Lamare asked me to share some more information about how I use random number generators in my game. Sorry it took me so long to start this thread, Lamare, I completely forgot!

In my game I use random number generators for a number of different things to help to introduce some variety into my game. I've given a brief explanation of some of the ways I use it below, if anyone has any questions please ask! :-) Also, I was wondering if anyone else uses random number generators as part of their play-style, and if so, how do you use them?

I think that the first thing I started using random number generators for was to decide each sim's sexual orientation, fertility and the age at which female sims will go through the menopause. I do this right after they are made in CAS, when I start playing them (if they are a pre-made sim), when they become playable (for townies/NPC's who get moved into my households) or when they are born (for born in-game sims).

I roll 1-100 for sexual orientation - 1-10 is gay/lesbian, 11-20 is bisexual, 21-99 is heterosexual and 100 is asexual. I then use the Simblender to set their gender preference (or SimPE for asexual sims, as the Simblender doesn't have an option to make sims asexual).

Fertility is decided by a roll from 1-25. 1 is completely infertile (can't have biological children at all, apart from through alien abduction for males) and 2 is partially infertile (can only have biological children using fertility treatments, which cost $10,000/$12,000 per round of treatment and only 5/12 pregnancies are successful due to a high risk of miscarriage. Female sims can also roll to have an increased risk of miscarriage - 3 is majorly inclined to miscarry (1/6 pregnancies are successful) and 4 is somewhat inclined to miscarry (1/3 pregnancies are successful). When I play pregnancies for a female with an increased risk of miscarriage I roll 1-6 during each trimester - sims who are majorly inclined to miscarry have to roll 4+, 4+ and 3+ for the pregnancy to be successful and sims who are somewhat inclined to miscarry have to roll 4+, 3+ and no roll for the third trimester for the pregnancy to be successful.

Part-alien sims have higher rates of fertility problems - half aliens roll 1-8 for their fertility, quarter-aliens roll 1-16 for their fertility and three-quarter aliens (I use a multi-PT mod, so this can happen, but never has in my game as yet - though my head-canon for Stella Terrano has her as being 3/4 alien and not a full alien, as she claims) roll 1-6 for their fertility. I use the same numbers to indicate fertility problems as I do for non-alien sims, so half-aliens have a 1/2 chance of having some fertility issues.

Female sims go through the menopause aged between 40 and 50 (I use an altered lifespan mod, so my sims are adults from the age of 20 (or 29 if they have been to college and graduated) until the age of 61, when they become elders. I didn't want them to be able to have babies right up until the age of 55/56, so I introduced the menopause roll to my game). After they go through the menopause they can no longer become pregnant naturally (but they can still use fertility treatment, if they can afford it). I roll 40-50 for each female sim to decide the age at which they will go through the menopause.

When a sim gives birth or has a miscarriage, I roll to see if a) they survive the pregnancy and b) if they become partially/completely infertile due to complications from the pregnancy. I usually roll 1-25 to see if they survive, 1-20 for partial infertility and 1-50 for complete infertility - in all cases, they die/become infertile if I roll a 1. Multiple births have higher risks of death - 1/20 for twins and 1/10 for triplets/quads. Alien abduction pregnancies also have a higher risk of death - 1/10 for a single birth, 1/5 for twins and 1/2 for triplets or quads (which are very rare for abduction pregnancies).

When I introduced the concept of military service to my game I introduced rolls for death, major and minor disability for each day that a sim is serving in the military. If a sim serves in the military right out of high school they must serve for one week, which includes five working days. Each day I roll 1/25 for death, 1/25 for minor disability and 1/50 for major disability. This means that a fairly high percentage of sims who serve in the military do end up either dying or becoming disabled. Sims who work at higher job levels within the military (because they have a relevant degree qualification) still risk death and disability, but the risk is lower.

I represent disability by using the Grilled Cheese aspiration - sims with a more minor disability keep their original primary aspiration and their secondary changes to Grilled Cheese, and sims with a more major disability completely lose their original aspirations and take Grilled Cheese as a primary without a secondary. Sims with a minor disability keep their disability for the rest of their life, but sims with a major disability can improve slightly as, after they've eaten 100 grilled cheese sandwiches, they begin to "recover" slightly, which I represent by giving them their original primary aspiration as their secondary aspiration, whilst keeping Grilled Cheese as their primary. Sims with a minor disability can still live relatively normal lives, but sims with a major disability are considered unemployable, may not be left alone to care for babies/toddlers/children, cannot increase their skills, with the exception of Cooking, and I am only allowed to control them to fill their wants (which are inevitably grilled cheese-related!). If they eventually recover somewhat and gain a secondary aspiration then they become controllable again and may find a job, take care of children and skill.

I have since also started using random rolls to add risks to (some levels of) some other careers. Law Enforcement, Intelligence and Oceanography level 5 all have a (small) risk of death, with rolls varying from 1/250 to 1/750, and Criminal has a risk of death and also a risk of being caught and sent to prison - the risk varies depending on life-stage and career level. I have yet to have a sim sent to prison, but if I did I would set up a playable prison using Inge's prison set, so that they could be sent there to serve their sentence.

I don't like using the genie lamp in my game, so if a sim receives the lamp I play it as them having "won the lottery" - I delete the actual lamp, and the amount of money they've won is decided by a 1-100 roll, with the winnings varying from $1,000 (35/100 chance) to $25,000 (1/100 chance), with various other amounts in between.

I have recently also started using a random number generator to help decide my sims' intelligence levels - there is more information about that in this thread.

I think that's it! This turned out rather long ( ) but I think I've included everything :-D If I think of anything else I'll come back and add it. I'd love to hear how people use random number generators during their game-play, if anyone does, and I also like comments, suggestions, questions and so on :-) I hope that this was of interest to you, Lamare! :-D

I love this post!

The closest I've gotten to using a RNG is getting a set of dice (I mostly just like the noise they make) and rolling one of them to pick out an aspiration.

Well, I use the RandomStuff "Dice Rolling" Program by Hook and I have my custom set of ROS (Random Occurance Scenarios) with 89 possible minor events and 32 possible major events for each household which are rolled every rotation, besides 16 events for the entire neighborhood, rolled every sim-year. I often add new events in each category as some ideas pop into my mind.

I also used it to define the architecturial style of new parts of the town (27 styles in total), primary and secondary aspirations and the Ledesia's Traits (which I also added 11 "custom traits" made by myself). The chances of an aspiration been choose for each sim is based on the traits.

I just don't know if I would share this was it is very specific for the way I play the game and I don't know if other people would by interested in it.

It sounds weird, but I used to use dice and they didn't feel random enough. Also they kept getting lost under my desk in the tangle of cords back there. Now I keep my phone near while playing and use random.org. I don't play in windowed mode for reasons and tabbing in and out of the game takes so long I usually forget what number I rolled.

I use RNG for aspirations like many other Simmers. I also use it to pick the toddler toy the Sim will get. Often I won't have room in their houses for all three. I let ACR randomly choose their gender preference. If a Sim rolls a generic Get a Job want they get the first one in the paper. And that's about it. I've been thinking of using it to decide which skill the Sim will study when they roll a generic skill point want. As of now, I just go down the list which leads to Sims who all have the same set of skills. I need to start doing it for university majors because my Sims never roll wants for them and now everyone's a Philosophy major.

I know a lot of Simmers play by feel or go by Sim's personalities. And it's great to be that in tune with your Sims! When I do that I feel like I'm stereotyping my Sims and they all end up very same-y. If all my lazy Sims will be Pleasure or all my Sims interested in Science will be Knowledge Sims or all my Sims who roll wants for friends in their childhood will be Popularity Sims. I feel people will not always want (or get) what you think they should and I want my Sims to be the same way and surprise me. RNG is just the best way for me to do that.

I'm glad you started this thread, Laura.
Love Grilled Cheese addiction disability idea. I can see how it makes sence when you play by wants. And it's easy to remember without taking notes.


I agree! Randomness kind of triggers inspiration and forces you to play out things you wouldn't have, and makes you think of a story of why this is happening. It's so much fun! So yeah, now whenever I see someone talking about random rolls, I'm all ears

I've played Random Legacy for a little while (it's Sims 2 adaptation of original Sims 3 challenge). My main sim rolled to be a loser, which basicly means fulfilling fears instead of wants. He was popularity and mostly feared to be rejected. I've made quite a few discoveries following his life. Like, you could be at -100/-100 relationships with some towny and he would STILL accept your jokes! Or you could insult and beat up your wife and she wouldn't reject your flirting after all this! Or that there's not much you can do to worsen the relationships between a teenager and adult (they can't even argue). Also I've seen a lot of new animations that I've never seen before playing this sim. Like when spouces have low relationships and you have your other sim influence one of them to hug another - there's an interesting unique hug there, "insidious" hug, I might call it. So, yeah, I had lots of fun and a hard time trying to fulfill some of this jerk's fears. I wonder, what it would be like with other aspirations.

There is Viking Death Squad Legacy Challenge, which also has random rolls in it, if someone's interested. And there's this child-teen transition random generator I know of.

What can I share... I don't have a list of random events, but kinda have ideas from several sim-blogs I stumbled upon. When create a sim or have a sim birth you can roll for:
- 1-3 extreme traits in personality: like groucy+sloppy (create-a-sim only)
- aspiration
- clothing style
- favourite color
- obsession: gambling, "juice", "woohoo", food, work, internet, or none
- skilling and career focus: depending on personality, on true hobby, on interests, on family tradition; specific field
- attending university: yes, no, yes but drop out, depending on want/fear, depending on parents, etc

So you rolling those things and - bam - you have a character draft in mind, along with a backstory and possible upcoming events.

I use random roles to set aspirations (those unlucky enough to roll their primary on their secondary roll get Grilled Cheese), turn ons and turn offs (unless they roll "custom hair," in which case they roll again), and whether they're a supernatural or not. I roll for whether they're a genius or not. (Both easily set with mods.)

Also how large the starting family is. And how much extra starting money they have.

I've been known to roll dice for random events in the neighborhood each week. If I honestly can't decide between several viable options, I'll do a random roll. (I'm a retired dungeon master; I have plenty of dice.)

Oooooh, awesome find, I might start using it from now on. It's always so hard to choose aspirations for so many teen sims... And since my favourite part of the game is raising families, more often than not it turns out to be "Family"

I like Random Name Generator as for dice rolls, I want to get into that...but I keep forgetting.

I have a set of polyhedrals on my desk, in the little plastic box they come in so the cats don't lose them for me, but I don't use them for anything elaborate. A simple roll for aspiration if I'm uncertain or there's some reason to randomize (like in the GS Uberhood I'm trying to reduce play in other households, so when I do go to grow a kid to teen I often don't know them), which on the face of it is a simple six-sider roll. In practice, however, it may be an even/odd (if the kid seems equally likely to have either of two aspirations), a four-sider (no way this kid'll be Knowledge or Family), or even an 8, 10, or 12 sider, if I don't want every aspiration to have an equal chance. Romance, Popularity, and Pleasure are "immature" aspirations, while Family, Fortune, and Knowledge are "mature" ones, and almost all my sims go to University and have a chance to change aspiration at junior year, so sometimes when I'm rolling I'll increase the odds of getting the immature aspirations, and sometimes a sim's circumstances increase the chance of growing up with a particular aspiration - a poor sim may be more likely to roll Fortune, a sim whose strongest relationship is to Romance sim may be Romance, etc.

Sometimes I randomize turn-ons and turn-offs, which can be tricky since the number of possibilities is hard to emulate on dice, and depending on the situation I may skip certain possibilities. If I'm not deliberately taking the random turn-ons rolled, I won't let teens go with a turn-on for gray hair (Yech! I can always reroll it if they change aspirations junior year) and skills don't belong in the turn-off slot, they just don't.

Sometimes I randomize edits to sims when building them, but it's a matter of ad hoc decisions at the moment how I use the randomization, not any set way to do it. I couldn't do all these charts and random determination at teenhood for how many children they'll have and all that. I need to be in the moment and fly by the seat of my pants.

Oh, neat idea! Even two ideas.

That reminds me. I rolled for a chance of mid-life crisis a few times. By that I determined whether or not sim changes his aspiration at some point in adulthood. Light case - only secondary aspiration changed/added, hard case - primary (or both).

I must confess that I totally stole the idea of having extra traits (page copied) and put it into my random program as well. Had to do some editing, as the program does have a line read limit, but I'm sure it'll come in handy eventually.

On aspirations: I was thinking on this today, and I have a working plausibility for why certain pixels can get matched up with each other. I figure the primary aspiration is what attracted them to one another, and the secondary is what keeps them together. For instance, if two knowledge pixels got together at college, and they got married..one had a fortune secondary and the other had a family secondary. It's the glue that keeps them together, I figure.

Makes as much sense as Cyjon's interpretation of the chemistry thing.