When playing Sims2 (or any The Sims version), which do you lean more to? (real life or fiction).

me, I think I would lean more to fiction. I try to not base my playing on anything.

Playing Sims is often my escape from real life, so fiction.

I don't understand the question. Can you rephrase it, please?

Since sims are essentially fiction, then I guess that's my answer.

However, if you mean things like rainbow-colored sims, elves, alien landscapes or any other fictional way to play sims, then I mostly play fictional characters somewhat based on real life. My sims tend to look like regular humans, and my stories and play style are mostly based in made-up real-life scenarios.

Fiction; a completely fictional world separate from ours.

I am also not sure what you mean, but I would say real, in the sense of how sims live in their reality. So if a male sim telescope watches at night this could lead to him being abducted by aliens and having an alien baby; while this is not our reality it is a reality in the sim universe. So I don't see this as fiction because to them it is a reality. If you mean things put into the game from an outside source, I only use real things. I don't use odd skins, horns, mermaid tails or fantasy elements like that. In my medieval hood I do have a dragon and pet baby dragons which is about the only added in fantasy element.
In my normal game I have a variety of schools, summer holidays, jobs, aging altered so it makes sense. Babies are only born from regular old woohoo unless a male gets abducted or occasionally a plant sim might spawn a baby, but again to me that is part of the sims reality.

Real-life fiction.

That is to say, I base my Sims stories on things like Harry Potter or Game of Thrones or X-Men or James Bond- fictional stories that exist in our real world.

Why not both? I like to play both kinds in separate neighborhoods! Here's just a few of my ideas for 'hoods:

Fiction:
- Dinosaurs take over an island that Sims were vacationing on! (Definitely fiction, though my inner child dreams dearly for the day that we can bring back dinosaurs. )
- Alien moon bases! (*puts on tin foil hat*)
- Strangetown-esque suburbs, cities, etc!

Semi realistic:
- Farming communities
- Cities
- Sea-side towns
- Martian colonies (highly probable in my opinion)
- Random European cities
- Ancient civilizations
- Suburbs

Of course, I can't stand playing in half-baked neighborhoods, so I have to finish them off before I actually play, buuuuut... It's worth it.

Both. Mostly realistic, but also I can't help but play with super natural sims seeing as I play Strangetown.

clarifications::
real life would be stuff like creating sim-selves and/or duplicating events in our world.
fiction would mainly be the creatures and/or doing events that do not normally occur in our world.

Thank you for the clarification! In that case, my answer is: neither.

I see no point in simselves and/or duplicating real-world events. If I want a real-world event, I'll seek it out in the real world, and I avoid mirrors IRL and am in my own head far to much to enjoy manipulating my simself. I don't like using other people's simselves either, because then I have to play them "the right way," which is far too much pressure for me, and which takes all the fun out of it. (Please note that I am speaking from my own perspective only, since that is what was asked for. I know other people like this kind of thing, and I say fantastic! More power to 'em! Doesn't work for me, but it's a big world with plenty of room for all of us, and I'm glad you're happy! )

That said, I don't shy away from the creatures, and I don't count any game-based, non-hack-requiring happenings as "things that do not naturally occur." I suppose I'm with Jo that this is a different world with different rules. I'm happy with a world where aliens and witches are real; where nobody gives a crap about skin color, gender roles, or sexual orientation; and where the main goal in life is to be happy, not to make other people miserable.

I go back and forth between the two. Sometimes I just feel like creating a tribe of plantsims. Other times I create sims who live everyday lives like us. Some people frown upon the fact that I use the game to create story lines so similar to ones in the real world.
But I love it.

I just really love the sims. Period. :lovestruc

@PlatinumPlumbbob I suppose that's a matter of interpretation. Does the witch's family member want them to stop being a witch because the hate the witch and want them to be miserable? (As you interpret it.) Or does the family member want them to stop being a witch because the family member would be miserable being a witch and so they think the witch must be miserable as well, and they only want their loved one to be happy? (As I interpret it.) I know that my mother sometimes wants things for me that would make her happy if she had them, but that would make me unhappy because I am not my mother. But when I say I'm not interested in this or that, she backs off and nobody has a breakdown -- it's motivated by love, not nastiness.

Of course The Sims is an open-ended game -- that's why I'm still playing it after eight years! I only ever play games until I win them, and I haven't won this one yet. I never said otherwise. But sims have more Want slots than Fear slots, Wants tend to be easier to fulfill than Fears, college ups the Wants slots but not the Fears slots, and sims have Lifetime Wants that make them happy forever, not Lifetime Fears that make them miserable forever. Sure, you can make sims miserable, and a lot of people enjoy that. The player is under no obligation to fulfill Wants or LTWs, and depending on the sim and/or the Want, more often than not, I don't. But the game mechanic is clearly structured more towards happiness rather than towards misery, and I like that.

I like the way you put it esme.

OP my real is obviously not your real since my game contains aliens, witches and plantsims, not a lot but some. All of which I call real since it does not need a hack. Most of my sims have pretty realistic lives since education and jobs are my main focus, the fact my farmer happens to be a plantsim from a spraying disaster just adds flavour, his life is still his farm and family just as if he hadn't had that spraying accident.
As to simselves. my old game has them, but I don't see how they are any more real than any other sim.

Honey, my real life is fiction.

There is much more to do in Sims 2 than in real life.

I guess both. I play Strangetown so there's that, I made Olive a vampire with a zombie servant that she killed with her cow plant to turn him into a zombie. There are the aliens of course (though I believe in aliens in real life though not necessarily the way the game does it lol), I think I got Bigfoot in there too...I also have a Kingdom for a Royal Kingdom Challenge (modern because I didn't want all the cc it would take to do it medieval style) which is mostly realistic but I do have some sparkly cc skins for the elves that I added...I'm currently making a hood that is for to play around with all the fantasy/sci-fi/weird cc skintones I have. I love the creatures in the game or just pretending at making my own! I do however play it pretty real, I mean my Sims have jobs, go to school, spend time with family and friends, have drama that could and does happen in real life...even if they do have stuff like aliens and vampires walking around unlike our real world. I guess I love both...I also love Pleasantview, very soap-opera like, and Riverblossom Hills with the plantsims but am not currently playing either of them, but plan to at some point.

Yeah in my case it is neither as well, if that is the definition.

I haven't created a sim-self since I was a little kid...something about it is just....creepy to me (not others doing it, just the idea of me playing myself...no thank you...) likewise I don't create any celebrity sims or sims based on people I know.

In the same vein I don't recreate characters from fiction in the Sims. What's the point of creating a sim version of, let's say Aragorn if all he's gonna do is live a suburban life like all the other sims? Also you can't really recreate the personalities and quirks of characters, so they end up a shell looking like them.
Sometimes I admit a sim will be named after a character or their style will be loosely based on one, but that's as far as it gets with me.

Generally I play more down-to-earth storylines with realistic looking characters. I have aliens sometimes, but I generally don't use the other supernaturals, since they seem kinda pointless and are often rather annoying to play.
I would really like to play medieval or scifi but I have a hard time finding all the default replacements I need (at least ones that would fit my taste)

I remember LaurellKH saying in a post a couple of years ago, that she(?) didn't play real life, but how she would like real life to be. I took that as a bit of an inspiration for my game. In my case that means "sort of" realistic, but without most of the nastier elements of our real lives. When creating Sims in Body Shop or CAS, I try to give them believable faces. (That's what I mean by "realistic" Sims -- not ones with shiny, super-detailed skins.) I encourage my Sims to be tolerant and accepting -- and no one has died in my game yet. For example my original Sim Andrew, gay, shy, eccentric, opinionated, obsessively neat, and perhaps a bit of a "mummy's boy", would be a likely target for bullying in a Real Life school. But in my game, he's popular and respected throughout the community. My Sims' world is far from perfect, but it does have utopian elements.

I really don't care for any of the supernatural elements of the game. I normally play with No More Hauntings and No Alien Abductions (except in Strangetown) mods (both by Squinge), and the Visitor Controller is set to ban the Grand Vampires from Downtown lots. My only aliens are in Strangetown, and I haven't even completed my first rotation there yet. I may ban abductions even there now that Vidcund ha had his silly wish granted. But I do let my Sims grow money trees, as I found them very useful if I wanted teens (and elders) to live independently. For a long time I resisted the idea of selfsims, but eventually I created (in different 'hoods) a couple of what might be called "semi-selfsims". Both are teens (whereas I am an elder -- but I was a teenager once!). Neither carries my real name. One has my initials, and the other has my middle name (which I don't usually use). The first looks the way I was trying to look as a teen, whereas the second, less photogenic, is more the way I really looked. But, most ridiculous of all, they're both Romance Sims with wild love lives, whereas in reality, even as an elder, I'm still looking in vain for a first kiss! So, at best, they're fantasy versions of myself.

So, I think in summary, my Sims live in a semi-realistic fictional world.

With the Sims you can play any "fantasy" that you visualize in your mind, in my opinion I would say the Sims was created to go two way for the player. If a player want to do fictional with all the supernatural characters in the game you can go there. If you want to play more on the realistic side of the Sims you can go there as well; it all come down to each player and their style of playing.

The Sims you have the option to create your own neighborhood so if a player want a fictional hood that is even much more "bizarre" than StrangeTown, you can do that, than turn around and have another neighborhood in your game that is more realistic that way you can have both with two different neigborhood. Sims is a game that is made for amusement, but it is also basic on "real human" reactions they eat, they sleep, they work, and they give birth, and fight like cat and dogs.

Now as for me and how I play it is more toward realistic In my Sims world I get to somewhat live through my Sims in my head and be "RICH" Boy life is so good there is it not ?

I guess by your definition neither - I play out stories with characters. All sorts.