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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 10th Feb 2019 at 5:15 PM
Default Playable "Townies"
I was reading the blog for Sullivan and one of it's gameplay ideas sounded really intriguing to me, the idea of playable pseudo-townies (or playable NPCs, as the author of the blog calls it). It's basically the ideia that any townie/safe NPC that becomes romantically involved to a playable sim or townies/safe NPCs that developed a romantic relationship by themselves (via ACR) are promoted to being "semi-playable", they have their house on the 'hood, but you don't play them regularly, only age them up and guarantee that they marry/have offsprings (sort of the Story Progression mechanic from TS3, but manually).

I think it's a good ideia to avoid weird scenarios like sims dating someone their parents also dated. I also thought about some other non-romance uses for it, for instance, I was thinking about building an retirement village and create elderly Playable Townies for the ocassional empty apartments (as I'm not sure if there's a way to choose the age of the townies who will occupy them), then towniefying or killing them when a playable elder needs to move in.

What's your thoughts about it? Do you have/had something like this in your game?
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Theorist
#2 Old 10th Feb 2019 at 5:48 PM
I tend to play hoods with many families and sometimes I lose interest in some of those families or the neighbourhood just gets too large for me to care for everyone. In cases like that I just age the household along each rotation. I call them "Secondary Characters" as opposed to the "Main Characters" that I actually play. Sometimes I start playing such household again after a few rounds of just aging them along, sometimes not. Elders living alone often end up in that category, since those families are too static for me to be fun and playing them would keep me from having fun with my other Sims.

I don't usually do it with townies because I tend to avoid having my Sims building up relationships with townies, unless I plan to marry them into a family. Townies are basically "Extras" in my neighbourhood stories, to keep up the character metaphor.

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Alchemist
#3 Old 10th Feb 2019 at 6:25 PM
I can see why this might be attractive, and I do like the idea of manually aging up townies along with the town--if I ever finish setting up my integrated hood, I'll do that for sure. But for me personally, I wouldn't want to play townies. I'm a simmer that likes a smallish hood. Plus I know the shenanigans my townies get up to when I'm not paying attention to them--a good number of them already have affairs and relationships thanks to ACR and a couple even have feuds/enemies. If I moved in all these semi-playable townies, they'd fill up their own subhood. Especially the dormies! They're probably the worst of all, since, because I use dorms frequently, they get the most time to get into trouble. I don't think I've got a dorm that doesn't have at least one dormie love triangle! And then of course because of that, there's usually one sim who takes the relationship too seriously and gets upset when they find out their partner wasn't faithful. And then the feuding starts.

So I implemented this, I'd definitely have to restrict it to townies who strike up with non-romance playables. It definitely does happen, too--I remember in my Belladonna Cove, while playing the Cordials, I'd often see the Patels out and about cheating on each other with a random townie in the photo booth. Clearly they were unhappy in their marriage (yet when I finally played them, they refused to cheat if *I* directed them ).

Anyway, unless I'm starting a hood from scratch, I think I would just age up townies every so often. I think you can make a list of all the townies in a hood, right?

"May the sunlight find you, thy days be long, thy winters kind, thy roots be strong." -Grand Oak Tree, DAO

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Field Researcher
#4 Old 10th Feb 2019 at 6:38 PM
So I have the sims that are my primary playables - who I plan on following throughout their lives.

Then I have playables who I consider secondary - the girls in Tri-Var Sorority, some of the family bin families, etc. Ones who are playable, but whose lives don't advance.
These ones only become primary if they marry into a family, get someone pregnant/get pregnant themselves, or otherwise have their family tree become enmeshed with my primary playables.

Then there are the townies/NPCs. Same rules - they can become primary if they get someone pregnant or move into a family.

If they remain secondary or NPCs, it doesn't bother me that they might date a sim and then date that sim's grandkid. I just assume that the first sim dated them and the grandkid dated their grandkid who just happens to look identical to their grandparent.
Mad Poster
#5 Old 10th Feb 2019 at 8:00 PM
In my medieval game right now, there's a 'townie' (actually a spawned NPC dishwasher) who's developing a relationship with some men. I know she's pushing to become a member of the town. If the situation becomes serious (as it appears to be right now) yeah, I'm going to make her playable. It's only the ones that the residents actually develop a relationship with that I do import into a neighborhood. Otherwise they stay townies.

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Forum Resident
#6 Old 10th Feb 2019 at 9:10 PM
I play all of my townies with the goal of generating a new set for each generation! They're the primary way that I add new sims since I prefer not to make sims myself (not counting born-in-game sims). I think if you're not wanting to play so many families (it doesn't feel like that much to me, but hoods do get quite large and advanced quite quickly playing the way I do) then using townies this way could keep the story fresh and allow you some control? That's the biggest thing for me - I take out all my control-freak tendencies on my poor sims! I always used to see the townies and wonder about them - where do they live? What do they do? What are their hobbies? And I'd occasionally make one playable and then discover their secret life - all the friendships and loves and fights and things! I was like, I HAVE to be in charge of this - this is a fully-fledged sim here! So I started to play them all lol, but I won't lie, it can be overwhelming sometimes.
Alchemist
#7 Old 10th Feb 2019 at 9:33 PM
Quote: Originally posted by terula8
I play all of my townies with the goal of generating a new set for each generation! They're the primary way that I add new sims since I prefer not to make sims myself (not counting born-in-game sims). I think if you're not wanting to play so many families (it doesn't feel like that much to me, but hoods do get quite large and advanced quite quickly playing the way I do) then using townies this way could keep the story fresh and allow you some control? That's the biggest thing for me - I take out all my control-freak tendencies on my poor sims! I always used to see the townies and wonder about them - where do they live? What do they do? What are their hobbies? And I'd occasionally make one playable and then discover their secret life - all the friendships and loves and fights and things! I was like, I HAVE to be in charge of this - this is a fully-fledged sim here! So I started to play them all lol, but I won't lie, it can be overwhelming sometimes.



That's funny. I play townies because I like NOT being in control. I like discovering they have lives of their own. I even give my playables secrets (like none of us know who the father of Mary Gavigan's baby) and private space (I put luxury baths in basements that I never visit and odds and ends in closets that have no access). Weird, I know, but awesome how flexible this game is.
Mad Poster
#8 Old 10th Feb 2019 at 10:15 PM
I got one hood I have been playing off and on for about 6 years now starting out with just 1 sim I made in CAS marring him off to a townie and all there kids had to marry townies and so on.

I am now about the 6 gen in with almost 22 households now.

All can trace there line back to my sim I created in CAS so long ago.

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retired moderator
#9 Old 10th Feb 2019 at 10:23 PM Last edited by joandsarah77 : 11th Feb 2019 at 3:18 AM.
How I use townies is I make them in CAS, Usually only 1-2 at any one time. Sometimes they are playable for awhile other times turned into townies right away. Eventually, they will be playable again.

So when I did the runaway teen challenge her mother was turned into a townie. Later once she had aged to YA and they had a natural meeting I used that to decide she (the mother) wanted some kind of reconciliation and I had her move in with them. This, of course, didn't last and she moved out, had twins which she dumped on the orphanage and now her adult daughter adopted and looks after them. Her mother now is playable and in a caravan park and if I remover correctly pregnant again.

My next townie I decided was a tourist who frequented my hood for the walking trails and fishing. Again he has his own story and is now playable. he is going to be the first sims to carry an alien baby in Coral Bay.

A couple of YA's I had as shop workers and did uni from home and they became townies later.

But basically each townie I make either has a story or will have a story and will only be a townie for a certain amount of time. I don't do it between though, they are either townies or playable. Right now I was made 3 sims and they are on a lot playable for now, but I know at least 2 of them will be townies. It depends which one my sim picks as romantic interest.

Can you tell I had only just woken up when I wrote this?

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
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Instructor
#10 Old 11th Feb 2019 at 8:56 PM
My towines at times become part of the story. So every generation I plan to add just a few townies to the mix for that generation, with the idea that new families have moved into the neighbourhood.

For example my townie Billie Edison, she got involved with my playable Logan Prescott, she is a romance sim and so is he so of course their relationship was just about the woohoo at University. They both cheated on each other numerous times and fell in and out of love over the course of University life. Logan got Billie 'pregnant' (sim blender) and she had their daughter Anita. She wasn't really into the idea of being a mother, and so allowed Logan to take full custordy of Anita. For a long time Billie was a townie whom I aged up everytime Logan aged up because I liked the idea of her walking about but not actually being involved.

Then for story purposes, I added Billie with a few of her townie friends into a house of their own and just recently Billie welcomed my first ever quardtriplets by her lover Henry Myers (another townie...thanks to ACR). And for story purposes she gave those babies up for adoption because although she had moved to Jacksonvillie to finally be in her daughter's life, she didn't want to really have any more children.

Now my gay couple that have two biological sons together have been longing for a baby girl to add to their family, and one of the quardtriplets that Billie had was a girl, and therefore they could potentially adopt her.

Also thanks to Billie and the friends she is currently living with, one of them Eileen Hall (downloaded here at MTS as part of the townie neighbourhood stealth hood) recently got enganged to another townie. Eileen was also connected to my playable sim Antonio Hernandez as she used to work for him. And of course Antonio and Logan went to University together, and even shared dorms together.

I love the interconnectiveness of my towines and my playable Sims because everyone somehow knows everyone.
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retired moderator
#11 Old 11th Feb 2019 at 9:58 PM
My townies and NPCs are important in my neighbourhood. I have the game modded so that they can age (provided they are on lot at 6PM), and also I can have them as room mates/ apartment neighbours, as I play a lot of apartments.

In game currently the Chef that cooks at the restaurant stove is a room mate of playables, and he recently died of old age and was resurrected to zombie by his best friend the fireman (also a room mate). Another playable lives in the same apartment as a butler, and the female handyman lives with my playable hairdresser.

I have a soft spot for the newspaper delivery teens; one made friends with a playable and got aged up with him, and they are now married with children. For some reason, even though I've been through two paper teens since then, she still appears on the pop up whenever someone unsubscribes from a magazine! The latest paper delivery teen is called Dee Liver (all my sims have stupid pun names, or are named after famous people that they look nothing like).
Instructor
#12 Old 12th Feb 2019 at 12:20 AM
When one of my sims ages up, I age up any townies of the same lifestage that they are friends/enemies with (unless there's a compelling reason not to, like the townie is already in a relationship with a younger sim who hasn't aged up yet). I also have a mod that ages any townies on the lot at 6 pm by a day along with playables. Every so often, if I need more child-aged townies or I just feel like it, I'll take two townies that are in a relationship, temporarily move them in to a household, use mods to go through an accelerated pregnancy, and age the resulting baby up. That way, there's a new infusion of townies. I don't want to monitor the townies as closely as I do the households in my rotation, but I like that it isn't the same faces generation after generation. I'm still fairly early in my neighborhood, but I also like the idea that generations down the line most of the townies will have family trees.

I should also mention I have a mod that prevents the creation of new townies by the game in most situations, and all the townies currently in my hood are saved sims I had from previous hoods along with a few that generated automatically for apartments. Sometimes I turn NPCs into townies if they start getting really close with a playable, so they'll be walkbys and show up on lots.
Mad Poster
#13 Old 12th Feb 2019 at 3:24 AM
Actually, there is a way to generate 'townies' that have almost the same facial and body types to repopulate the townie line-by using ChristianLov's Sim Cloner-so you can make an identical twin of the playable you want-if they move out of the house, though they can have active funds. You have to deliberately make them into townies without that option.
Also, I've found the option on the "Rodney's Life & Death" hack of making new pixels created from the mists, and they can become townies, too.

Receptacle Refugee & Resident Polar Bear
"Get out of my way, young'un, I'm a ninja!"
Grave Matters: The funeral podium is available here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/e6tj...albits.zip/file
My other downloads are here: https://app.mediafire.com/myfiles
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