thread several times but never did.

The main one I can think of is bedtimes. Toddlers go to bed at 7 or right after supper, kids go to bed at 8, teens at 9, and adults and elders at 10.
Also a more random rule, if a sim falls asleep on the floor or in their food, I'll only wake them up if/when there's someone else in the room, saying that that person woke them up. Pets also count, and if they get dangerously hungry I'll say that their growling stomach woke them up.

I'll probably think of more of them later but they're so ingrained that I often don't realize I'm doing them.

I play with a ton of rules but none are originally mine I play with @Katya_Steven's rules for the most part. There are things I do with my sims that tend to mirror my life, for example I don't go out much so I tend to forget to go to community lots with my simmies unless they have a want or something specific. Also all of my sims are "early birds" unless they work a night job. They get up at six, shower and pee and get on with the day which feels very military style but I'm just big on routine what can I say?

I have had to sort of implement the "one child rule" because my neighborhood is starting to get cramped. So unless they're family sims or have a child related LTW, I usually put them on birth control after the first baby.

I did start an alien cult where the members each have to have at least one abduction baby. That means if there's a couple they each must have their own alien baby. Whether they have one together is entirely up to them. They also have to pay tithing to the cult leader and they're not really allowed to hang out with anyone outside the cult unless they're in college OR they're a convert and they're still slowly cutting their family off.

I have a lot of rules, but they differ depending on the neighbourhood.

My main rule is motivation levels. A sim can be high, average or low. Often this means intelligence but not always. Some low sims I view as being rebellious, autistic or eccentric.
Once a sim becomes a toddler I add up their neatness and activity points and subtract their playful points to get a number. If a sim is at 0 or less they are low, average sims score 1-7 and high is 8 and above. This determines how I will play them. I started this to prevent myself from making every sim a super sim. I had an integrated town with jobs that needed doing, but not everyone can be a doctor.

To start with I set how many skills they can learn in each life stage. Because I use a longer life span this also helps me not over skill in an area too soon.
Toddler: 1-2-3 points in each area. I also have toys that teach in each skill area.
Child: 3-4-5
Teen: 5-6-7 (I also use a mod that drops scholarships down to 6 points rather than 8)
YA: 6-7-8
Adult: 7-8-10.
Elder: 8-9-10

HA sims I set as smart on the BatBox starting from toddler and they get directed to study and skill.
Low and A sims I play mostly to wants.
Low sims are free to do what they want but I will help Av sims a bit more by telling them to stop say relaxing and walk over by that easel, maybe you will choose to do something more productive.
If a low sim toddler wants to play down the toilet I don't stop them unless they have a High parent. I figure the high parent would stop this type of thing quickly.
An average toddler I would stop and send them back to where the toys are in the hopes they will choose something better to play with. If they have a want to skill I would direct them to that toy.
Same goes for homework, a high parent would ensure it was done no matter the child's motivation level. Without a high parent a low child may choose to ignore their homework. (I use a SW mod) I do have a secondary rule about homework and that is the child's own interest in school. If they have 7 or more points in school they can do their homework regardless of motivation levels. I also sometimes use traits or hobby in a similar way. These may sometimes override the motivation level. Again so I can gain a larger variety in sims outcomes. Maybe a sim is low but has the handy trait and tinkering hobby, in that case I would get them onto something fun to improve just that area. I tend to avoid studying from a book unless the sim is high or average with a want and no other option.

I have toddlers for 8 days and how I play them changes depending on their age. 1 to 4 years old. 1 year old toddlers use a crib but once they turn 2 they may switch to a toddler bed. I also roll for good or poor sleeper each day at 6 pm if they don't have those traits. Under 50 means poor sleeper so those toddlers get up during the night. Either because they are in a crib or in a toddler bed that makes them wake up when energy is full. Good sleepers I give a different type of toddler bed too, one that lets them sleep all night. Also once they turn 2 I give them a never ending sippy cup instead of a bottle. Sometimes I change their clothes and hair once they are 3. Depends how large the family is/if they have money. Because my ageing is longer and pregnancy short its not uncommon for me to have 2-3 toddlers who are not part of a multiple birth, just siblings. I like the older and younger one to have some visual distinction between them. Giving the older sister longer hair and clothes more suited to preschool and maybe the younger one less hair and a romper. I also have a teeth blush with only 4 teeth for younger ones although I often forget and leave that on.

Children must have 3 cooking points to use the oven (again modded) and they must be at least 10 to do so without supervision.
I also tend to change clothes about halfway through childhood keeping the cuter stuff for the younger ones.
Homework I mentioned above.
If the child goes to one of my playable schools motivation levels determine what they do there. All children are taught to read but only kids who want an A+ are given bookwork each day. i have lots of skilling items they can choose to use or not. Again unless they are high, then they will be directed.

Teens need to have a driving license to use a family car.

I randomize traits for each sim but will swap them if they don't fit. I try and remember to play to them. For example if a sim is a vegetarian I will try and remember this and have them make vegetarian meals.

Toddlers and kids have the regular 4 wants.
teens I give 5 to.
YA gain a second lock.
Adults get six and 2 want locks. I do this for having done uni or not as I am going by age.
Elders I will add locks as need be.

I calculate aspiration although I am not that happy with any existing calculator and am toying with making my own.
All pleasure sims get a secondary aspiration to round them out more.
other aspirations may or may not gain a secondary.
Elders gain a second aspiration with a chance of grill cheese.

I have a semi-complicated system to figure out how many kids I let my sims have. For most couples, the limiting factor for how many kids they have is baby wants- I only let them try for baby if at least one sim wants to have a baby- and if neither sim ends up rolling the want, they'll be childfree. (Though I'll neurotically check for those baby wants, since I'm an IRL family sim who wants to breed EVERYONE.) For couples where at least one of them is a Family sim, to prevent them from having babies like, infinitely, I'll only let that have as many children as they have potential bedrooms for the children, especially since I'm terrible with build mode and any expansions to the house would look hideous. However, any family sim gets a minimum of two children, and they'll share a bedroom if they need to.

For aging, I normally play rotationally in 1-day rotations to keep everyone's ages as in sync as possible, but in lieu of getting a mod that makes adulthood longer, on the day of when a sim is due to age up to elder, I check to see if they have enough aspiration points to get an elixir of life and are at least in gold aspiration. If they aren't, they'll age up that day, but if they do, I'll let them have one drink of the elixir of life. I'll check again every three days/rotations, until either they don't make gold aspiration that day, or they've run out of elixir of life, when they can finally age up. This means adulthood can be as little as 29 days, or as many as 44 days.

And for resurrection, I'll let someone be resurrected by genie lamp, but only if they didn't die of old age, or they haven't been dead for so long that they would have died from old age by that point. Additionally, someone can only be pled for the grim reaper, or resurrected by genie lamp a total of ONCE. You get one extra chance, and after that, you're dead for good.

And another thing: When I play, for the first time, an already existing sim (especially in the many CC populated hoods I play) the first thing I look at is their bio, personality, skills, and interests. Then I adjust everything to make sense TO ME. I may change some or all of their LTW, personality, interests, clothes, hair, even "plastic surgery"! I sometimes change their height, and could use "traits" but that just seems too much work.

In Veronaville: Montys and Capps still mostly keep to their respective side of the neighbourhood when moving to a new house or going to a community lot, and in the recent past, some kids grew up befriending people from the other family in secret because they couldn't bring them into the house.

For birthday parties and weddings, each and every relative gets brought over, and if a relative walks by outside someone's house, they are greeted regardless of how well the sim in question knows them.

If a toilet gets clogged in the Capp manor (the Monty Ranch too, I think, though I'm not as strict there), a repairman is called over, they never unclog their toilets themselves. I also won't add any new houses to the Capp side, and on the Monty side I've only added two tiny (and cheap) houses and the Helluva Hacienda and that's it.

Fairy descendants get extra time as adults.

Summerdream sims get their personal whimsical facepaint/make-up as teens and keep it for the rest of their lives.
Capp sims can't dress in sloppy, revealing or very alternative clothes.
From Romeo and Juliette's generation and onwards I've started giving adults sims a makeover around 12-7 days before they become elders, where they get some light wrinkles and usually also change hair and/or clothes and possibly facial hair and make-up to make them look more middle aged. And as elders they start out looking fairly youthful before they get halfway through elderhood, go completely grey and get heavier wrinkles. I like how it makes aging feel more gradual.

Playing Veronaville I also decided not to use any aspiration benefits beyond the comfort soup for practical reasons, and I realized I prefer that. For other neighbourhoods I might continue to give some sims the ability to summon aliens if I actively plan for them to have an alien baby, and the pleasure ones because I like the restaurant guide and the folk song, but that will be the exception rather than the rule. I find it makes the most difference with romance sims who are a lot more interesting when the attraction boost doesn't make them have great chemistry with pretty much everyone.

In general I won't save without quitting or resurrect dead sims, though I have made exceptions for both.

My most strict rule is every sim must have at least 1 child. If the sims are "child-free" then I'll likely use them as a donor, or make them have a baby just to fill the adoption pool. I've been trying really hard to not do this in my test of time challenge because some sims die before having kids but it stresses me out so much because I loooove when my sims have babies. I love picking out names and seeing what combination of genetics come out etc.

In my megahood, aliens can only stay in Strangetown. If a sim is abducted and become pregnant, they can either move to Strangetown, find a family in Strangetown to adopt the baby (The Smiths adopt as often as possible) or "donate" them to the alien testing facility.