Rules are boring. The only rule I have is "The Watcher (me) knows what's best for you." Now go do your homework already.

It's kinda like a theocracy, really

All the other rules are really more guidelines. But here they are:

2. It's a frikken game. It's not just a dollhouse to enact whatever and whenever. It has it's own rules and mechanics. Trying to work with those is more productive than ignoring them, or worse, trying to work against them. Everything else really flows from this simple rule.

3. A happy citizen is a productive citizen. As deities go, I'm more like the deity of hedonism. I've seen people in LPs try to drive a sim who had three needs in the red, and be like, "No, you're not going to sleep! You're finishing that term paper NOW!" Now I won't tell them how to play their game, obviously, but that's not my style. I'm more like, "oh dear, your fun is in the yellow, let's take care of that first." And honestly, I find that people in good mood are better at learning skills or earning promotions than mercilessly driven slaves anyway.

4. The Rule Of Fun. As deities go, I'm an easily bored one. Everything happens or doesn't happen, depending on whether it would be fun or not fun for me to play that. Hence why I don't set rules for myself. If I momentarily feel like it would be more fun to play one character for a month than to do the rotation, that's that.

5. The Rule Of Funny. The Watcher works in mysterious ways, and sometimes slapstick ways. The end justifies the means, if the end is hilarious.

6. The Rule Of Cool. If it would be cool for something to happen, other rules or realism considerations might get temporarily suspended for it to actually happen.

All fire alarms must be removed and sprinklers installed in their place.

All lots must be on the same day of the week by the time a full rotation is complete. Corollary: all households must be played for the same number of days that rotation. If I want a different rotation length, I change it at the beginning.

All households must be on the same day of either Season 1, 2, 3, or 4. The season itself can vary by subhood.

Needless to say, I abuse the hell out of Paladin and Neder's vases.

My main game rules are (there are lots more...but I'll keep this short):

- Free Will is and forever shall be set to ON.

- My Sims get to choose who they really want to be with, or not be with (thanks to various mods).

- Autonomous everything is welcomed (even if it ends in tragedy).

- Sims are heavily taxed and must pay daily bills as well.

- All homes are played on a 7 day rotational and seasonal schedule (seasons are set for 7 days).

- Teens have to work really hard in order to be accepted by any university.

- The pillars in the community (Goth's and Landgraab's) are expected to perform various charitable duties, as well as provide a university scholarship (if there is a qualifying student) once per year (after a four season cycle).

- Not every Sim/family is allowed to have a child. This really keeps the neighborhood population in check, and is a bit more realistic as well.

- Children are allowed to just be kids (play dates, sleepovers, hobbies, family outings) - none of that focusing on skilling business, as that is what the teen (for the college bound) and adult stage is for.

- If a household cannot afford to pay the weekly monitoring fees for a burglar alarm (§2,000) and fire alarm (§700), then they are not allowed to have one - things really get interesting sometimes.

I tend to just play one house for awhile. When I do a rotation hood, I rotate after 1 week of Sunday to Sunday.

In my challenge houses (currently doing a ISBI like one (I say like because I am allowed to make those kids do homework)) the spares stay in the house to die. So the more generations, the fuller the house, the more interesting for me to watch.

My kids will learn until they have 8 points in a subject. Their teens years are for fun.

No money cheats...if you can't afford it, you don't get it. Living on the lawn is common for a new sim.

Heir is chosen by me for my own reasons. Spares may die with the family...or sometimes they move to a "spare house" that my sons may play to torture them...

I've realized that if I don't create sims that I actually care for I get bored of them really fast. So in my hood my main sims have to be interesting sims that acquire my taste and identity otherwise I don't know what to do with them. I don't know if this is shallow or not.

Maybe there should be a challenge where everyone must create sims that are the EXACT opposite of their personality. In my case, my opposite would hate books and anything involving science and classical music.

I have tons, which will vary from neighborhood to neighborhood, depending on how I set them up. I like to do different things in different neighborhoods so that I don't get bored with any one style of playing. But here are some random examples, which is by NO means all of them:

1) No fire alarms allowed. You set something on fire, you put out the fire, stupid. And if no one's home to put out a natural fire and your house burns down...Well, it sucks to be you, doesn't it?

2) No repair people allowed. You break something, you fix it. And if you get electrocuted in the attempt, well that sucks for you, too. Especially if you die.

3) In fact, no services allowed, period. No nannies. (You have a kid, you take care of it, even if you're a single parent and it means you get fired from your job, which because of another rule also means that you can never get back into that career even if it's your LTW career.) No gardeners. (Not really a concern, given that I installed a "Perfect Plants" mod, anyway. But before that, they all had to do their own watering and weeding and trimming and stuff.) No maids. (Clean your own damn house.) Etc. Basically, I like to make my pixels' lives harder, not easier.

4) No free money, except for CAS-made Sims, who will sometimes get a lot more or a lot less than 20K-ish. No 20K handouts. No life insurance. Money does get passed along families, though. Like, when a Sim is single and a day or so away from dying, then I'll use Monique's computer to distribute as much of their money as possible to their kids, if any. If they have no kids, then sometimes it will go to the neighborhood's "tax collector," to be used for building community lots, If I'm playing in such a way that the neighborhood has a tax collector. If not, then the money of a dying Sims with no one to inherit it just goes "poof." I'll also generally keep track of generally how much money each household has at a given time so that if a single Sim with inheritors dies unexpectedly (Like, through...oh, electrocution -- See #2 , then I can still distribute their funds.

5) Most things are decided randomly, from a Sim's sexual preference to their aspirations to what they will do to earn a living to whether or not they will marry (and, sometimes WHO they will marry) to how many kids they want to have to what they will cook for their dinner on a given day. Otherwise I will do the same damn thing over and over and then complain about how bored I am. Yeah, that's me. So, I force random on myself as much as I can.

6) My main overall goal in playing is to achieve each playable Sim's LTW, if I can. (And I never, ever change their LTW unless they're a college student and the random number generator decides that they change their aspiration at the end of their sophomore year; that's an unbreakable rule of mine.) It's not always possible in some neighborhoods, especially things like BACCs where I am generally slow to unlock careers, but I do my best to try. And I also have the mod that lets any Sim have any LTW regardless of aspiration, so sometimes their LTW won't align all that well with their aspiration/personality/other characteristics that are randomly decided....which I actually like. A lot. Like that male Romance Sim who wants 6 grandchildren but won't ever get married or have a live-in opposite-gender partner, meaning he has to adopt kids or have alien babies or have affairs with playable female Sims that result in children. Or the Family Sim who wants 20 lovers and will get married but isn't destined for polyamory. Such things are quite fun/challenging to achieve, actually. Well, at least it's fun from my point of view.

7) Generally, Sims only do things that they have a want to do or that they autonomously decide to do. If kids don't roll a want to do homework, they don't do it. (I have a no social worker hack, so they can fail school all they want.) They suffer other consequences of such a choice, but it's THEIR choice to fail or succeed at school. Also, a Sim doesn't skill unless they roll a want to do so or they autonomously choose to do something that earns them skills. If that means they don't advance in their career, if they have one...Well, again, that's their choice. If they have no wants that I can actively fill, then they free will unless/until their wants reroll and/or they have low motives and aren't addressing them.

8) ACR is the other god(dess) in my neighborhood. It decides when a pair will woohoo and/or if it will be a try for baby. (Meaning, if someone's got a woohoo want or a "Have a Baby" want, and I command them to woohoo in order to fulfill or attempt to fulfill the want, I'll always use ACR's "Casual..." pie menu option, so that ACR decides if it's a "Try For Baby" or not.) So, it ultimately controls family sizes. (Modified by ACR;s "ideal family size" setting, of course, which is set by me but determined semi-randomly, based on aspirations. Most of the other Sim-level settings are randomly determined and set to static.) It also generally decides who a Sim will end up shacked up with, if their destiny is to be shacked up with anyone at all and if I don't just give a Sim a randomly-selected stranger as a spouse via a hacked wedding arch...which is also fun, when I'm in that sort of mood. Generally, chemistry is completely meaningless to me...unless I decide that it isn't meaningless for a given neighborhood, which is occasionally but not very often the case.

9) College is hard to get into. Not all neighborhoods have one, for one thing. For another, it costs money which has to be paid by the student via scholarships and/or a job, not by the student's family. For another, a Sim can only go at all if they have an LTW to max out a career that I've decided requires a degree to max out and if they have good enough grades as a teen. (See #7.) And then, if they make it there at all, it's hard to complete successfully. Because, again, students only skill and do academic stuff if they roll a want for it or autonomously decide to do it, and if they go on academic probation, they must immediately drop out. (Mostly because repeating semesters screws up my almighty rotations. )

Only death from old age.
All bathrooms must have toilet paper, toothbrush holder, and towels.
Items must match, so if it's a white dining table, I need white chairs and appliances MUST match.
No romance Sims unless the neighborhood needs some drama. It's annoying to make them settle down.
No aliens or supernaturals. Period.
All landscaping must have dirt underneath it.
Instant meals must only be used if there is no counter (poor Sims).
All pools must have a ladder.
All community lots must have a bathroom.
All Maxis houses must be renovated.
Dina may never marry Mortimer.
All students must succeed at college.

That's all I can think of at the moment.

My only hard and fast rules are that I play 3 day rotations, and 2 years at uni, teens get sent to Uni when they have 1 day left before aging up, I otherwise never age Sims up until they age up on their own (I never have birthday parties since they lose a day of their next age stage that way), Sim couples generally only have 2 children, one to marry into the household and one to marry out, unless they want to graduate 3 kids from college or have 6 grandkids in which case they can have 3. If they want to marry off 6 kids they are SOL Or you know, unless ACR intervenes though I might simply opt to put excess children up for adoption (with the Inge teleporter) and have a gay couple adopt them. No cheating (unless there's a glitch or to make plastic surgery genetic in SimPE or to give babies back a day if they were born at an awkward time thanks to being the product of autonomous TFB (if I have having Sims tr for baby I generally do it at 3 or 4 p.m.) and lost a day also in SimPE)

Other then that, what happens is largely due to what I feel like doing at the time. Or what ACR feels like doing at the time.

My rules:

You eat what you burn
No computers in the home unless it's for a specific sim (don't need them cracking out on Sims like I do :P)
No cheating by married couples
No stuffing face at the fridge. Stop it, fatty.
Bathrooms cannot be in the center / need to be against an exterior wall.
Never play premade sims
No money cheats
No Athletic career. Go drink at the Rattlesnake Douchbar, jocks.
Man/Man and Woman/Woman are allowed to conceive if that is their will. I don't judge.
Dead sims stay dead
Accidental pregnancies / planned pregnancies are kept

(How did I post this on the wrong thread?)

I don't use "favourite colours" as such but I do have "rules" on colours and shades etc.

Sloppy = nothing white
Neat = clean blocks of colour, clothes always co-ordinate.
Shy = muted tones
Outgoing = brights, patterns or another bold style (Plus, outgoing gay sims tend to lean towards masculine/feminine colours, whichever is the opposite to their gender)
Serious = neutrals
Playful = colourful, prints/graphics, perhaps clashing
Grouchy = black, grey, off-putting or intimidating
Nice = pastels
(Active and Lazy have no bearing on colour.)
Grilled cheese = yellow or orange!
Romance = black/red/white, the classics.

Warning! Long post alert!

The rules I play to, generally, are these:

- I have to have fun doing it. (Well, it is a game!)

- Free Will is on in general (though it may be turned off for individual Sims for plot reasons - I have a mod for this, and another mod that, among other things, automatically turns Free Will on for everybody whenever the lot is reloaded so I don't have a Sim die by mistake).

- I use daily rotations to the extent I remember to do so.

- There is a royalty, which are constrained by a small morass of rules (one of which is that the High Ruler cannot have any sort of job other than ruling - and raising taxes). There's usually a parliament too, with its own rules (including that it may not make laws contradicting anything the current High Ruler says but is free to repeal any law made by a previous High Ruler), but that's currently out of session.

- If I'm doing any challenges in a neighbourhood or a subhood, these will be followed where these do not interfere excessively with fun or plot.

- Taxes must be paid when ordered (not necessarily when due - unlike real-life tax regimes, the leadership sometimes forgives taxes or just plain forgets!), and may only be ordered if a condition is met that allows them to be (for example, the overdue taxes to which I referred to in a recent thread are the $200/household flat taxes that fall due on the anniversary of SimHampton's independence charter).

- No Sim may rely on alms being given from the Palace (as it is the Palace's decision whether to award it; Sims are expected to make their own arrangements for meeting their own expenses. Going into debt is not a criminal offence, but has consequences...

- Speaking of which, a list of actual crimes is maintained by the powers-that-be (crimes may be added to or removed by either a vote of the parliament - when it is in session - or executive fiat of the High Ruler). The sentence is usually house arrest or prison until the tariff is worked off (this may be done by "supervised placement" - i.e. a job - if the prisoner is well-behaved, otherwise the prisoner may either use money-making options in their house if under house arrest, or use the one vocational option in their prison, or wait until other people in the household - or in other prisons, have "worked" off the tariff for them). Sims who have worked off their tariff must undergo probation, where they take on a job in Law Enforcement, Law or Prison Work, and must turn in a criminal successfully to earn total freedom. In the unlikely event that no other criminals are in town, they are freed after 1 day in their new job unless they commit more crime).

- Any magic that is not from the vanilla game cauldron has special rules, that are rather complicated to describe, largely because there are several groups able to use magic that all have different rules.

- No Sim may fall in love, get engaged, marry, have/get a child or WooHoo unless either they or their partner has a current Want that could reasonably be interpreted as such, or the specific Sim has a Lifetime Want that requires/strongly reccommends one of these things happen and the Sim has made a serious attempt at getting the LTW (several lovers already for a Sim with a 20-lover LTA, a very strong love for the partner Sim that is stronger than loves for any other Sim in the case of a Golden Wedding, at least 3 children (counting pregnancies as one child) for X children [achieve something, if in LTW], 3 WooHoos in the case of the 20 WooHoo ambition). They also can't do those things if the idea of doing them with this particular Sim would be utterly ridiculous.

- No buying stuff to satisfy Wants if a Sim is already in Platinum mood or the household would have less than $200 left over after the purchase (unless the want is for a fridge and there is literally no way of satisfying hunger in the house)

- Every house shall contain a phone unless it is being played as a challenge which bans them

- Try to play Sims reasonably close to character unless doing otherwise makes sense, an action doesn't really say anything about the Sim's character or the game itself takes matters out of my hands. (Note: my idea of "character" has nothing to do with the "personality" created in the game - the latter helps define what sort of Sims I'm putting the characters on.

- Teens hoping to go to University must pass an entrance given at the end of each calendar month (at the moment, that is every 6 rotations, but as SimHampton grows, it will be a smaller number of rotations). At that specific moment, a teen has to have an A- or higher to attend, with the ability to bring 1-2 friends who didn't get to do the exams (think townies and a couple of special cases) if A or A+ is scored. The "special cases", who have an unusual reason for not having an A- (for example, being isolated from school with cybersickness and being cured shortly before the exam) may attend on a Palace scholarship, and be exempt from any tuition rate - but be obligated to work as a Palace servant if they leave university prior to graduation for any reason without Palace permission.

- Teenagers can also apply to join the University outreach programme (SimHampton's answer to private school). It has no effect on their ability to go to university in itself, but if they stay with the programme long enough (8 days), they get a degree even if they never attend university. If they do happen to attend university, they automatically get the degree from the programme (even if they were only in it for 1 day) and may start a Master's course at university. Nobody has yet graduated with a Master's and I haven't decided on the appropriate reward for doing so - except that they earn the right to be called "Prof." or "Professor").

- University Sims must apply for all eligible scholarships before going - townies excused.

- University Sims may not do anything to earn tuition unless they have either done all the studying they can reasonably do for that term's exam or they are not fit to do any further studying at that moment.

- Any university accommodation having special rules to become resident (biggest example is the training monastery) must have those rules adhered to where possible.

- Initial aspiration for teens is chosen by the one closest to the subject of the leftmost Want. Plot determines aspiration changes otherwise.

- Lifetime wants are never changed. Some Sims regard their lifetime want as a royal/divine [delete as appropriate to specific Sim attitude] commandment and for others it is little more than a long-term daydream. Most are in between. I play my Sims accordingly.

- A Sim with enough aspiration points for elixir and the state appropriate for using it in the correct direction (occasionally Sims are made older on purpose, more often younger) gets to drink it. However, nobody may have more than three doses of elixir in their life unless there are unusual plot reasons involved, and if "unusual plot reasons" are involved, there are always consequences. One of my Sims has overdosed on elixir and will probably notice effects quite soon.

- Other rewards have varying rules. Money trees, kibbles of life and special hot tubs are available for anyone. Sims with a desire to see weather may have a weather changer. Criminals (by career, the self-made list or by plot) may have the counterfeiter and skills vacuum cleaner. Sims with Knowledge aspiration can have Smart Milk in their house (and anyone in that house may use it). The others don't get used.

- Genies are permitted and may be used by anyone in the house, with the limitation that if there are more than 2 Sims, nobody gets multiple wishes from the same lamp.

- Resurrections are permitted, for anyone who plot doesn't say was permanently dead, but there are always consequences for this (which vary from "might as well be non-existent" to "rather severe" depending on how I feel and what makes sense for the circumstances). Of course, a Sim who isn't liked all that much probably won't get resurrected in a situation they'd want (or at all)... ...and any Sim who has been drunk is automatically ruled out of further resurrection attempts for obvious reasons. Anyone may plead with the Grim Reaper if they are willing to pay the price for it, which is never declared in advance and varies a lot also.

- If a Sim wants the Humble computer, they can buy it at its proper value.

- Supernatural traits are strictly non-heritable, though any Sim growing up into the dinosaur head as a child will become a witch as a teen (yes I realise this is a strange way to decide who is born a witch, but so far I like the results). Mostly, supernatural stuff happens due to plot, but if the game makes or strongly implies a Sim should be supernatural... ...far be it from me to argue.

- (Edit to add: Teenage) Sims cannot currently get pregnant, but they can adopt. Not realistic, but no chance of accidentally sending a pregnant Sim to university and completely confusing my game and/or myself.

- At the moment, teens and under who have no adults or elders in their household get sent to the orphanage unless I am away from the keyboard when it happens. It is run on independent-minded lines, in the belief that young people allowed to make their own decisions can, with a little guidance, do a good job of running the house. An adult from the Palace can step in when necessary, but so far their services have rarely been needed and the teens of the household have done well as miniature parents and kept their school grades up (it's the only house to have had multiple children and a 100% record of its children going to university so far). It's often a nicer place than the houses from which the children originally came, but there still isn't a queue of parents wanting to place children there on purpose.

I think that summarises everything...

Bump. I should be allowed to bump this thread, right? It's been 25 days and I love reading these.

I have a few rules:

1)If a Sim dies, they stay dead.
1a.The only time I will quit without saving is if a Sim is about to die of something other than old age.

2)If a Sim gets pregnant she/he stays pregnant, no using the ACR "day after pill" option. Most of the time Sims either get pregnant by themselves through ACR, or I have them try for baby if both Sims have a want.

3)All teens go to college. They usually have a few scholarships by the time I'm ready to send them.

4)No cheating allowed for married/partnered Sims. I have ACR settings set up to disable cheating.

Depends on the hood for me, some have more rules than others.

- In all but my Belladonna Cove based megahood: always aging off. If in BC, use the elixr of life only if a sim has earned it and I don't feel they've had enough kids (looking at you, Ophelia)
- Maxmotives only when posing or if about to die.
- Use familyfunds only if necessary to afford a house appropriate for the sim's lifestyle.
- Only simlish or instrumental custom music; not so much a gameplay rule but it ties in with my other rule: no salsa music because after ages of stupid apartment neighbors turning on the stereo I've grown to hate it with a burning passion. Station must be changed to something decent, appropriate, and not something that will make my ears bleed immediately.
- If sims can fish on their lot they have no excuse not to.
- Skill cram on the first day: minimize any chance of undesirable fires as soon as possible.
- No whining about burnt food. Eat it; it builds character.
- Put burglar alarms everywhere, I'm not letting some doofus take what I worked hard to furnish your house with.
- Children hug recently fired/demoted parents. They had a hard day, they need it.
- Kiss and make up if anyone decides to be a dumb and tell their spouse a bad dirty joke (darn pervs).