When you're playing Sims, which do you prefer? Convoluted, soap opera-like dramas with lots of heartbreaks and slapping, or giving your Sims happy, stable lives?

I tend to lean more towards stability, although lately I've been leaning more towards drama, such as when my incredibly shy, incredibly nice Family sim fell in love with two twins who both don't know about it. Normally, I'd quit without saving and reload and have them friendzone each other, but this time I rolled with it just to see what happens.

Definitely stability, I want my sims to have happy perfect lives and I’d hate if drama ruined it. I very rarely do something different than sims falling in love with their soulmate with 3 bolts of attraction and never having romantic interactions with a different sim. I just prefer it that way, and I don’t find it boring I also have mods that stop them from swooning at other sims.

A mix of both. Mostly my Sims are stable and happy but I inject drama every now and then.

I play with both as well. Just like real life, some days are good and some days are bad. It's kinda boring without a little drama here and there, but also too much to handle if there's too much going on.

When I want drama I put in ACR in and let the face slapping rampage commence. I just keep there needs up and let them play havoc with each other. Oooh so many babies out of wedlock, fun.

Most of the time I go for stability.

Both, with about a 70:30 split toward drama. I need conflict to keep me entertained. That doesn't mean everyone is cheating or getting into slap fests (although that definitely happens). Someone might be stressed because they can't get that promotion, or a someone might be running themselves ragged trying to keep a business afloat, or a sibling rivalry might suck in an entire family and cause them to take sides. As one family overcomes their hurdles, another will get shaken up.

I guess you would say drama though I call it stories - and happy ever after stories are generally boring because there's just not much to say. When I did Polgannon, for example, I had far more fun with Blaise Penhaligan and Cedric Chesney than I did with, say, Griselda Pascoe (the vicar's wife) or Arthur Hammett - the obvious good guys. I might, myself, prefer a life that is calm and happy but self-centred, wicked and selfish is far more entertaining when you're creating stories.

Eh, 50/50. Depends on what story I want for who.

I prefer stability. For a long time, I didn't allow Romance Sims at all, because I didn't want my happy families messed up, and I still have no interest in ACR. One of my hoods has high unemployment and frequent layoffs, which can be difficult for those Sims caught up in it, but having Sims miserable because their partner cheated on them just doesn't do it for me.

That isn't to say the occasional extramarital affair doesn't happen, but my Sims do try to be discreet about it (also, Sims aren't very bright: Nathalie Hachey's husband abandoned her and their five children to live in sin with Michelle Tse, but he never romanced Michelle on the family's home lot, so Nathalie never figured it out!).

What's this word stability that you speak of? Never heard of it before in my life.

Since I play whole neighborhoods that quickly swell to ridiculous size, one day at a time, I always have some of both going on. Variety is the spice and all; and that's how life goes, isn't it? Some sims are more inclined to drama and create it on their own, while others tend to create pools of calm in the neighborhood where those afflicted with drama can relax and get some help. Sometimes the game throws drama at them, and sometimes I make it deliberately, and sometimes I flat-out screw up and create situations that are fruitful of plot.

The easiest way to make drama in the game is through romantic/sexual conflicts, but there's plenty of other sources, too. The death of Spring Thyme on the eve of her leaving for college had lots of knock-on effects for her sisters, her father, her boyfriend, and even people who didn't know her very well. Now that she's resurrected into a world in which everything has changed, she's a vector for a whole mess of new relations and plots, as she refuses to stop pining after her old boyfriend (now married with a kid), resents being suddenly younger than all her little sisters, dates new boys, makes friends with or picks fights with girls, etc. Her father's abduction using a date-reward telescope changed his life trajectory drastically. The neighborhood will probably implode before the final ripple of consequences from that one event dies away.

In the past, it's always been about romance, love and stability. I like to play my Sims so that they live happily ever after. But I'm planning to change that up a bit with a bit of drama. That said, there won't be a ton of cheating, hoards of illegitimate children or daily neighborhood brawls. Just a touch of each to add some realism and keep me from getting bored.

For a majority of sims there's a standard stability if they settle down. ACR adds college drama and shuffles around love lives and that's enough drama. I do have a few sims that are half siblings due to parents divorcing and re-marrying but they are few and far between. The single sims are always the most dramatic, the ones that always roll fears of getting married so they have have an apartment downtown and go on multiple dates and just have fun so that's enough excitement to pull me away from the family sims living happy little lives with their reunions and meal-making where they rejoice and coo over new grandsims when they get old. No sim has died utterly miserable.

Honestly, I usually have stability with my sims, but they don't need my help to create drama. Half the time, they do it themselves! My drama tends to be small build ups of various issues.

Currently, I have one sim, Jet, on bed-rest due to a late in life pregnancy. His first child. Unfortunately, Jet's needs drop scarily fast on a constant basis. His doctor/BFF keeps visiting to keep an eye on such a high risk pregnancy. I may roll and see if poor Jet lives through the birth (just for added effect).

In that same household (an orphanage Jet runs), one of the teens, Sebastian, is about to fail out of high school, but he's also in love with his best friend. Problem is the love is NOT mutual. I'm worried about Adam flirting with anyone because I think Sebastian might consider it cheating...

I do try larger scale dramas occasionally. In Sedona, Dr. Oliver S. Beaker and his long term patients are causing a few problems. Patient L and C constantly steal newspapers and garden ornaments from everyone in town. One of the cooks from the town's only restaurant claims to have heard screams coming from Dr. Beaker's clinic. Patient L is responding well to the electric shock treatments, but Patient C is still belligerent. She's running around town whenever she can escape the clinic claiming that she's been kidnapped. Which is ridiculous. Dr. Beaker was such a sweet, quiet man. Still people in Sedona are suggesting a more long term care facility for them, or Patient C at least. Still, Dr. Beaker has to consider his options, especially as he's thinking about starting a family in the future. Can't have the kids discover you're torturing people in the basement.

I don't get a lot of drama because I tend to micromanage. I would like more drama because it's fun, but it's hard to train myself away from micromanaging. I also need to take my sims to comm lots more, but it's easy to get into the rut of work-childcare-skilling-work-childcare-skilling and forget they ought to get out of the house sometimes.

And then I get situations that seem ripe for drama, but it doesn't materialize. Lilith and Angela are in Uni. Lilith is in love with Thomas Broke, who keeps flirting and kissing other sims, like Ophelia Downer and even Angela, but Thomas is pretty damned smart about it for a sim. Up till now he's only done his philandering while Lilith is sleeping, at class or otherwise occupied.

(And has anybody had a sim that everyone seems to be attracted to? Ophelia Downer has had most of the guys in the frat house wanting to fall in love with her at some point. No, she's not Romance asp; she's Knowledge. All the guys are Fortune and Popularity.)

I used to micromanage a lot more in the beginning. Everything had to be perfect. But I realized it was stressing me out more than entertaining me, so I did an Asylum challenge. That helped me break out of the thought of keeping too close of tabs on everything. ACR also adds a lot of spice, and is actually somewhat necessary. I got it because I wanted to be able to control cheating on a greater level. Also because I realized my poor sims were pining for the woohoo I kept forgetting to let them have . My favorite couple at the time had only had a total of two or three woohoos under their belt. One for the honeymoon and one or two when I decided they should have children. The frustrated darlings would constantly relax on the bed together as if to say "Pleaaaaase?" So now they can take care of themselves without absent-minded me having to direct them XD .

I don't mind drama. Sometimes the sims create it, sometimes I create it (accidentally or on purpose). But I prefer drama that has some sort of thought behind it, if I'm the source. I don't generally provoke sims into doing things I don't think they would otherwise do or set up situations that wouldn't naturally occur. I might be ok nudging, say, Daniel Pleasant or Don Lothario along in their infidelities just to get them caught, but I wouldn't take a random sim and introduce a conflict like that in their lives out of nowhere. If I'm doing a 'serious' storyline, it needs to organically come from somewhere.

Regardless of how much drama is or is not going on, I do need at least one or two families I can escape to that have good lives. It's nice to see them have happy marriages, happy kids, things going well. It doesn't have to be perfect, just overall good. And I admit, I'm a sucker for stories of people overcoming and getting a nice life in the end.

It isn't that I prefer stability to drama, but the pixels do not...

"Boring! Let's have some fun and cheat on our spouse! So what if it's in front of them! I don't care!"

I do have one or two sims like that. It's insane. Everyone is attracted to them and I'm like, "Um... He's married. Happily. It's not going to happen!"

at times I go with what I plan for my sims; regardless of how my sims react. though my main plans for sims are who would be couples and the names of their children.
in other things, I attempt to fulfill at least some of their Wants.

I also have both. Different families at different times have different dramas. One major family that had huge dramas and scandal in past generations is currently happy and loving. Even one of the family members who was accidentally killed in a fire was brought back to life and is normal and happy with his beautiful wife and three adorable kids. Another Sim in the same neighbourhood is divorced and struggling while her ex-husband is enjoying himself with lots of girlfriends and yet another divorced male sim is shacked up with another male. The dramas come and go, sometimes depending on what the Sims do or what I feel like doing at the time.

I didn't have much stability in my own life, so I like having stability in my sims' lives. I also live for the drama so things might seem okay but usually someone is cheating, has a secret baby, dies horribly, or ends up dying alone because they annoyed me at some point.

Stability, no contest. I get more than my fill of drama from the daily news.

I'll take DRAMA for a $1,000, Alex. Yes, I used to love watching Jeopardy.

Seriously, I love giving my sims quaint neighborhoods and homes to live in, a nice backstory to get a new household started, and then just sit back and see if they can hang onto everything. Will ACR destroy their happy relationship? Will they keep a job long enough to pay the mortgage/rent? Will a random twist of fate (an unfortunate outcome with the roll of the die or ROS) cost a sim their life? Can they keep the owned business from tanking and taking everything they put into it from going with it? Will that first generation parent(s) be able to pay their child's college tuition?

Literally have hundreds of mods that are designed to make life a struggle for my sims.

When I was a young teenager when TS2 had first come out, I used to love tons of drama in my sims' lives -- divorce, cheating, kidnapping, death, murder, family illness, etc. and with ACR and inteen in my game I had all the fun and games involved with those mods as well. But now that I've lived life and experienced those things (death, family illness, divorce, cheating, etc), I just can't bring myself to see my own sims suffer in a way that I can remember going through myself if I can help it. I try to give my sims as happy a life as possible, even if it's boring, but I still spice things up a bit here and there.

I don't want my Sims lives to be always perfect, I want them to have their moments of peace and happiness and material wealth.
But also drama, or upsets like Sims (A ) is happily married to Sims ( B ) but A or B still want their cake and eat it too.Meaning having an affairs but still remain married ( in some cases )

I must have the drama that why I always have a "Romance Sims" in my neighborhood, but if given the chance any Sims be it a family Sims or not will cheat.
What is life without Drama. lol