Whim Challenge Rules [Updated 12/07/17]

This post is pretty much for myself or anyone else following my blog story “Whim Challenge”.  Originally, I was only doing the rules from the TS4 Whims and Sims challenge but I wanted to do it as a generational challenge instead and remembered the TS3 Wishacy challenge so I kinda mixed the two together, added and took away some stuff and made it my own.  All credit for this goes to buckeygirl80 and frazersim for doing all the work for me!

Rules revised 11/12/17 to add rules regarding the new Cats and Dogs expansion pack.

Whim Challenge:

This is a generational challenge focusing on letting your sim take charge and do what they want by fulfilling their whims.  Whims are the little thought bubbles that appear above your sim to the bottom left of your screen.  There is no set number of generations, end the challenge when it stops being fun.

Rules:

STARTING OUT: 

• Your founder can be anyone as long as they are a young adult with no skills.
• You may play on whichever life-span you want.
• If you would like to make things even more challenging, try using a random traits  generator.  See my trait/whim guide at the end of this post-it’s a work in progress.
• No changing households because that cancels out your active household’s whims and when you return to them they may have new relationships and jobs that you didn’t want.
• You can populate the save with your own sims or sims from the gallery as often as you’d like.
• Your sim can start off wherever or however you would like. A pre-made or gallery house or an empty lot. An empty lot can be fun by waiting for the sim to have a whim for household items before buying them.  The freerealestate cheat is okay but money cheats aren’t so remember that your sim will somehow need to pay the bills.  They can move to a new house if they outgrow theirs or you just need a change of scenery.

WHIM BASICS: 

• Whims are the basis of this challenge. You don’t get to choose anything for your sim without their say so. They must roll a whim for an action before you can direct them to do it. No canceling whims!  If there is a whim you don’t want to follow you will need to wait for it to change on its own which may mean waiting for the sim to sleep.  Exceptions- Whims to buy something unless you want to buy it.  Give apartment key once you’ve given 3 away.
• You cannot get a job unless your Sim has a whim to do so although you can choose the career since they don’t seem to have whims for a particular career.

EMOTIONS: 

• You can use objects/potions to manipulate your Sim’s emotions.  If you want to change emotions without potions, get a teapot and they will use it autonomously.  Any created items by your sim with auras are fine too.
• Emotional whims often change, if you’ve already qued an action and the whim changes don’t worry about canceling it unless you want to.

CONTROL:

• Free will should always be on.  Revised: I usually turn this off when I’m trying to get a screenshot such as when they’re blowing out the candles then turn it right back on.
• While on the job/at school, you may choose any ‘tone’ you like for them while they are there.
• You may only help your Sim skill in areas that they roll whims for, or are directly related to their career/aspiration. No other skilling is allowed.
• You may not marry and move in a sim unless your sim has a whim to do so.
• If you want your sim to have other romantic interactions with a sim, you must let them do it of their free will. The only exception being if they roll a whim to make out with a sim or a similar unattainable whim, then naturally you would have to make them ‘flirt’ ‘first kiss’ etc to get them to the point where they are able to make out with the sim.
• If they have an unspecified whim such as use a bold pick up line or flirt you may then choose the sim to use it on. Choose wisely, they will be more inclined to have romantic whims for that sim in the future.
• Revised: Originally the rules said that you could not clean, repair or hire services to do so, I’ve found this very aggravating because dirty and broken objects make them uncomfortable which negates emotional whims and they rarely voluntarily remedy the problems themselves.  Unlike TS3 they don’t get repair whims.  The closest I’ve got is a whim to level up the handiness skill.  So, I’ve decided we can hire a maid, repairman, butler, and have the gnomes lot trait.
• Paying the bills and getting mail from the mailbox are fine.
• Any autonomous actions by your sim are allowed. You can only stop them if you are fulfilling a whim, working on an aspiration, doing daily tasks for their career or fulfilling a low need.
• It’s more fun if you have your sim fulfill their whims while out and about. Like if they want to do something on the computer go to the library or if they want to work out go to the gym.
• You can control any of the sims in the household to blow out the candles on their birthday cake and take a pregnancy test since obviously, they won’t have a whim to do so.
• I’m going to leave cooking up to you to decide how you want to handle it.  They get occasional cooking whims when inspired, they get them with the cooking aspiration selected sometimes too.  They’ll get quick meals autonomously but they aren’t filling so they eat more often.  Originally, I was going to say you can control them to cook but I’m thinking since I’ve changed the rule about service sims we’ll say hiring a caterer is okay if you want meals in the fridge.
• The Parenting game pack gives us some new options in gameplay.  While they do get occasional new whims such as encourage a child or volunteer as a family there’s a lot left out.  Here are the additions for now: You can set a curfew on the bulletin board, you can choose what you want to ground them from.
• The parents will punish the child autonomously if they see them doing something they shouldn’t be.  This is not enough. They rarely discipline autonomously and if it is annoying you feel free to control them to ask them not to do something. *new*
• Living in an apartment you get neighbor noise.  Your sims won’t do anything about it themselves and this can interrupt sleep.  So, if the noise affects sleep and only then you can go pound on the door and complain about the noise.
• Your sims will get whims to adopt a dog or cat so you will need to wait for a whim.  Exception: If you are creating a new family from CAS at the start of the challenge you may give them a pet.  *new*
• You may purchase any essential items for the pet before adopting them.  They constantly get whims to purchase pet items.  Especially if they are off the lot for items they already own at home.  Feel free to x-out these whims such as “buy a litter box” when they already own one at home. *new*
• You cannot direct your sim to interact with the pet unless they have a whim to do so.  Exception: You may at any time use the “what’s wrong?” interaction.  If the pet responds in a way that would require interaction they may do so.  *new*
• If your pet runs away you may use the telephone or computer to report them missing. *new*
• If your pet brings you a present you may open it. *new*
• You may not send a pet hunting.  If you want them to hunt on their own give them one of the traits like Prowler.  *new*
• You may discipline a pet because it’s super annoying if you don’t and you might be stuck replacing half the furniture. *new*

SOCIAL:

• If your sim has a whim to text or call someone it is your choice who they call.
• It is also your choice if they accept invites to parties and events.
• If they have a romantic interest you can choose to invite them to stay the night but can’t do anything with them unless it’s autonomous or whimmed.
• If they are traveling it’s fine to ‘invite’ other sims along.
• You can control your main sim to throw a social event and follow the tasks for the event.  Dates should be whimmed… it’s too easy to pursue your favorite as a romantic interest otherwise.  If you aren’t getting date whims change to one of the romantic aspirations.
• Once they’ve flirted with a sim a few times they’ll start getting whims for that sim.  It’s better if you work to get them flirty and learn to manipulate their whims to serve your goals.
• Your sim can join/create a club but can only attend if invited or if they have a whim to hold a meeting.  This shouldn’t be a problem because they’ll get that whim constantly.  I’ve used the club trick to meet sims in their age range for romantic partners.

KIDS/HEIR:

• You can’t have a baby unless your sim has a whim for it. It seems that they don’t get the whim until married. If they never get the whim you can either wait for your free 24 hours or if you’re desperate substitute try for baby for a woohoo whim. If you’re playing with a male sim in this case you can move the baby in manage worlds after it is born.  You will be notified of it’s birth.
• You can control any sim to care for a baby or hire a nanny.
• You can choose the heir however you want.  If you’d like to wait until some of the children have aged to an older age before you pick your heir so you can see which you like best that’s fine but you need to choose before the oldest child ages to young adult.
• As soon as your heir becomes a young adult, the next generation begins.

NON-HEIR HOUSEHOLD MEMBERS:

• Can only be controlled if you’re following whims –and only if you want to. You could play it ISBI style and ignore their whims if you want.
• If for some reason they have a need that they aren’t taking care of autonomously you can click the need to force them to tend to it.
• You can move out spares and former heirs or keep them in the house.  You can leave them homeless or move them into a house of your choice but once you move them out you can’t play them.  If you’re tracking the whim count the former heirs should stay in the household.

SATISFACTION POINTS & ASPIRATIONS:

• The satisfaction points you collect are your reward for a great job at fulfilling your sim’s whims and you can spend them however you want.
• You can switch aspirations whenever you want.   Sims will get whims in relation to their aspiration so this is encouraged. For example, if your sim is getting older and they have no romantic interest, I suggest switching to a romantic aspiration. Though having that 24-hour reward mentioned below should help with those issues.

24 HOUR REWARD:

• Once you have reached 250 total fulfilled whims you are rewarded with a free day to control all of your sims however you want without the need to wait for whims.  You can do this once or every 250 whims depending on how difficult you want to make it for yourself.  You can view your sim’s total fulfilled whims by opening up your sims stats in the Simology tab.  Note: Once you learn to manipulate your sim this reward isn’t really needed.

Scoring: (optional)

• Try to get more fulfilled whims each generation than the previous generation.  Another way of scoring would be to not ever use their satisfaction points and tally them up for each generation as well but it seems like a waste not using them.  Note: The best time to track this is at the moment of the former heir’s death.  You can still click on their stats to see what their total whims were.

Trait/Whim Guide