#and they actually use gameplay to add to it a lot
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Making Sims 2 University Fun: my personal guide
I've noticed that while it's probably one of the most utilized of the expansions, TS2's university is generally seen as a slog. Which makes sense. It has a completely different gameplay loop than the rest of the game. But it's very handy to send your sims to college, especially if you use any of the various mods that limit careers based on education. So here's my big guide to making university an actual fun experience to play through (to me, at least).
The university expansion is, uh, very tailored to the 2000s college party time animal-house tropes. the pack becomes more fun when you treat it that way and let your sims be stupid young adults who streak and fool around on campus and throw parties. which, by default, is tricky because of the gameplay that requires so much skill building and assignments. which the rest of this guide will also deal with.
Note: I make some pretty big changes to normal university gameplay, to the point that it does require a bit of modding and at least one instance of fooling with simpe. there's probably also easier ways to do it, and of course everything is optional. maybe you do like keeping sims in dorms for the entire time and just three-speeding trough it all.
*mods: there are a few absolute must-have mods to me.:
TwoJeff's College Adjuster. It's basically an all-in-one controller to adjust semester timing, change semesters, plus a bunch of other features. The semester timing is the most important to me.
Active Classes is still in testing, but it almost completely changes how I play college sims. Once again, I'll detail gameplay later, but actually sending your sims to class makes for a much more fun campus experience.
No College Time Progression On Community Lots: this goes hand-in-hand with the previous mod.
Community Time: IIRC you have to do a little editing in SimPE to make it work right with University - this post explains what to edit. I don't know if I'm allowed to share the exact edit I made as a download. This might seem redundant after the last mod, but there's a reason for the madness: while one group of sims are in their active classes, the other students can do things on the home lot.
Instant Pledge for Greek Houses: This one is important for greek house gameplay, which is later.
SimBlender: There's like, 500 different edits of the SimBlender, and I think all of them have the main function needed for my college gameplay, which is teleportation. You can use a comparable teleporter if you fancy.
Simlogical's University Break is another important one for me, but it's not really necessary if you don't want it. I usually give the sims one break day per season - more on that later.
Autonomous Casual Romance is not required, but it sure adds a lot of fun to your college experience. You can also do any number of professor-limiting, custom degrees, etc mods and fixes you want.
*mods i do not use: there are mods to change the number of/length of semesters, but I seem to run into issues with them so I use the college adjuster to do the same things. I also don't really use any major overhauls, or mods that make term papers faster. I did have the tuition mod for a bit but grew tired of using it.
*general timing changes: I do seven-day seasons with longer lifespans for all sims and play rotations each day. These are the things I do specifically for university:
Four semesters: I only do semesters 2, 4, 6, and 8. Every time a new semester starts, I just use the College Adjuster to set the correct semester for each sim. I use the default length of 72 hours.
Synchronized finals: I use the College adjuster to reset the timer so the finals are all around 6-8am, and synchronized for each sim on a lot. This makes it easier to keep track of timing and skills. Also, all sims in university run on the same 3-day semester. Finals are the same day for the entire college each round. Once again, that just makes it easier for me to keep track of college-wide events for gameplay reasons.
Because this means there's 3 days per school year, and two school years per season week, it syncs better if they get a day off every Sunday using the University break mod.
Teens are sent to college on the same schedule. I send teens to school when they have 14 days or so left, with maybe an extra day or two if the college is currently in the middle of the semester.
*Gameplay: living situations: Here's where the meat begins. Now all your sims are on the same college schedule, they're all being sent to school, and now they need to actually move into college. I follow a real rule a number of colleges use: Every student spends a year in the dorms. Just their freshman year, then they have to move somewhere else. I find that this gives them a chance to meet dormies, adapt to being on college, and sorta figure out what kind of young adults they are. Plus, this gives them time for joining greek houses, which will be talked about later.
I do this because I like seeing sims as their own little characters with arcs and whatever and it forces me to think about what exactly they would be doing in college. Some sims get so frustrated with the constant mess of a dorm, some sims thrive by making friends with every dormie. Sometimes they start new drama with the others they came from high school with. Nothing quite like losing your high school sweetheart to some stinky dormie, after all.
After freshmen year, the students are kicked out of the dorms. They can get an apartment, they can rent a house, they can move into a greek house if they join one. Either way, they need to live somewhere. You can let them stay in the dorms, but I prefer somewhat smaller college households and divide them accordingly. Which gets into that whole greek house situation:
*Gameplay: greek houses. I gamify the Greek houses. I play SSU in my megahood, which comes with a fraternity and sorority, and you can do whatever setup you like there if you dislike gendered houses. Or abandon them all together and ignore this section. There are a few important elements:
Freshmen cannot live in Greek houses. They can, however, pledge while living in the dorms and move in right after their finals end. This includes dormies. There are benefits to the dorm, such as free housing, more social opportunities, usually more money per household since I cheat to make the greek houses actually nice to live in with things like pools and comfortable furniture, etc.
The Greeks have to be recruiting consistently. To keep the house going, they need to constantly be bringing in new members, either playable OR dormies.
Any recruited dormies are required to move in. You can townify them after graduation if you don't really get attached to them, but every member of the house is moved in. I use the instant pledge mod to get rid of that annoying requirement where they have to hang out on the lot so long before moving in. That, and they also move in after finals. You can teleport or invite them on and just ask them to move in. Whatever you want. Then, you must set them to be sophomores. Beyond that you can do whatever. They're playable now. Have fun.
You gotta let the Greeks party. Throw toga parties all the time and use a teleporter to maximize guests. Generally, ALL members of ALL greek houses are teleported to a party by default. Add more dormies, any friends, anybody in the dorms - the kids need to recruit and the easiest way is by forcing everyone on one lot. If you have autonomy mods or realistic alcohol, sit back and watch the madness unfold.
I don't really play wants-based, so playables that join greek houses is more based on vibes or friendship with existing greek members than wants.
*Gameplay: what do you mean we have to study??? Yeah. I made it this far before even bringing up the whole point of college. This is also where it gets a little more complicated and changed up, so bear with me.
I don't do wants-based, again, so I generally just try to make sure sims are at least passing by default. Whether they go beyond a C is up to whatever. I usually try to get knowledge sims to their 4.0s or sims that just seem like they'd take it seriously to max GPA.
ACTIVE CLASSES ARE SUCH A LIFESAVER. You can use the pre-made lecture hall or make your own. Put some skill-building objects in there, and if you like flavor theme the lecture halls around majors. I have a business/gen ed building, a science lot, and an arts lot, each with two classrooms (plus the library contains a classroom). I do believe I made an edit to the mod to make the class performance go higher with active classes, as well, so attending class every day is the bare minimum to get a passing grade.
The active class lots also contain career reward skill-building objects. These are nice because your sims can request to be taught by other sims on the lot. If you have a mod that allows non-students to visit uni lots, this helps even more with faster skill-building.
Every day, I send groups of sims with similar majors to their class. If there's a mixed-major group, each sim group gets one day in active class per semester. (So if there's an economics major, a bio major, and an art major, each one attends class on a separate rotation and the others do the normal autonomous go-to-class where they leave the lot and disappear). They attend one or both of the lectures and otherwise exist on the college lot to skill-build, socialize, eat, etc.
Outside of class, sims will usually research if they're not doing great. I honestly barely bother with assignments or term papers unless the sim actually wants to do them or are aiming for a high GPA. Maybe they go hang out at the lounge or downtown to fool around. Maybe they just fester at home. Whatever they want.
*other gameplay/storytelling things: I usually will take advantage of the aspiration change after their sophomore year if I realize that their aspiration just doesn't really jive with how they act. It's realistic to me. They had many years since being like, 13 when they first had their aspiration selected. I'd like to implement more in the way of holidays/events, personally, but that's not really relevant either. I usually give them an outfit change as well, and I like to go hard with the idea that they're going through a bunch of weird fashion phases. You know you want to give them a mohawk, just for a few days, don't you? Dye their hair red? Shave it all off? Have fun with it.
All of these things combine for me, at least, to make the college years a lot more engaging/interesting and less of a slow "move to a dorm -> study -> read books -> meet needs -> graduate" loop. There's a lot more storyline development that comes from sims being able to enjoy their time as young adults, too, such as the regular polycule jealousy explosions and party fights. It serves to break up anything they had going on as teens and give them a little direction to enter adulthood with. This concludes my little mini-guide, feel free to steal all my gameplay style or just take inspiration if you please. Or ignore it all and shake your head and call me an idiot. do whatever you want forever.
#sims 2 university#plumbog gameplay rules#<- ??? i guess#i'm sure i missed a lot of important things. whatever#honestly this would work better as like a youtube video. maybe someday
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okay i'm going to be nicer to totk for real now *deletes most of my drafts*
#bwark#god i'm fucking trying to have some kind of epiphany here where i can have it all click and be like ''even if i have my problems i can still#get enjoyment out of it'' but this game makes it so damn difficult#''i can discuss the story'' wait nope can't. story sucks ass and butt#''what about the exploration? that was the best part of botw'' uh no can't do that when the surface is practically the same and there's no#substance to the sky or the depths#''gameplay?'' i don't like ultrahand. which sucks when that's 90% of the gameplay#i respect the work that must've gone into it and the creativity it's drawn from fans but making one gameplay aspect literally ALL YOU DO#runs the risk of alienating people who can't get behind#and sure other zelda games have their gimmicks but it's different#like take tp for example. i get that the wolf mechanic isn't for everyone. but aside from the early game twilight sections and a few sparse#puzzles in the later game you're never really forced to play as wolf so it doesn't overstay its welcome#god i just remembered that totk turned wolf link into meat chunks. another thing they took from us 😔#actually on that genuinely why couldn't they just bring him back?#like you're reusing a ton of shit from botw anyway??#which brings me back to my main point is that anything that isn't new is just. botw again#shrines are back but they're uglier. dungeons are the divine beasts but in a new coat of paint#why did they add more shrines to the game anyway? like you'd think they'd at least lower the number because fans didn't want them to return#the SINGULAR leg up i can think of id the bosses. yeah i love botw and i'll hold my hands up and say that a lot of the common complaints for#it don't bother me personally but yeah the blights absolutely sucked#divebombing colgera with the dragon roost theme playing was the closest thing that this game came to giving me an experience#okay i'll shut up now I'M GOING TO BE NICE EVEN IF IT KILLS ME
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would you guys still love me if i persona2animatic
#bobtalk#p2posting#well. the big problem is i still have to finish ep. i do like rotating the images in my brain though....#but ughghughg i have so much stuff i want/have to do actually...#but ... im thinking about it ... im thinking about it so hard ...#not completely related but the suoubrothers are actually killing me lately. on my mind.#randomly thought about eptatsuya in the middle of class and got really sad LOLL#i just need to get good timing on the crazybrain-not-in-an-upset-way+free time+physically able 2 draw. then maybe...#<-has been saying this for months. hashtag sad#ok um. obligatory complain moment: society if the gameplay in 2 was less tedious>>> SORRY i love the duology but....i have 2 use a walkthru#n that adds a lot of friction to being able to get thru it >.< i will tho!!! i love these games!!! aghghgh#someday ill get a big artthing done again and until then i guess ill just keep making gomics hehe :P
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— a short and casual genshin impact otome game.
⟣ 𝕕𝕠𝕨𝕟𝕝𝕠𝕒𝕕 𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖 ⟢
┊ (Windows 🪟, Linux 🐧, or Mac 🍎 only!)
◇ 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬? ◇
Just a simple something I had in mind for a Genshin otome game... I have 0 attention span, 0 time, and 0 knowledge to write and build a full-fledged 3D game with intricate stories, plot, and mechanics. This is just a simple visual novel with a streamlined plot and partial voices. You should be able to complete everything in like... 30 minutes long in total. Might be less, even.
◇ 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬 ◇
The game will contain the following: established relationship, FLUFF, comfort, lots of pet names, suggestive themes, lots of kissy sounds on some routes, implications of violence (not towards player), a sprinkle of protective behavior
◇ 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬 ◇
Zhongli, Xiao, Childe, Diluc, Kaeya, Itto, Kazuha
(Zhongli is selected by default because who doesn’t love geo daddy???)
◇ 𝐰𝐡𝐨'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫? ◇
This is a very self-indulgent project, hence the dialogues were written with fem!player in mind. It will contain suggestive themes, so please be aware of that before downloading / playing!
◇ 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲? ◇
Yes, it's totally free - in fact, I do not accept payment.
◇ 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲? ◇
Click the link to download the appropriate file based on your OS. Only Windows, Linux, and Mac are supported. No, I won't release it on other platforms.
Open the game, and you’ll find that it’s pretty straightforward. Customize your profile, select your love interest, then start the game.
There are no wrong answers and the love interest can be changed anytime (just go back to main menu and select the character’s picture on the right side).
◇ 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐢 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬? ◇
You can personally send links to this post / the game’s itch.io page to your friends via DMs, but outside of that (reposting), NO. For example, posting about this on Reddit is prohibited.
◇ 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐥𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞? ◇
This is a super casual project.
Scripts are not proofread. Probably lots of grammar mistakes.
Novel format without narration (full dialogs).
There are no actual sprites, just official art and something akin to a speech bubble to cater to the characters’ changes in ‘expression’.
There are voices, but only partial - mostly just grunts, chuckles, kisses, and stuff. I’m using JP voices EXCEPT for Itto because Max Mittelman is a gem. No, I will not add other languages' voice versions.
Sound cues and voices are quite important for this game so I recommend using headphones.
Depending on when you open the game (morning, afternoon, nighttime, midnight), your currently selected love interest might greet you differently.
To reiterate, there are no wrong answers.
Selecting all talk/act options for a character will unlock a small event where they'll give you unique gifts.
I lowkey have so many ideas on how to expand on this in terms of gameplay and options but let’s be real here it probably won’t happen lol why can’t my brain be this creative when it comes to work
◇ 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐯𝐢𝐫𝐮𝐬??? ◇
No... That said, anyone can literally say that. Please be responsible for your own actions.
I have also released other games on the same itch.io profile, so this isn't my first rodeo. Feel free to check the reviews on those before making your decision if you're wary about downloading!
◇ 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬 ◇
hyv please don't sue me i gain 0 dollars for this and i just wanna simp in peace
⟐ 𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚝𝚜 🄸 𝚒𝚝𝚌𝚑.𝚒𝚘 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚎 🄸 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 ⟐
© zhongrin | 2022 ◆ do not repost or share without permission. reblogs much appreciated. feel free to reach out to submit suggestions, feedback, comments, or if you just want to talk!
#genshin impact#genshin x reader#genshin impact x reader#genshin otome#genshin fangame#zhongli#xiao#childe#diluc#kaeya#itto#kazuha#zhongli x reader#xiao x reader#childe x reader#diluc x reader#kaeya x reader#itto x reader#kazuha x reader#rin uses her programming skill to have fun#rin writes
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Sims 3 Gameplay Mods
I was going through MTS looking for mods to improve my gameplay and thought I would share the ones I downloaded!
Livestreaming Mod - Allows your sims to livestream from a PC for tips, blog followers, and celebrity points.
More Pregnancy Interactions - Adds more options for the pregnant sim and more social interactions with all age groups!
Yoga Mod - Allows your sim to do yoga and also lead a yoga class for simoleons.
Laundromat Fix - Actually empties the laundry hamper on your sims home lot when using a washing machine at a laundromat.
Dirty Laundry Mod - Gives your sim a negative moodlet when dirty laundry hasn't been washed in a few days. Gives more incentive to do your sims laundry!
Layoff Mod - Gives your sim a 2% chance at the end of every work day of being laid off. Depending on their work level they may get unemployment benefits.
Nicer Vendors - Overrides the default animations when interacting with vendors, looks more friendly.
Acne Mod - Gives teens-adults a chance of waking up with acne. Adds washing face options and applying acne toner at sink.
Sunscreen - Allows you to buy sunscreen from the store, will protect sims from getting a sunburn with Seasons installed. Works on vampire sims as well.
Restaurant Host Career - Allows your sim to work part time at diners/bistros as a host. Only 1 career level.
TSM > TS3 Facial Expressions - Overrides most s3 facial expressions with the sims medieval ones making them a lot more realistic and natural looking.
One With Nature - Allows your sims to sleep outside on ground, wash themselves in bodies of water, and go to the bathroom outside. Needs Nraas traveler mod to work. (Good for apocalyptic gameplays/adding realism?? haha)
Walk Cycle Edits - Overrides original walk cycles so there's no forced smile, allowing your sims to make facial expressions based on mood/surroundings.
The Randomizer Mod - Triggers more random events that effect your household. Adds more realism and can effects the relationships/friendships your sims have. (Can choose between which random event modules you want in your game based on play style!)
More Negative Moodlets - Negative moodlets cause a greater effect on your sims mood making it a bit more realistic.
#the sims 3#sims 3#ts3#simblr#sims 3 mods#I've seen more and more people playing their game on my dash#thought I'd help spice things up lol#I went through over 30 pages on MTS#hopefully y'all find some mods you wanna add to your game!
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✿ The Home Sweet Home Legacy Challenge ✿
Info ✿
view on google docs
Use the tag #HSHLegacy so I can see your posts!!
If there are any rules that you don’t vibe with, just skip over them!
Some of the rules are centered around gameplay and some are more story-based!
You don’t have to complete aspirations or max out careers if you don’t want to, unless it’s otherwise specified in the generation’s rules!
Play with any lifespan you prefer.
Read one generation ahead to get all of the information you need!
Mods are allowed and encouraged; especially ones that make the game more realistic. I’ve linked a couple mods in some generations that can add to the gameplay!
If you have the more traits in cas mod, pick whatever extra traits you think would fit your sim!
Rules for the generations under the cut ✿
GENERATION ONE ✿
You were raised in the city by strict parents who pushed you to be the best student in school. Despite your ambitious nature you hated the fact that you had no autonomy or free time. When you became a young adult you packed up your belongings, your pet and your limited funds and you moved to the countryside. Your cottage is rundown and outdated…it’s going to take a lot of work (and money) to make it a home. You quickly realize you might not actually be cut out for this life, but you are too stubborn and proud to give up and move back in with your parents.
Traits: Squeamish, Ambitious, High Maintenance
Aspiration: Country Caretaker OR Freelance Botanist
Career: Start with a part time job and/or odd jobs until your sim ages up into an adult, then settle into a full time job of your choice. To make additional money, you can also sell harvestables from your garden or your farm animals (if you want to go down that route!)
Starting Out: Start in Henford-on-Bagley with your pet in a small, rundown cottage with 2-3 bedrooms. You can use money cheats at this point, but remember: small rundown cottage…don’t use those extra funds for nice appliances!! When your house is done, set your funds to 450.
Rules:
Your lot must have the ‘simple living’ lot trait
Reach level 5 in: Handiness, Cooking and Gardening
Befriend a few locals
Meet and fall in love with an outdoorsy sim with a large tight knit family
Spend every holiday with your partner’s family, and have a solid relationship with most (if not all) of them
Have 2 kids
Take a vacation for every sim’s birthday (if you can’t afford it, throw a birthday party on a public lot instead)
Renovate the cottage over time (get new appliances, wallpaper/flooring, etc.)
Optional Rules:
Play with the ‘off the grid’ lot trait
Max out Handiness, Cooking and/or Gardening
Make the sim’s parents and make them have a negative relationship
GENERATION TWO ✿
You grew up in a small, quiet town. After hearing about your parent’s childhood in the city, you were inspired to give it a try. You say goodbye to your loving family and set out for San Myshuno. You find an apartment and a part time job, then you get a few roommates to help with the bills. When you are faced with an accidental pregnancy, your roommates rally in support.
Traits: Loyal, Creative, Slob
Aspiration: City Native OR Painter Extraordinaire
Career: Max out the Retail part time job before quitting and selling paintings full time
Starting Out: Move into an apartment in San Myshuno with 2-3 roommates (you can use the roommate feature but I recommend actually having them in the household!)
Rules:
Max the painting skill
Have Game Night, or something similar, once a week with your roomies
Have an accidental pregnancy after a one night stand (if your sim can’t become pregnant and the other sim can, move the baby into your household when they’re born!)
Raise your kid as a single parent (with the help of your roomies)
Once your child becomes a teen, move out into your own place (it could be in San Myshuno or another world)
Marry as an elder
Optional Rules:
As an elder, marry the sim you had a one night stand with (that ultimately resulted in the birth of your child)
Become famous (because of your paintings)
GENERATION THREE ✿
Just as the expression goes, it took a village to raise you. You were a wild, rebellious child with a love for athletics. Even though you were surrounded by love as a kid (not just from your biological family, but from your parent’s roommates) you always wanted to have siblings. You end up marrying one of your childhood best friends and you settle down in a quiet neighborhood.
Traits: Family Oriented, Hot Headed, Athletic
Aspiration: Big Happy Family
Career: Athletic
Starting Out: Move into a house in a world of your choice with your partner.
Rules:
Max the parenting skill and the athletic skill
Have 4 children
Reach the summit of Mt. Komorebi at some point in your life
Be a hands-on parent: play with your kids, build them a treehouse, throw birthday parties, be as involved as possible in their lives
Go through rough patches with your spouse due to your anger issues
Eventually decide to get a divorce after trying to make it work (or if you have RPO, you can opt for separation instead)
You and your ex-spouse must live on the same lot and continue to raise your kids together
Sleep in your workout shed in the backyard
Optional Rules:
Remarry your ex-spouse
Reach level 5 of the handiness skill
GENERATION FOUR ✿
Although you and your siblings were loved by your parents, the living situation after their divorce was not ideal. Because of that, you vowed to never get married. You head off to university immediately after graduation and start on your path toward success.
Traits: Ambitious, Noncommittal, Genius
Aspiration: Fabulously Wealthy OR Academic
Career: Business OR Politics
Starting Out: Enroll in University and move into a dorm
Rules:
Max the research and debate skill, and the logic skill
Reach the top of your career
Get the best possible grades throughout your life
Have at least two romantic relationships at all times…you are never faithful to one sim
Have two kids with two different partners
(Hesitantly) become official with one of your flings and move in together
When your partner proposes, reject them and have them move out
Go on a post-breakup trip with your kids to Sulani
Rarely discipline your children. In fact, rarely interact with them
Optional Rules:
Never retire
Move at least three times
GENERATION FIVE ✿
Growing up, your parent was pretty distant and you never had a great relationship with them. They were always working, talking about work, or spending time with their significant others. One of your favorite memories of your childhood was your trip to Sulani. You and your sibling decide to move out together and live there permanently. It’s rough living in a new place with limited funds, but the two of you have some creative solutions.
Traits: Loyal, Bro, Kleptomaniac
Aspiration: Party Animal
Career: Criminal
Starting Out: Move into a small house in Sulani with your sibling.
Rules:
Max the charisma skill
Reach the top of your career
Earn money from the criminal career, stealing and pickpocketing
Always maintain a close relationship with your sibling (who can also follow in your criminal footsteps, or work part time / odd jobs instead)
Throw parties regularly and pickpocket the whole time
Have a rivalry with another criminal that turns into love at some point
Your sibling eventually moves out…and your partner moves in!
Have one child
Have a super tacky over the top wedding
Optional Rules:
Max the mischief skill
(If you have this mod, you can pickpocket when your sim is younger! If you have Basemental you can also become a dealer to make money. If you have this mod, I recommend using the enemies to lovers interactions!)
And that’s all for now! I’m breaking this up into two parts, so the next five generations will be coming sometime (fairly) soon!
#ts4#ts4 simblr#simblr#ts4 legacy#sims 4 legacy#ts4 legacy challenge#legacy challenge#HSHLegacy#if you notice anything that doesnt make sense just lmk JKKJD#sorry it's kind of a lot to read lol <3#ALSO! if you have any questions just send me an ask !!! <3
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Game Design and Porn Pt. 1
or, How To Fuck Up The Best Intrinsic Reward Ever
Hi, I'm Leo G, veteran pervert. One time while chatting in a server exclusively made of porn artists, I brought up the game design of a porn game I enjoyed. One of them laughed, saying "Who cares, it's just a porn game?" Being unwell, I never let this go. Since then, I have played many adult games and took each one as serious products made by professionals. Fast forward to today, and the demo for my porn game, Joker's Trip, is nearing completion. I also have some sci-fi erotica you should check out.
So you wanna make a porn game. You heard they make money, and hey what’s more fun than making a video game AND porn? But you don’t know where to begin! Well don’t worry, Leo’s got you covered. We’re gonna walk through the line of thinking you should have when designing your porn game. There's gonna be at least three parts to this, with part 1 focusing on how to reward your player.
Define "porn game" for me, Leo.
There are porn games, and then games with porn in them. A porn game is a game where you won’t last 5 minutes, where everything exists solely to meet and, subsequently, fuck. A game with porn in it is a game where everything exists for the purpose of the game, and also, you fuck. Fate Stay Night, for example, is a VN with a story that just so happens to have some CGs where the protagonist rails Saber, but is mainly about Shirou and the Holy Grail War. Much like how I would call Castlevania a game with horror in it, but not a horror game.
Porn games are a lot like horror games. They both get a bad rap for being cheap to make, appealing to base instincts, and generally being low quality. They're also both not actual genres of games, but genres of content. Think about it, if I asked you what a horror game is, you'd say a game that's scary. But what's the actual game part? The unfortunate answer would most likely be "walking sim," but there are a lot of examples that are FPSes, puzzles, driving sims, platformers, deck builders, the list goes on.
The most common genres of game I see for porn games these days are by far RPG Maker RPGs and VNs. I won’t be talking about VNs because they’re closer to writing than game design, which isn’t a flaw but a feature. What used to be everywhere, in days of old, were breakout games, where the more bricks and levels were cleared, the more of the sexy image would be revealed in the background. Other arcadey type deals like shoot ‘em ups and mahjong were also around, and had a similar “strip ‘em down until you have sex” gameplay loop.
Okay, so what’s an intrinsic reward?
There’s intrinsic rewards, and there're extrinsic rewards. Extrinsic rewards, generally, are the number go up rewards. Things that make your character stronger, or give you more resources to buy new gear or whatever. Intrinsic rewards in games can cover a large swathe of things. It can be the feeling of satisfaction of completing a puzzle, a piece of lore or world building, or a new dialogue option with a character you want to fuck.
I like fucking characters, are we talking about porn now?
Yes! I’m of the opinion that you literally can’t make a better intrinsic reward than pornography. On top of setting the tone for the entirety of the game., at its best it can add to a story, add to someone’s character development, or be a beautiful piece of art to look at. AND you can jack off to it! Unfortunately, that’s at its best. Let’s talk about how porn is delivered in a theoretical RPG porn game. (As a head’s up, there will be talk of “bad end” scenes, but this is under the assumption that the player is the one consenting.)
So you’re playing an RPG and get into a fight. Maybe you were underleveled or too cumbrained to remember to buy healing potions. Then your HP goes to zero, and instead of going back to the title screen, you’re getting fucked by orcs. That’s right, let’s talk about Game Over CGs.
You get to watch porn when you lose?
To someone making a porn game with a battle system, this delivery method makes sense. The characters in this world are driven primarily by lust, this is just the obvious conclusion. And it doesn’t even have to be non-consensual! Games like Future Fragments show that it can be presented as a sexy inconvenience rather than anything uncomfortable for the player or our hero. Game Over CGs even have the benefit of softening the blow of defeat, by giving the player a chance to reflect on their defeat and jerk off. Even better if losing a fight isn’t lost progress, but rather a bump in the road. However, there’s a problem here. The player is a dog, and we’re rewarding bad behavior.
The porn is an intrinsic reward, so why are we giving it to the player for losing? Incentivizing losing on purpose isn’t just bad game design, but a waste of time. And to that end, a lot of porn games try to give solutions to this. One being a kill button on the keyboard or a skill that instantly KOs our hero to get to the lose screen faster. What might seem like a convenience is really just expediting failure.
What it says is that the gameplay doesn’t actually matter. You’re just here for the porn, right? In that case there’s plenty of places I can go to see a chick with huge knockers get railed by an orc, with the added bonus of not having to play forgettable and mid turn based combat!
Another solution I’ve seen is the game outright telling you, “hey don’t bother killing yourself to see the porn. Once you beat the game all of the scenes you missed will be unlocked!” At first this seems like a reasonable way to go about it, but it comes with another problem: your game better be fucking good to make me play through the entire thing before getting to see cock. Like I said earlier, porn at its best can reveal things about the world and drive character development. I uh. Just beat the game. I don’t care anymore. Showing me a scene that’s taken out of context by a factor of 5 hours or more isn’t what I’d call great game design or story telling. It’s also too little, too late.
What if we made the porn actual rewards?
Now we’re getting somewhere! Let’s make the reward…a reward! What if, every time the player beats a level, we get some porn? If we tie the CG to beating the boss, we’ll be tying the reward to game progression. That’s good right? So now, on top of the extrinsic rewards you’d normally get for beating a boss (a lot of EXP, better gear, opened areas) we also get that sweet dopamine rush of pornography! So we’re good, right?
There’s 1142 words left in this post, so I’m assuming no.
Well. It’s a start. It has the problem of predictability. If not handled properly, it comes off as lazy. As a game designer, one of your goals is to not constantly remind your player that they’re playing a video game. Get through the level, get porn. It feels a little too “mouse in a maze looking for cheese” for my taste. And much like the game over method, if the actual game itself is mid, the player will start to question if the reward is worth it, and might be afflicted with the worst condition a player could receive: boredom.
Of course there are exceptions. In puzzle or arcade type games where you don’t get extrinsic rewards, giving the player porn as another form of reward per level or whatever is perfectly reasonable (though it does have the issue of being predictable.) This is a perfectly good way of doing it if your game is short, or if the game is, y’know, good and fun to play. Bad Color’s game, Heroine Conquest, is a level based puzzle game with porn as the reward, but only when you do good. Combining the actual challenge of mastering the game, with a genuinely unique game loop makes for a feeling of accomplishment when beating a level. Pair that up with a sex cutscene, and the dopamine rush will hit.
So! Let’s combine giving the player a power trip, with a less rigid structure for giving the player porn. Instead of tying the porn to purely progression gates, let’s tie it to the progression.
Plot milestones
In Third Crisis, sex scenes are peppered throughout the regular game’s plot, starting with some lesbian bondage before introducing the protagonist, who goes through a tutorial before having their own horny encounters. It’s not just given when you win or lose, but is a natural part of the game. Beating bosses, losing to enemies, and exploring dialogue options in sidequests all lead to unlocking new CGs.
Now what’s nice about that, is that the sex isn’t placed somewhere extremely predictable. It isn’t just a reward for beating The Boss Of Forest Zone, Now Go To Ice Zone And Beat The Ice Boss For More Cock. Because that’s the biggest issue of predictable rewards, you know you’re not getting anything until that checkpoint, which will make the player weigh whether or not it’s even worth continuing. This is fine, again, for an arcade type game, not an RPG or adventure game. By sprinkling sex throughout the plot itself, the player will not only want to progress, but their curiosity will have them wondering “what else is out there?”
Rewarding exploration
By putting sex scenes behind optional side quests or encounters, the dog that is the player will scour every single corner of the map, and leave no pixel unturned. Personally, that’s more exciting to me than what you’ll get in the main progression route. In Future Fragments the player can find their rival Faye in sexual situations if they explore the map enough. These are completely optional, and don’t give any direct rewards like more HP or an item, but they’re by far what motivates me to explore the maps as thoroughly as possible, more so than the plot macguffins the game is named after!
So now the player is excited. Sex can happen anywhere. Maybe that daunting off road path with stronger monsters isn’t just hiding a secret, but a sexy secret! They’ll be more likely to venture down those optional paths you painstakingly made.
If we’re using sex in game overs, boss fights, and just randos, why not put it everywhere?
So now I want to talk about the concept of a “sex stat”. It’s not a bad idea! Say, the higher the player’s sex stat is, the more opportunities you unlock for fucking. It could even be tied to the player character’s personality, and affect the story! Instead of using a sword and shield, they’ll end any conflict with sass and sex. They open their eyes to the horny world around them and stop being a hero, and instead become a succubus, and the ending is a massive cum filled orgy.
That sounds excessive
Yeah, it does, doesn’t it.
I’m not a fan of “corruption” systems in porn games. Corruption as a kink is totally fine, and having it be a part of the story lets you incorporate more sexuality into the plot. But as I alluded to, it snowballs pretty fast (and I’m not talking about spitting in someone’s mouth). It ends up being like a cheat code, where you’re bypassing parts of the game for no cost. It stops being a reward, it stops being unexpected, and it stops it from being sexy.
Wait, what? Stops being sexy? What’s not sexy about a succubus orgy?
Alright, listen, we gotta rein it in for a minute. This isn’t so much about game design as it is about writing erotica, but if you have a world where everyone’s fucking and sucking 24/7, there’s no contrast to make what would normally be a hot taboo a hot taboo. If everybody’s naked, nobody’s naked. The aforementioned snowball effect of a corruption system can be seen if you play literally any game that has one. It won’t take long to not have to engage with any combat or adventuring system if you can just press the “Submit to the big dick warlock” button and watch porn to progress.
Which, now that I said that, is exactly the problem. Imagine any other rpg you’ve ever played. Now imagine if every encounter and dialogue option had an option to just watch a short cutscene to skip the encounter. That would suck ass, right? Literally no difference here.
It would. Hey, I’m sort of lost now.
Don’t worry, we’re wrapping this up.
So what did we learn? We learned game over CGs have a critical design flaw that shouldn’t be relied on. We learned that predictable rewards can lead to boredom. We learned to keep sex as a reward and not devalue it.
To summarize, here’s a neat trick to know where to put your porn scenes.
”Would I put an Xbox Live achievement here?”
It’s that easy. “Lose to Goblins for the first time,” that’s an achievement. “Beat orc commander,” that’s an achievement. “Find Hubert the Magical Dickhead,” that’s an achievement. Using that as a guideline is foolproof. Almost.
This sounds like it’d take a lot of resources
It sure does! But don’t worry. I’ll cover that in the next post talking all about how to deal with the resource management of a porn game.
(Shoutout to Taylor, my guy for editing!)
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In honor of the @rw-ship-showdown I wanted to write about Artihunter as someone who jokingly slapped them together pre-downpour and still thinks they are actually very compelling. Just not in the super soft love wins kinda way (Although I get why people like that more)
And the only way I know how to do that is talking too much so heres a far too long slug essay-
Obviously the slugcats don't offer a ton of characterization but theres not nothing to work with. Their stories, whether by their roles in it or the overarching themes do provide a backbone to work with. Even gameplay itself can provide a bit. (for some more than others)
Hunter, to me, is ultimately a story about selflessness. The goal is to revive Moon, which is very much an act of kindness from both Hunter and NSH. But the weight of that action is much more significant for Hunter- Hunter is deeply sick. They're on the clock, and for all their skill in combat none of that will ultimately help them to survive longer than their body can hold out. Moon is a close friend of NSH but that means little Hunter- Hunter really gets next to nothing out of helping them, and ultimately pays quiet a bit spending their limited time alive fighting to deliver that neuron so that someone else can live.
To spend ones limited days on helping another, in a game that very much stresses the unwavering cruelty of the world and nature- is pretty notable. (And you could even say that Hunter being the Hardmode of Rain World adds another layer to this)
And then we have Artificer. A storyline that very much stands out to people as more… villainous (so to speak) than the other slugcats. Artificer's story covers a lot of things. Trauma, violence, revenge, etc. Revenge is a bit of a selfish desire- That need to see someone hurt as they have hurt you. A punishment that ultimately does not fix whatever harm was done- but feels good to see because you were hurt and now those responsible share that pain.
Artificer's actions are founded in that need for revenge, their pups killed for overstepping boundaries they didn't know existed. Is it not fair for them to be angry at that, to punish the scavengers for their violence with their own? Why should the scavengers ever be forgiven when they and their pups were not? And that's how you get that loop- Harm for harm over and over.
The original action has been lost in a spiral of violence for violence. And here stands Artificer- their very spirit scarred. Not just because they sought revenge, but because they never ceased trying to scratch that itch for violence as an answer. Artificer only has two paths for their story- killing the scavenger king (Someone who, really, has little to do with the original 'crime' of the scavengers, but represents an important individual to them- as did the slugpups to Artificer), locking themselves as karma one for good and spending the rest of their life chasing creatures that no longer even fight back in a warped sense of closure- or to dissolve themselves in the acids of the void sea because they're too far gone to find any real peace.
They can't meaningfully recover from that state, not alone, twisting in on themselves. Even if they halt their actions, they've been using violence as a feeble defense against their own pain- violence that no longer has any real direction or basis. Artificer gets no real closure from killing the scavenger king. All they can do is continue the cycle, or try to scrub it away. No real peace in a prison of their own making.
So you have a creature, who even with a strict timer on their life- a body that will crumble to disease, spends its last bit of time on saving another. And another who was so caught up in the pain of loss that were eaten alive by their own anger, poisoned their own soul on such a deep level even self-proclaimed gods have no solution for them.
What peace can they offer each other? For Hunter, its only a fleeting moment of happiness- of selfish love, before their own body fails them. A bit of indulgence in something for themself. For Artificer, its a single, comforting thread to ground them again, something tangible to protect and care about again.
But thats a thread that will ultimately be snapped under the cruel indifference of the world. Hunters timer will tick down regardless of if it takes another with it. Its a tragedy- its doomed to end badly. Whatever good it offers to either of them to find each other will only provide the fleeting comfort of a band-aid that will be ripped away too early.
But all that can be worth indulging in anyway, if only for the moment. It doesn't change the ending, but the ending was never going to be happy.
Its can so yuri
#rain world#rw shipping#tagging that just cause this is explicitly about that even though I usually dont do shipping stuff#with that said i dont even think this particular interpretation of a possible dynamic needs to be romantic its just kinda#about companionship in general. companionship thats going to absolutely shred an already unstable slug emotionally but thats#the point. friendship and love in spite of the unavoidable ending#just noticed this is like 80% theme analysis and 20% 'these go together just trust me'#but also theyre both girls because i want them to and also because im channeling hornet from hollow knight#who made me so deeply ill that my rain world tags still havent outcompeted my Hk tags because i drew her so much. so so much.#hunter is hornet coded to me and artificer is like if angela and gebura from lc combined into a deeply fucked up ferret#also i did tag the poll because they kinda inspired this but also. i wasnt gonna put all this out here WITHOUT a readmore thats embarassing#but i guess this is propaganda for a ship already seen as popular but like... idk i think theres something to it even as someone#who did literally slap them together originally because they were both red slugcats i considered girls. predownpour so we didnt have anythi#anyway hi tag readers i have so much work to do im being bad by writing about gay slugs. i need to get myself together#its so late this might just be nonsense bwaaaaaaa
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hiya! any tips on creating an immersive save that will attract not only you as the player but others as the viewers? your aesthetic is stunning and im so obsessed with everything you do!! <3
oh wow, this is a super sweet ask, @plumday.
let's see. I interpreted this as an ask about how I setup my sim save in a way that engages me. Hopefully this is helpful!
Setting Up TS4 Gameplay
Revamp Sim Worlds
BRAVE THOSE LOADING SCREENS and leave your residential lot! (I promise it's worth it)
NEW LOTS - Each of my worlds have been renovated with lots I handpicked from the gallery - too much work? I recommend using a savefile! Here are some of my personal faves @ratboysims 1, @down-in-simsland 2, @folkling 3 & @sweetbeagaming 4.
RESIDENTIAL RENTAL - these lots help make the world feel more dense and lived in, plus condensing the local households to 1-2 lots leaves room for more non-residential lots to explore with your sims.
WORK AND SCHOOL - I recommend placing offices, schools, and daycare lots. These combined with a few mods (semi-active custom careers and Zerbu's go to school mod 2) and clubs are something I really enjoy.
Set Up Clubs
I really like @sojutrait's tutorial on how to use clubs to enhance your gameplay and is a MUST HAVE in my humble opinion. I usually have a family chore club, work clubs, neighborhood clubs, extended family clubs, etc... and it's so nice to click a button suddenly there are sims there making my game more lively.
To have more than 3 clubs per sim, I use this mod maintained by @kingzaceofsims.
I also use custom club activities so sims (MOSTLY) behave how I want them to. @srslysims has tutorial on how to make your own.
To be able to have club gatherings in vacation worlds I use this mod. It was helpful with sending my pixel kids to camp.
Set Up the Calendar
@aliennooboo made this AMAZING tutorial on setting up your sims calendar that I just adore. I find this helps me remember to do things with my sims and helps change up their day to day life.
Playing
ROTATIONAL GAMEPLAY - I find this keeps me engaged and prevents boredom. It keeps things fresh and allows me to explore different stories. Here is a great resource to get started!
GAMEPLAY MODS - I find adding various mods keeps my gameplay fresh and interesting. I recommend these creators (1, 2, 3, 4 & 5) in particular.
Screenies
POSES - As a gameplay person, I try to use poses sparingly. It disrupts the game for me but I find sometimes I can't convey what I want to without them, so I try to only use a few. This is what works for me, please do what works for you. Shout out to all the storytellers blogs, though, that keep me fed.
RESHADE or PSD files can add some fun color and effects to screenies. ONLY edit as much as you want to. I felt a lot of pressure to get better at this and I am finally finding the balance of how much and what kind of editing I actually like to do. I have collected reshades/gshades and resources here.
House Keeping
Keep back ups of your trayfiles, screenshots, households, lots, etc 'cause it's sims, things break and go wrong.
Keep your CC and mods organized otherwise fixing your game is a hug pain.
Reblogs and additional tips and recommendations welcomed!
HAPPY SIMMING!
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Murf's Top 50 Mods - Part 3 (2020 - 2023 Edition)
I made a Top 50 list (Pt 1 and Pt2) back in 2016, talking about mods that I've used & love. But with all the goated content that the amazing TS3 community continues to churn out, I NEEDED to update my list! This one in no way diminishes or negates the other mods I've already listed--like, I shouldn't have to sit here and explain how NRAAS continues to carry TS3 on its freaking shoulders, ok. This is just MORE mods, the Top 50 most RECENT ones I've tried out since, like, quarantine.
I am a VERY niche simmer--I love fantasy gameplay, so my fave mods are the ones that not only offer general quality of life improvements, but also add new abilities and interactive objects inspired by different cultures, time periods, or genres. So y'all already KNOW which ones have earned my top spots. They're not based on which mods are "better," just which ones I personally have been using the most.
1: Smooth Patch, LazyDuchess
I've already gushed about this mod, but oh well. Like--I use an EFFTON of CC. My Live Mode gameplay itself doesn't tend to lag so much as my game's slow to LOAD, slow to save, CAS is a nightmare, I can do my taxes waiting for the Misc Decor section to open, etc etc. But the Smooth Patch loads everything so much quicker for me! 😭
One thing is that on the EA App version (curse you, EA) the Master Controller package didn't work on my end, so I took it out, but everything else has been great!
2: Search Mod, LazyDuchess
Speaking of the Misc Decor section -- HOW LONG did we ask EA for a Search function y'all? Only to be ignored. Then the second TS4 is released, it ain't got a effing thing in it, but it's got a Search function??? 🤔 ISTG it's like the simgurus were told to take all of the TS3 community's best suggestions, and poach them for TS4 (like vampire coffins--NO I'm not over it!). WHY do modders have to do your frikkin job for you, EA?! I call EA lazy all the time cuz EA you suck, so it's the most ironic thing ever that LazyDuchess is out here KILLING IT.
My ONLY "complaint" about the Search mod is the position of the icon. I use A LOT of Collection Files, and I noticed that the Search icon actually covers the Delete button when in the Collection viewer. So I can't delete items in collections with the Search icon in the way.
But this is a MINOR nitpick--I almost never delete items, it's just something I noticed is all.
3 - 8: OCCULT MODS: EVERYTHING by @puddingface1902
Y'all already know the Enhanced Witches mod is my favorite mod ever made. But PF1902 also made cool enhancements to the Fairies, Genies, Vampires, Werewolves, and Mermaids too! My sims are usually Nraas hybrids (e.g.: Sakura is a faery, witch & plantsim; Magnus Bane is a witch & genie; etc.), so it's FANTASTIC having so many new abilities for my magical occults. 😍
9 - 11: OCCULT MODS by xantak22
Even more occult mods at MTS are for enhanced Plantsims, Ghosts, and Mummies! I was dying for more Plantsim abilities, omg, they're my 3rd fave occult after Witches & Fae.
12: Sim Control Tools by Knight
Sooooo many quality of life mods have come out! ^0^
I've been ABUSING the Teleport To Me function, to quickly get sims off of lots & where I need them to be. It also lets sims unlock more Social/Romantic interactions. (Now all we need is a way to interact with sims from EA's useless thumbnails.)
13 - 18: @anitmb's mods
There are SOOOO many--most I've yet to even try. But so far newer ones I've been using are the Deck of Cards (FINALLY something other than EA's bulky AF poker table!), Farm Mod (look at all these CHICKENS!), and Hunting mod so my 8000 archer sims can actually hunt! (Ofc I've also used the Woodcutter and Anvil mods in my older gameplay posts, too.) And @mspoodle1's edit of the Cup of Tea mod is so pretty.
19: @mspoodle1's Poker table
Another excellent cards mod is this medieval style poker table I use a lot now, too.
20: @omedapixel's Wildflowers DR
I like EA's default wildflowers from SSNS, but Omeda's are just sooooo much nicer. (I haven't gotten around to trying out their Harvestable Plant DR yet.)
21: Swordfighting mod by CyrusBanefort
En garde! This mod is so freaking epic!
One thing I've noticed is that the game lags while it waits for the mod to boot up (a message has to first pop up saying it's running when you first launch your saves). But other than that this mod is excellent.
22 - 24: Yoga rugs
I've long been using the yoga rugs by Kitabalibar and the edited one from @mspoodle1. But now there's the newest one by @twinsimming, with brand new animations & features. The more the merrier I say, LOL. What's especially neat is the kids wobbling around as they try to do yoga! :3
25 - 30: TheSweetSimmer's mods--so cute! :3
Omg so frikkin many, I can't even catch up! The interactions are so freaking precious, like from the More Toddler Interactions (cuddle, look at, etc) & Biggest Little Mod (hug legs), I've never had so much fun playing with kids! <3 And I LOVE that they can Catch Butterflies and Pick Flowers--you'd think plantsim children would be able to do this by default, EA! Honestly, just grab everything by TSS, your kid sims will thank you!
31 - 33: @spheresims Medieval/Nature/Tribal mods
Y'all know I'm crazy about the Functional Fireplaces mod (the cauldrons, baby! 😈), but the One with Nature and Wildlife Hunting mods are great too, perfectly complimenting the off-the-grid realness.
34: @olomayasims/Cmomoney Smoking Mod Overhaul
The original smoking mod was on my first Top 50 list, so it's awesome seeing it get new upgrades, interactions & animations.
I've never smoked IRL, but sooooo many of my sims just puff-puff away; I'm such an enabler. U_U Now all we need is cigars and pipes!
35 - 38: Callia-Evergreen/Camkitty's CAS CC for animal hybrids at MTS
Not a "mod" per se, but whatever--my list my rules! I love ALL of their CC, but I get SO MUCH use out of animal-themed CC like the digitigrade sliders, wolf feet, lizard tails, and fae wings. Do check them out if you like to play with horror and monster-sims!
39: @greenplumbboblover's Sheep
EASILY one of the most incredible mods I've ever seen. Like....HOW? (Once @omedapixel's Goats are done I'm gonna start screaming someone do llamas pleeeeeaaaaase!!!)
40: Arsil's musical instruments mod
I used the sax most recently in my IWTV gameplay, and it was excellent, perfect for the NOLA vibes! However, although I use the flute A LOT more (for my Untamed gameplay--it's been such a GODSEND!), I really wish the hands were positioned better, preferably using the poses from Chisims' flute poseset. (But I don't eff with poses/animations, otherwise I'd do it myself. U_U) Ah well, it's still one of my fave mods though.
41 - 42: Flower Arranging mod by zoe22 + @mspoodle1's Florist Collection
Guys, I've been wanting this mod since FOREVER! ^0^ (I swear, the best thing about TS4 is all the 4t3 conversions, LMAO!) I just wish Teens could Dabble and use it, too--all they can do is stock the table.
43: Just Sit/Nap Anywhere by FloTheory
Sometimes you just want sims to fall asleep anywhere, DANG, EA!
44: @sweetdevil-sims' Toddler Food DR
Cuz EA's food is UUUUUUUUGLY~! I kept forgetting to install it, only to be rudely reminded every time I had to look at my toddler sims eating MUD.
45 - 46: @mspoodle1's mail pen quill DR and @omedapixel's pencil quill DR
I looooove quill pens IRL (ballpoint pens, not the fountain pens--I'm way too messy), so having mods that let my sims use them too is 👌
47: Fireflies Enhanced! by Canibal_MLO
I love anything that enhances the wildlife and collectibles/harvestables to be more dynamic and interactive. And I was JUST about to do a firefly catching scene for my IWTV insp. gameplay, so this came right on time! The falling leaves effect is delightful, but I kinda wish it was falling flower petals instead, cuz ofc I do. 🌸
48: Unicorn Aurora DR by Canibal_MLO
GORGEOUS. This mod replaces the unicorn mist with northern lights, like.... I love the genius ideas simmers have.
49: Custom Plumbbob Color tool by CrossTheMersey
What a neat idea! Although the default Maxis colors are ingrained in my psyche, with the iconic green plumbbob, as soon as I saw this mod I knew I wanted to at least try something different and play around with it.
50: @aa6x7's Teru Teru Bozu + other edits [Honorable Mention]
I rave about Cmomoney's Time/Weather Mod all the time, I use it constantly. AA6x7's Teru Teru Bozu (Japanese "Sunshine Monk" charms) is kinda like a simpler version of it, as it just resets bad weather back to Sunny. But it's such a cute idea and perfect for my gameplay. Plus, AA6x7 makes all kinds of neat edits/mods to EA's bulky AF meshes, so if you haven't checked them out already, DO!
And that's all the mods I've managed to try out recently!
I don't have anywhere near the kind of free time that I used to, so my simming has been put on the backburner and I've missed all kinds of cool and exciting releases. But trust: I am taking note, so that I know what to try once I have time.
All my deepest & sincerest gratitude & love to the entire sims community, for keeping The Sims 3 going--this year was the 14th anniversary! Here's to 14 more! 🥳 Happy Simming!
#simblr#sims 3 mods#sims 3 content list#the sims 3#sims 3 medieval#sims 3 fantasy#sims 3 supernatural#EA you suck
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One of my favorite types of Rain World rooms are rooms that supposedly have additional cameras/room connections, but they don't.
What do I mean by this? here is an example:
LF_J01 is one of the rooms that bugged me the most, especially when when I notice it during my countless rain deer rides. It's eye catching and makes you wonder if you can bring a grappling worm all the way from the Underhang just to test your dumb theory, only to realize it's not true and be so disappointed.
Fun fact, Rain World Drought is perfectly using this room's potential: by using it as a connection between your starting region and Farm Arrays.
The tutorial room also gets it's own secret, where eventually you find out about it at the start of the Spearmaster campaign. Downpour in fact have a lot of these, and it's one of my favorite additions in this DLC.
Not a secret, just a whole huge region connected through this singular room connection.
Unfortunately SI_C09 didn't receive any additional room connections from the DLC. I remember the first and only time this room tricked me like the fool that I am, into thinking there is a continuation, and got me to jump cluelessly to the left and fall to my death. I guess it's had to do with how open seems this part of Sky Islands look. Gameplay wise I can understand why it stops there, from that point you guided to go up into the heart of the region. And expanding the room from that point, kind of adds too much to the region and makes it more chaotic and confusing to navigate than it needs to be.
Last but not least, this room always seemed odd to me.
Considering that you climb up towers many times in Rain World, it's not very visually appealing when you can't climb up to a place that looks like it has an upper part.
But in all of the presented rooms, you can quite understand why continuing on the region from there would be weird. You have to create a weird fork in the map that distract the player from actually progressing through the game's entire map. And often it makes them get lost and frustrated. this is one of the common causes that makes new players lose their interest in Rain World.
Although you could also go against that point by claiming that Rain World's core gameplay is exploring and getting lost in the world, or at least is what makes the game so appealing. And expanding the region would help increase that feeling of being lost in a complex simulated ecosystem.
I can still understand that for vanilla Rain World, this game is not for everyone. but I mean if you chose to play Downpour as your first experience, that is kind of your problem. Because the whole point of the DLC is to expand significantly the map of the known world.
uh, um. I think got a little bit carried away, lol. This post is still about silly rooms, but I feel like I can't really talk about cool rooms and regions without talking about their important role in the core gameplay.
#rain world#text#LF_J01 is a special case because you're in the endgame#and probably raiding the rain deer#so creating an alternative path/bonus room is weird#I'm a map freak you can tell#tonight my dear.. I'll treat you with some ROOM ANALYSIS
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A note for the fellow strugglers in TS1
Hey, it's Seth! I know how frustrating TS1 can be (considering it's age and being the first game in the franchise), so I am here to introduce a list of personal must have mods and programs, which I always use whenever I re-install the game to make it more user-friendly. The list itself is quite short, actually, since it only consists of my personal gameplay choice mods. So there's no building objects, deco, skins and heads there.
MODS AND CC
This calendar will report the day of the month to your sims and -- and this is amazing -- even introduce a concept of days off. Sims should have about every 6th and 7th day off. - THE ABSOLUTE MUST HAVE. It's in the painting section and costs 15 simoleons. Works a bit wonky with children, but otherwise a very useful mod to have.
Call work/give interview job phone plugins to give your sim a day off. - I use those mostly when sims have to take care of the baby.
A family mod by Gothi_family_4ever. - another must have in my collection, introduces the familial relationships in game! No more inappropriate relationships between relatives. It's a 0 simoleon painting, which you can delete once you've done.
A hacked frigde mod by the same author. - allows your sims to put their food into the refrigirator, call the household members for the meal, and requires the usage of products (like meat and in-game vegetables) in order to cook a dish instead of insta-paying. You kinda have to build a grocery shop for your sims, so they could buy the required products, I prefer to install the stalls into the pre-existing farm shop in Old Town area. P.S DON'T FORGET TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE INSTALLING BEFORE DRAGGING ANY FILE. As much as I love this mod, I don't, for example, use their cereal add-on.
The Elixir ExpressiBuy Computer. - a computer that allows you to buy any in-game buyable product (like vacation gifts, grocery, tonics, etc etc) in stock. They won't magically appear overnight but would be brought by a special courier npc. It also allows your sim to research logic, creativity, culinary and mechanical skills. I'd also recommend diving further into their site, since they have a lot of cool and unique gameplay content as well!
MagiCo's Bookshelf of Dimensional Storage - the official Maxis item, that was in the 'Get Cool Stuff' section. Allows your sims to keep their magic coins and ingrediends in special bookshelf storage, I mostly use it so the kids could get the ingredients for their spells from the adults. It is in the Magic section, btw
The Magic Mirror - the only outright cheat object that I have in my possesion. This mirror refreshes your sims needs, builds skills, friends, stardom, etc. Saves headaches when you are not in the mood to fullfill your sims' mood, ha-ha.
PROGRAMS
SimEnchancer 3D - basically a program that allows you to change the basic sim's attributes, including their heads and bodytypes. If you are familiar with TS2's SimPE, you'd have the idea how it works. NOTE: if you have to run your TS1 game as an administrator, you'd have to open it up in the same vein as well. And don't forget to backup your UserData files when you are working with it, just in case!
The Sims Creator - the official Maxis program for players to create some basic skins content. The program is only suitable to work with head and skins textures and not the meshes! Likewise, if you have to open the game as an administrator, you'd have to do the same with that program.
NEIGHBORHOODS
This section for the fellow premade enjoyers out there, who mostly played TS2 before and decided to give the local premades a chance as well
Here you can download the original UserData 1 and 2 if you want to reset your neigborhoods as they were if you had already played the neighborhood before and want to start anew. The Sims Wiki also gives you an instruction for how to do so.
And here you can download the additional Maxis families like The Hatfield, The Maximus, The Mashuga, The Snooty, The Jones and that weird agent White House familes. For some reasons, some of them refused to function in my game, so I had to install the empty houses and recreate them by hand, using the SimEnchancer and Wikia to give them appropriate skills and careers.
OTHER
Sims 1 Alternative UI - refreshes your game by a margin. I really recomend this one!
Well, that's basically it! I hope, my list would help you as well!
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When I say "D&D doesn't have much more than a combat system" I don't mean to say that the game can't do anything besides combat. It's just that outside of combat and arguably exploration (stealth and detection, including how they interact with concealment, both of which are also heavily linked with combat) D&D doesn't actually have any systems beyond "the GM sets a DC and the player makes an ability check." Sometimes the ability check falls under one of the proficiencies in which case they get to add their proficiency bonus.
The game doesn't actually have a system for handling animals even though it has an Animal Handling skill. It doesn't have a system for determining how difficult Religion checks for recognizing various religious symbols are. There aren't systems as much as there is a framework for the GM to improvise or create their own systems on top of them. There isn't a system for determining how difficult trying to calm down a feral animal is. There's an allowance for the GM to stop and think, nod sagely, declare a DC and call for a Wisdom (Animal Handling) check. But very little in terms of structure.
A lot of players are fine with that. I'm also fine with that because it's the dungeon game: I don't expect to play in a campaign involving deep social intrigue using D&D. And I don't think combat or the basic gameplay loop of the dungeon crawl is in any way antithetical to roleplay. It's just that when people say that D&D provides structure I go "yeah, I know" knowing fully well what type of structure the game actually provides.
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ULTIMATE Realistic Functional Shops Mods in The Sims 3 | Guide and Tutorial
youtube
Hey, everyone! Back again with another in depth tutorial. From my poll, a Functional shops guide was second popular to Family Gameplay.
This guide isn't going to be as long, hopefully! And we don't really have many mods, at least nowhere near as many for the other guides I've done. This guide is pretty simple, and I'll show you in the video how to get everything set up. I picked the systems that are the easiest to set up, it's a combination of other simmer's processes, with my own tweaks for added convenience. I mainly focus on Aesthetic and Functionality, as nothing should take away from your immersion in game. So I feel like I've done my best to come up with these easier systems. I've been playing like this for years so I'm super excited to show you all how to make literally any shop functional in the sims 3!
So what I'm going to offer are many ideas to maintain the consistency and look of your lot without losing functionality of that lot.
We are going to try and keep this guide simple and to the point. This guide will include:
Store objects and how to install them.
Modded Objects - For functional stores and Fashion stores.
How to set up Functional grocery stores.
How to set up functional stores in general, minus Fashion stores.
How to Set up functional Fashion stores.
Fashion Lots you'll want to make.
How to combine the Fashion stores with Consort Dress Code mod.
Miscellanous functional mod objects and cc sets you can buy for your stores.
Store Objects and How to install them:
The first thing we are going to need are the actual store objects. I recommend getting all of them from here.
I also use these few ones from Blam's EA Store.
Chocolate fountain
Pet shop
Then you want to get these store fixes here.
I'm going to show you how to install them it is super easy.
All the store objects should go into your mods folder.
I recommend merging everything and backing up the individual files on another drive.
All store mods should also go in your mods folder.
This is your Overrides folder if you're not using CCmagic.
If you are using CCmagic then this is your Packages folder.
Now copy the CCmerged file from your mods folder and paste that file in your Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3 > DCBackup folder.
Never remove it.
This is where the data for the store objects are stored, without them your game will throw you a lot of errors when attempting to use those store objects.
That's it!
Now we can move on to the fun mods that change your game in powerful ways.
Modded Objects for Functional Stores and Fashion Stores
Ani's Savvier Seller - This is what you will use for 95% of functional stores in your game.
Ani's ITF Stands - This is what you will use for the remaining 5% of functional stores, to be able to shop for new outfits.
Ani's Shop for clothes (MUST Have either this mod or ITF stands, cannot have both) - This is an alternative option for those who do not have ITF. You cannot have both in your game.
Ani's Ration Box - For our functional Grocery stores. This mod adds a scripted object where when placed in your inventory and opened, 10 random ingredients will be placed in your inventory and the donation box will disappear. This mod is also working with custom ingredients as well. So you will always get a random assortment of items. The items are cheap in game so you can buy multiple in one shopping trip and get a random assortment of 100+ ingredients in your inventory.
Kwimi's Ration Box Overrides - Download this is you want to use EVERYTHING in the ATS3 Grocery set.
My edit to Kwimi's overrides - Download this is you want my edit of Kwimi's overrides. I hid all of the single objects from the ATS3 set, as it wouldn't make sense to put them in my builds. You can ONLY have either my edit or Kwimi's overrides, pick one or the other.
My collection file for functional shops mods - Download this if you want to be able to find all of the modded objects we will be discussing in this guide, including the bulk objects from ATS3 grocery store.
ATS3 Grocery store set - If you download the full set, then get Kwimi's overrides. If you only download the bulk objects (x3, x4, etc) then get my edit of Kwimi's overrides.
https://aroundthesims3.com/objects/room_downtown_24.shtml
https://aroundthesims3.com/objects/room_downtown_25.shtml
ATS3 Savvier Seller Sets - You can download whatever you want from these sets.
Consort Dress Code Mod - For more dynamic attire in town.
https://modthesims.info/d/477049/dresscode-by-consort.html
Transmogrifier - Allows you to copy the script (function) of an object and paste it onto another object.
How to Set-Up Functional Grocery Stores
First, I have to show you how to set up Savvier seller in general. It works the same as Savvy Seller store content, so this won't be a huge learning curve for you guys!
Place down a savvier seller surface on a community lot. This should be a lot sims will want to visit so you can call this a hangout lot.
Then a counter with a savvier seller register.
Now place an object on the SS surface.
Now leave Build/Buy mode, and stay in Paused mode.
Now you ctrl-shift click the SS register, name it w/e you'd like.
Now ctrl-shift click the SS surface and link it to the register that you just named.
Then enable restock from inventory and restock from buy mode.
This allows all objects you place on the surface to be restocked from the build/buy mode catalogue. This still works when you hide the objects from the catalogue as well.
You can now set the open and close times, mark up or down prices, employee, owner, etc.
You do not have to set an owner. You can make a random townie the owner, or yourself if you want to own your own functional store. The money will go into your sims inventory after every purchase. We will get more into that later.
NOTE: That NRAAS register won't assign a sim to these registers, which means you have to manually pick one. This can cause issues if you don't want a townie to use it. So I recommend creating a household of 8 savvier seller YA sims, you don't need 8 stores in your game, but this makes it really easy to find those sims when manning the stations, without sacrificing townies you actually want to interact with and see around town. Just make their last names Savvy, for convenience.
The savvier seller mod alone makes basically everything in your game buyable.
Flower shops, Weed shops, Arcades with functional prizes, Museum gift shops, Art stores, Furniture stores, Candy Stores, a new kind of bakery (that sells custom food cupcakes, etc instead)!
When I say everything I mean everything!
So now that you've got your new functional shop systems installed, and you know how to generally set it up, I'm going to show you how to make a functional Grocery store.
I used to go into the RH buy everything from the store, and individually set them up one by one on shelves, make the inventory items restoackable from the inventory then start shopping.
This was such a long process, and also broke my immersion because I did not want to see a peice of shrimp on a random shelf in a grocery aisle!
So with Kwimi's genius idea, she created overrides for ATS3 grocery store items. To be used along side Ani's Ration box mod.
This mod gives you a random selection of 10 ingredients in game, whenever you open it, you'll get a random assortment. This mod is compatible with custom ingredients as well!
So now, I can set up these items on grocery shelves, which looks more realistic for my build, and actually add ingredients to my sims inventory, whenever I choose to open the boxes.
In the video I also show you that I transmogrify the savvier seller ATS3 shelves into the Flirtyghoul shelves converted by Martasimbook, and it worked.
However, as Kwimi noted herself, us simmers still like to shop for specific items instead of randomly hoping for the right ingredient without entering the RH.
I'm going to try to alleviate this issue.
Start with creating a Deli section, for just the meats.
A seafood section, for just the fish.
Then use the Store fruit and veggie stand object for the produce section.
Now you can place all the meats you can buy from the Grocery RH on the SS surfaces in the meat section. Do the same for the seafood section.
You don't need to do any set up for the produce stands. The object will randomly refill it's own inventory every day with new produce options!
Now, whatever else you miss you can just buy the remainder from the RH itself.
Personally, I like shopping for things at random, I don't necassarily want that to be user directed, unless there is a special event, like Thanksgiving, so I have to buy a roast.
I like to imagine that everything isn't going to be available to me with the donations boxes and produce stand because it's sold out or not in season, etc.
I also like to imagine that my sim is shopping for what THEY want specifically, just like the townies are, without it being user directed.
NOTE: Combined with my ULTIMATE Realistic Food overhaul, there are still hundreds if not thousands of recipes I can put together in game with the ingredients that are randomly bought.
However, I can still specifically shop for certain meats and seafood which is what I'll more than likely want for most of the custom recipes I put together in game.
Although, with the meshes it's implied the ingredient was in the food, so you don't actually need them.
So this makes grocery stores so much more fun and less stressful to set up in game. It's a way less tedious process.
The result leaves the lot itself looking very realistic, so I don't have to sacrifice Aesthetic for functionality.
Which is what I really care about.
The best part is you can make pantries actually functional in your sim's home. By placing what you bought on the shelves, as the ingredients won't go bad until AFTER you open the box and the food is placed in your inventory.
You can also add custom snacks and foods to a storage unit in the pantry as well and take out whatever your sim wants to eat in between meals for that day. Try finding a close pantry object, and transmogrifying it into a storage chest from WA. You should now be able to click on the pantry to place or remove custom food you've bought out and about!
How to set up Functional Stores in General
All links will be at the end of the Guide with the Misc Script objects & cc sets section!
Now I will tell you how to go about other kinds of Functional shops in game.
For flower shops, I want to recommend the flower arranging mod. You can set up savvier seller with the bouqets you make, as well as cc plants. So if you want to own a flower shop, you actually have something pretty interactive to do during the day while your customers shop.
For furniture stores, you mainly want to focus on the Savvier Seller rugs and shelves. Shelves for misc decor, and rugs for furniture like couches, beds, kitchen sets, etc.
However, it's important to note that when you have a lot of cc, this option isn't exactly reasonable, so I typically like to set up
bed and mattress stores
vase and decor stores
children furniture stores
Appliance stores
This is much more manageable if you're like me and have a lot of cc. It makes shopping a lot more fluid for being able to actually put those products in my home from the buy mode family inventory (which is where all objects that can't go into your inventory will go).
Everything else that I get from the catalogue or collection folder's can be tossed in as something I ordered online.
Pro tip: Consider using StudioPap's moving boxes in the room until you actually put the room together. I always use them when moving in or out, and changing a room around like a sim aging up and needing a more mature room. You could also use savvier seller to immersively sell what you're not going to use anymore in a yard sale. Alternatively, moving all items you want to sell to your family invetory then using NRAAS Consigner selling them at a consignment register! The yard sale can be set up in a big park instead of your home lot for convenience. I love seeing the boxes and re-decorating that part of the room. It adds a very dynamic roleplay feature to my gameplay!
For Electronics stores, with Arsils custom phones and backpacks, you can actually replace the cellphone you are using by following the guide in game. Use the ATS3 purse set alongside the mod for more functional cell phones to buy!
So when buying cellphones at something like an Apple store this can actually be functional. You can also set up more computers, laptops, TV's, and the store object ipad as well.
For specific niche stores, consider the Sewing and knitting mod, with the patch version for both to work in game. You can set up a really pretty etsy shop, and just like with the flower shop, you can actually work at the store location and have an active career. Showing some love to our small business simmers out there!
For functional book stores, instead of the rh, just buy the books from the RH and place them on savvier seller surfaces. To get the best look I use this table for it, and a pile of books using OMSP, to make it look like your sim is randomly selecting a book from the pile.
For weed shops, you can now use the buds that come with MD Vile ventures mod, and set them up on savvier seller surfaces to sell them like that instead.
For beach shops you can use Arsil's sunglasses, and Ani's ITF stands for custom bikini's. TS spray tan and sunscreen mod.
For food stores, like bakeries and coffeeshops, you can use custom food from various places and ATS3 custom drinks, specifically the coffee's and energy drinks. Just set them up on savvier seller shelves and enjoy.
You can even make much more specific shops as well, like smoothie shops, sandwhich shops.
Liqour stores using Dina Dine and ATS3 liqour sets.
Tea shops, with ATS3 and Ani's tea sets. Don't forget the store tea set, and modded tea set without the table!
Toy stores, using various cc toys, and fidget spinner. Olomaya crayons, puzzles and coloring books.
For Makeup stores, consider Arsil's Lipstick mod, (you can also put this in a fashion store).You can also use PJ's Deodarant mod in these stores. And cc functional perfumes (must have glass blowing store object, but if you've been following this guide then you already have it).
For car dealerships, add the savvier seller car spot object and set up as many cars as you'd like to buy from. I like making at least 2 car shops. 1 is an expensive car dealership. Another is a junkyard where you can buy the cheaper cars.
For Bike Shops, this can be actual bikes and/or mopeds and motorcycles. Just place them on a savvier seller rug and recolor it to your liking.
Pro-tip: You can also make a semi-functional car mechanic shop by Transmogrifying the fixer upper car into the current car you own either on the car mechanic lot or on your home lot. Then binding a custom car mechanic career to the EA science career so they will actually interact with the car on that lot.
Some more items you can add to Grocery stores, PJ Bubble Bath, PJ card stand, PJ pet bowl, Olomaya's smoking mod for the cigarrette's and vape.
For Pet stores, you can add PJ pet bowl items, and various pet toys and furniture that came in pets.
I don't typically place the Graham's pet shop register on these lots, I'll use a pet pantry for those, with deco animals in their crates to simulate where you'd actually be getting the animals from.
For Art supply stores, Consider PJ painting supplies, Lyralei journal, Zoeoe's scribbling pad fixed, cc art easels, UNI sketchbook, street art kits, crayons from Olomaya and Arsil. And the drafting tables that came with Ambitions.
For Music Stores, Consider the ATS3 music store set, and selling actual instruments.
For the Movie theater, Consider selling custom snacks. Adding the store popcorn machine. Selling action figure dolls to buy after viewing the movie. And a claw machine, to win prizes for your date!
For Sex Shops, consider adding passion condoms, and sex toys that come with the mod. I also include deco vibrators and dildo's, fleshlights, etc, as something you can buy from savvier seller, they aren't functional but they imply things. The passion mod altogether makes this implied action functional, so it works out fine.
For convenience stores, to make them more functional you can add the petrol system mod gas stations, and refill your gas at these stores, you can also sell Arsils bag of chips and these variations, and arsil's gum. With various custom snacks and foods to eat.
You can make asian themed convenience stores as well.
For Sports Shops, this is completely seperate from the Gym lot. Consider TS Yoga mats, Olomaya's Get pumped items, The chin-up bar from showtime. Arsil's excercise bike. Treadmill. Strength training. The various basegame throwable items like the football, more items from this ATS3 set. And the punching bags with the same WA martial arts object script. Also, sell olomaya's healthy snacks on this lot as well, these items boost your workout routines.
And well, you get the gist! You can virtually make any store idea you have in game functional. You could even transmogrify cc surfaces from savvier seller surfaces in game instead for a much more cohesive look to your build. Keep in mind, this may not always work, but for the most part it does, just wanted to throw that disclaimer out there!
How to Set up Functional Fashion stores
But what about fashion stores? How do we make those functional?
Using Ani's ITF stands.
These add very intuitive ITF stands to your game where you and townies (when changing the xml settings) can shop from.
NOTE: You do need ITF for this to work, however, if you don't have ITF, Ani's shop for clothes mod will do just the trick. It's not as extensive as the ITF stands, but you'll still be able to shop for new outfits on community lots. I also believe the Shop for clothes mod is compatible with NRAAS Dresser, but the ITF stands mod is not.
This is because the ITF stands mod replaces the plan outfit interaction from the dressers in game which breaks some key components of NRAAS Dresser. With both mods installed I also wasn't able to save my new outfits, either. So learn from my mistakes.
The ITF stands mod increases the amount of outfits you can have per category, which was my favorite feature of the NRAAS Dresser mod, so when I read extensively what both mods changed I realized I didn't even need NRAAS Dresser anymore, anyway.
So I personally like to give my active household 7 everyday outfits. I just change their outfit using the dresser in the morning before they leave the house.
You can open up Ani's ITF stands mod using S3PE, right click the xml file, open it up in notepad, and set autonomy to true, then save. So now townies will autonomously shop for new outfits in your game. This isn't as intrusive as you think. In my game, they will replace their outfits. I also notice that when they are shopping from a pedestal the same age and gender as them they will wear the custom outfit I set for that mannequin. So it's a fun way to auto style your town without having to individually change all the townies outfits yourself, sometimes I still will do this, but I catch the townies that haven't shopped for clothes by themselves yet, so it cuts down this work for me by a lot!
Performance tip: So I want to tell you guys a pro-tip that I figured out in my own playtest of the fashion stores. I tried to set up custom outfits for every age and gender in a store and my game consistently crashed everytime I tried to go back in game and continue the build.
This is because all of those cc outfits for all genders and ages overloaded the lot.
But I was able to make stores for the elderly, both genders, without crashing. A store for YA and Adult men. Same for YA and Adult Women. A store for Teens, sometimes I make two stores for both genders or split one store up with both genders. A store for kids, both genders.
This allowed me to add at least 8-10 ITF stands with custom cc outfits on each of these lots without crashing. This also led me to more optimized lots as since I'm only focusing on one specific theme and age group, the lot could be a lot smaller. One day I might do speedbuilds on this and upload it to the community.
Alternatively, if you want to add all the age groups and genders on one lot, consider only adding one of each, the best theme for this build would be a thrift store, which I've made several times in game myself without crashing.
Fashion Lots you'll want to make (I keep these around 20 x 20 lot size, they can fit basically anywhere in my worlds with very little issues): Just set these lots as visitors allowed. It'll push all kinds of sims to these lots randomly through out the day.
It's important to note that I won't create fashion stores for every age and every gender, for every outfit category. I mainly focus on the outfits and age groups that would bother me the most. I revamp all of my households before starting my gameplay, so I've given everyone in my world a default cc outfit to start with. The attire for ages I don't create lots for either wouldn't bother me at all if it were missing, or the age group is more manageable in the world population where I can change their attire right then and there on the spot. My CAS runs pretty fast considering how much CAS cc I have so I don't mind this process at all.
Everyday Wear: You can make 4 outfits each of the either the age groups or genders without crashing on the lot for everyday wear.
A store for the elderly, both genders. 4 men, 4 women.
A store for the men, YA-A. 4 YA, 4 A.
A store for the women, YA-A.
A store for teens. You can either make one for each gender, which makes 2 stores and 8 outfits. Or 1 store for teens in general, 4 female teen and 4 male teen outfits.
A store for kids, both genders or 2 stores for each gender.
Athletic Wear:
Sports shop. YA-A, both genders, 2 each. I'll put these on the same lots where I sell all the scripted objects.
The other ages don't bother me.
Sleepwear:
A store for the elderly and kids, both genders. 2 outfits for Elderly Female, 2 for male. 2 for female kids, 2 for male.
A loungerie store, Victoria's secret. For female YA-A.
A Nike or sneaker store. For male YA-A.
Other ages don't bother me.
Formal Wear:
A wedding store. For male and female YA-A, 2 each.
Other ages don't bother me.
Swimwear:
Beach shops. YA-A, both genders, 2 each.
Kid's Beach shops. Both genders, 2 each. I also include functional pool floats to this store for more fun.
Other ages don't bother me.
Outerwear: will typically only get it's own fashion store for vacation worlds. I love creating themed outfits to the mannequins for vacation worlds. I'll show you how I do this in the next section.
How to combine the Fashion stores with Consort Dress Code mod
Once you enable the autonomous interaction in the xml's of Ani's mod, townies will autonomously buy outfits from the mannequins. The townies will replace their ONE and only outfit in that category.
They will not create more outfits like you the player would. This is great news for optimization as too many outfits for each category on every sim in the world would create lag, and it wouldn't even be neccassary since townies can't autonomously change their outfit numbers for each category, anyway (NRAAS Dresser does this but it caused lag, that's how I know).
So, when they do shop for that outfit on the mannequin, it's only going to be one outfit and you will see them in that outfit for the rest of the savefile or until they shop from another mannequin with a different outfit.
This is where I use the seasonal lot marker to my advantage.
I place down the ITF stands for every season, I DO NOT place the stands down on the default setting, the objects will obviously conflict.
This means all I have to do is create seasonal outfits on the mannequins each new season, and within a couple of sim days you'll start to see random townies walking around with these outfits on.
This is why breaking the fashion stores down by gender and age really matters.
As, the townies will be wearing a bunch of different cc outfits you set up in the store instead of, for example, all elderly women wearing the same exact outfit.
Because I also use the Consort dress code mod, I need to leave some slots open to get the most out of my roleplay.
The dress code mod will automatically change the sims outfits to the outfit number for the category, but you will have to set that outfit up.
It's a pretty lightweight script, you shouldn't feel it in your performance, assuming you've optimized your game altogether.
Basic outfit numbers by Category:
Everyday Wear: 7 outfits (Mon-Sun), Townies get 1.
Athletic wear: 2 outfits (basic workout, ballerina/dancer), Townies get 2 (if they enter lot with dress code script).
Sleepwear: 2 outfits (Basic pajamas, towel set, sometimes a 3rd one for sexy loungerie), Townies get 2 (if dress code script is present).
Formal Wear: 2 outfits ( Fancy event, Party outfit), Townies get 2 (if they enter lot with dress code script).
Swimwear: 1 outfit, Townies get 1 outfit. I just change the bathing suit after 1 sim year if I get bored of seeing it.
Outerwear: 3 outfits (Winter, Summer/Spring, Fall), Townies get 3 (if dress code is present).
Career wear: 2 (work and school if present), Townies get 2, 1 is their actual work outfit and the second is if I need it for something like school.
Consort Dress Code mod rules I follow:
Whenever I place the dress code script on a lot I stick to these rules to get the most cohersive experience.
Career attire outfit #2 For teens and Kids is their school uniform if I set that up.
Athletic attire outfit #3 For teens and Kids is their school workout uniform if I set that up.
(This is why I left Athletic attire slot 3 open above)
Protip: You can use MC to copy the outfits for every sim the same gender and age as the sim you selected to speed this process up for schools!
Athletic Attire Outfit #2 For YA+ for dance studio's.
Formal attire outfit #1 For Adults in their banquet, fancy restaraunt attire.
Formal attire outfit #2 For Adults in their party outfit for dance clubs.
Formal attire outfit #3 For everyone, this is for funerals. I throw a general party in formal attire on an open graveyard RH lot with the dress code script on it. This is why I leave this outfit slot open.
Sleepwear attire Outfit #2 For everyone, using ATS3 towel set. I will also set these up in my residential bathrooms.
So this is how I optimized it altogether which gave me more dynamic variety with NPC's changing their looks.
Now let's talk about outerwear for Vacation worlds.
Camping world fashion store, Outerwear slot 2
Beach town Fashion store, Outerwear Slot 2
Snow world Fashion Store, Outerwear slot 1
France or Monte Vista, romantic get away kind of worlds, Outerwear Slot 3.
I leave these as the outerwear outfit slots because it's more manageable and easy to change since I only use 3 outfits in this category.
That way I won't ruin the everyday wear I've already set up for my active sims when they return back home, and I can easily change their outerwear again since it's only 3 outfits.
I can also switch up between the outerwear and everyday outfits when I'm out with my sims. My months last 28 days in game, but I will turn off aging and seasons to extend that season for an extra month or 2. So by the time the new season comes around, I'm excited and ready to go shopping for my sims new season wardrobe!
I also will use the consort dress code mod on many of the community lots in those vacation worlds so that all townies will typically look the part. Most of the time this won't be necassary as I have again already revamped those townies to fit the aethstic of the world.
I set these up on community lots like coffee houses, dive bars, shopping strips, movie theater, etc. It just gives me another way to see my townies in different outfits. You can also do this in Homeworld.
The only vacation worlds I won't have to do this are the snow worlds, christmas themed worlds, as townies will autonously change into their snow attire when outside anyway.
So, instead I make sure my townies are wearing winter themed outfits for the inside of community lots to make sure the whole aesthetic fits together.
Miscellanious Script OBJS & CC sets
Functional scripted objs that were recommended in this tutorial:
Fidget spinner
PJ Deodarant
PJ Bubble bath
PJ Card stands
PJ Painting supplies
PJ Pet Bowls
TS Spray tan
TS sunscreen
TS Yoga Mats
Olomaya's activity table
Olomaya's Coloring Book
Olomaya smoking mod
Olomaya Get pumped
Olomaya Family snacks
Passion mod condoms and strap-ons (On LL needs registration and I can't link it since I have hate watchers. Sorry!)
Flower Arranging Mod
Knitting
Sewing (don't forget the patch)
Arsils custom phones and backpacks
arsil's lipstick
arsil's sunglasses
MD Vile Ventures (Can't link it, I have hate watchers, sorry!)
Ani's Tea mod
Tea Set without table
Lyrlei Journal
Zoeoe Scribbling pad fix
Petrol Station
Arsil's Gum
Arsil's Bag of chips and variations.
CC Sets that were recommended in this Tutorial:
cc Perfume
Moving Day boxes
ATS3 Custom Drinks
DD sandwhiches
DD Beer
ATS3 functional liqour bottles
ATS3 Tea sets
More Functional Toys
ATS3 Music Store set
Asian Themed Conveniene store set
ATS3 Produce Set
Functional cc gas stations for the Petrol Mod
ATS3 Towel Set
ATS3 Sports set
Punching Bag
ATS3 What's in my bag.
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Y'all ready for a certified neurodivergent moment?
I had to sit through a thing I absolutely did not need any info from, and typed up a massive outline of the soulsborne pokemon game I just talked about. Massively cringe, yes, but hey it's not just living in my head anymore.
I've had this idea brewing in my head for a while now, pretty much ever since PLA came out (and I found it kinda disappointing tbh). Even though Hoenn has lots of love, it still feels like the most "grand" region in terms of the scale and themes of its lore, so I liked the idea of using it for a legends game that focused on the initial clash of Kyogre and Groudon. I had so many ideas brew in my head, and I guess now I sloppily typed them out.
Obviously this isn't actual game design. This is just me being cringey and detailing my dream pokemon game. At 26 years old. Anyways.
Pokemon Legends: Jirachi
In the times when Hoenn was young, the earth and seas shook. Titans roam the land- powerful individual pokemon that shape their environment to their liking. Humans and pokemon work together to keep them under control, but the earth and sea themselves shake, and Titans only grow more numerous. One day, a human wishes on a shooting star to become a hero and save their land, and something from up there answered.
In this game, Jirachi would be a kind of invisible "questmaster", giving an in-game reason for path markers, quest markers, and points of interest marked in stardust and sparkles. Once the main plot is completed, Jirachi would be able to join your party.
Core combat
The gameplay would be souls-like or Monster Hunter like, but with direct parallels to mainline pokemon mechanics. The six stats would be the same, and the four moves your pokemon can learn would be equivalent to the attack interface of a soulslike game- four trigger buttons. You would take direct control of one "primary" pokemon at a time, and use it as a souls-like character.
HP, Def, and SpDef would be largely the same, with the added benefit that less damage taken means more resistance to trips and staggers.
Atk and SpAtk are also pretty clear cut, scales your damage output per move.
Speed would be analogous to stamina or endurance. Dodging would work as in soulsborne games, and consume stamina. Most pokemon walking, running, attack speed, and dodging speed would be largely equivalent, but high speed pokemon would be able to sustain rapidfire attacking, frequent dodging, and continuous sprinting for longer.
Accuracy would be reworked into lock-on or charge up time- eg, a low accuracy move requires you to stay in one place for a longer amount of time before releasing, to charge up or lock on (imagine how swag ass this would look with focus blast).
PP would correspond to cooldown time. Each move would be infinite use, but have a cool-down after its used. So a move with high accuracy, but low PP, could be used instantly, but not spammed. High PP, weaker moves would then see an increased niche as a "default" light attack that can be spammed.
Attacks could also be ranged, up close, AoE, and have other features that would need to be tweaked and balanced in implementation. They wouldn't one to one map onto their in game counterparts, but this would at least provide a vague guide for how these moves work that builds on players assumed existing knowledge of pokemon games.
Special attributes, like never-miss moves and priority moves, would have features that play into this- eg, priority moves could be spammed with no cooldown, and never-miss moves would be immune to inhibiting effects.
Stat changes could be temporary effects applied to yourself when using the move, like a buffing spell in soulsborne games.
Nonvolatile status effects (paralysis, burn, sleep, etc) would work similar to monster hunter- invisibly accumulating triggers that occur as a side effect to to moves, or in the case of moves that directly trigger status like Spore or Thunder Wave, they would not do direct damage, but instead add massive amounts to the accumulated status trigger.
Field effects (weather, terrain, and special effects like wind, gravity, etc) could be set by regular pokemon moves in small areas, but would also be frequently encountered in the overworld.
Examples: the vibes of potential starter pokemon.
This is all just for the purpose of giving examples of how I envision some of this stuff working. Assume each pokemon would have regional variants that scaled their stats appropriately. This is just to show how different playstyles from the mainline games would translate to this format.
Lucario: example mixed offensive pokemon
Moves like aura sphere could be used with no lock on time, and little to no cooldown, forming the basis of a normal, light, ranged attack.
Moves like Close Combat would have no lock on, but give a temporary debuff and have a long cooldown time before they could be initiated again, making for a quick to use but infrequent heavy attack.
Swords dance and/or nasty plot could be used to provide a temporary buff for a period of time.
Focus blast would take a long time to charge and lock on, making you a sitting duck.
Reuniclus: example tanky pokemon
Light Screen and Barrier could lay down static areas on the ground. When an ally pokemon is located within them, they provide their corresponding defensive buffs. Cooldown for reusing them starts when these floor areas disappear.
Recover could be used to heal, but would have a long cooldown.
Liepard: example technical pokemon
Yawn would inflict direct sleep "buildup", but over time as opposed to instantly.
Fake out would instantly proc a stagger from the enemy, but could only be used in a certain time range upon being sent out.
Moves like taunt and torment function as usual.
The trainer and overworld traversal
Even though the player has direct control over pokemon, the MC is still a trainer, and pokemon are still capture in balls.
The trainer would be on the sidelines, with idle animations ordering the pokemon to do stuff.
Only one "controllable" pokemon could be outside of a pokeball at a time, or all of them could be stowed in pokeballs to directly control the trainer. The trainer can interact with NPCs, gather items, etc.
The trainer would also order "helper" pokemon. One or two "helpers" could be added independent of the party that would follow the trainer around constantly. Each pokemon has a list of field "helper" abilities they're capable of doing, independent of what moves they know. By targeting something that a helper pokemon can interact with in the world, the trainer would order that pokemon to zip out and interact with it. Think Republic commando. This takes the role of HMs and other field moves. For areas that require things like Surf of dive, the helper pokemon would exert a field of influence that essentially allowed the primary pokemon to act normally- eg, a surf helper would cause an area of surging upwards surface chop that lets the primary pokemon walk on water, or a dive helper would create small air bubbles centered around wherever the primary pokemon breathes from.
The trainer can also provide small support in the form of items, but this would be limited to encourage sensible use of stat boosting moves.
Pokemon would still be captured in pokeballs, but after they are fainted by the primary pokemon. Fainted pokemon could either be captured in a pokeball, or "relieved" of unique held items and resources before releasing them.
Pokemon would not gain experience by defeating opponents. Instead, each one would have material requirements to both level up and "customize" them. Like upgrading a weapon in Monster Hunter, every pokemon would have unique material requirements to level up, change nature, upgrade IVs, allocate EVs, or learn and relearn certain moves. This incentivizes a postgame loop, but could be curved to make the main game give you adequate materials to avoid excessive grinding.
The gameplay and story structure
The gameplay loop is basically monster hunter.
There would be a large number of normal-sized pokemon out in the world, that could be easily defeated and either captured and looted. But, frequently, a "Titan" would appear- a large, boss variant of a particular pokemon. Some pokemon can only be captured from their defeated titan forms, even if they appear in their regular forms.
These titan forms would appear semi-randomly, and requests to "quiet" them by defeating them would take the form of quests posted in the hub regions. These quests would then essentially be a monster hunter hunt- going out and fighting a particular titan.
Titan forms could be unique, or vaguely modeled after existing megas.
The world is divided into 8 main regions, and at least one "bonus" region. There would be 4 ocean regions, and 4 land regions. Each region would be seperate, but open to explore within that region (damn you can really see how much I've played MH:W)
Each region would have a drop table of pokemon that could potentially appear as titans.
Each region would also have one, single titan pokemon that gives the region its character. These 9 titans would be new, unique regional variants.
Each region, and by extension, each boss titan, would be directly associated with a different regional effect. So essentially, the boss titan and the field effect of a region would be reflective of its character.
The plot, like monster hunter, would be a gameplay loop of increasingly powerful titans within a region, building to the boss titans of each region. Once the 8 primary titans are defeated, it triggers the endgame main plotline.
The world
As mentioned previously, the bulk of the gameplay loop and storyline would be defeating increasingly more powerful "titan" pokemon, until you encounter a particular individual pokemon that is actively shaping that region and has ultimately caused the other titans along the way to be empowered.
Each region would have a dominant type, several field effects that come and go within certain parts of the area, and a unique boss titan. Each boss titan is about equivalent difficulty, and the player is encouraged to spread their efforts around to proceed through the "tiers" of titans evenly across the world before making it to the boss.
Hubs: Slateport, Lilycove.
Self explanatory, these would be the hub towns. Like in PLA, no other cities would be founded yet. Mt. Pyre would be integrated as part of Lilycove, and important characters and exposition could happen there. It would be an active cathedral. Kyogre and Groudon wouldn't be "known", but vague, amorphous titans of earth, sea, and sky would be referenced.
Land Regions
Meteor Cliffs and the Tranquil Plain
A gentle, grassy plain south of Mt. Chimney gives way to its southern slope. The slope, pockmarked with craters, has not been extensively explored, but is thought to hold deep caverns.
Regional effect: Pyschic Terrain
Regional Titan boss: Metagross (Steel/Pyschic)
Main game route equivalents: Meteor Falls, Rustboro City, Petalburg Woods, Petalburg City, Oldale Town, Littleroot town, 101, 102, 103, 104, 116, 115
Towering Forest
A deep, lush forest, sometimes so dense that you can't see the sky, fed by the crystal clear river cutting through it. The tangle of the canopy shudders under the weight of unseen pokemon above.
Regional effect: Grassy Terrain
Regional Titan boss: Tropius (Grass/Steel)
Main game route equivalents: Fortree city, Safari Zone, 119, 120, 121, 123
Jagged Stones
Deep, rugged canyons hide a basin-like desert, where a raging sandstorm elicits mirage-like visions.
Regional effect: sandstorm
Regional Titan boss: Tyranitar (Rock/Dragon)
Main game route equivalents: Verdanturf town, 117, 111, 112, all desert subregions
Volcanic Slopes
The peaks, caverns, and North slope of Mt. Chimney know no peace from the continuous onslaught of lava.
Regional effect: harsh sunlight
Regional Titan boss: Camerupt (Fire/Ground)
Main game route equivalents: Mt. Chimney, Jagged Pass, Fiery Path, Lavaridge, Fallarbor, 113, 114
Oceanic regions
Thunder Bay
An unrelenting, static haze hovers over the inlets of of Thunder Bay, impeding exploration of its deep subterranean caverns.
Regional effect: electric terrain
Regional Titan boss: Manectric (Electric/Dark)
Main game route equivalents: Mauville, New Mauville (replaced by a cave entrance), Cycling Road, 118, 110, 134, 133
Shifting Floes
A chill falls over the NorthEast seas of Hoenn, a climatic anomaly. Scattered islands and shifting ice platforms are continually coated with a snowstorm.
Regional effect: snowstorm
Regional Titan boss: Froslass (ice/ghost)
Main game region equivalents: Mossdeep, Shoal cave, 124, 125, parts of 126 and 127
Misted islands
A mysterious area of the ocean in which islands seem to shift locations as they phase in and out of sight.
Primary Area effect: Misty Terrain
Regional Titan Boss: Altaria (Dragon/fairy)
Main game route equivalents: Dewford Town, Granite Cave, Southern Island, Mirage Island (location changed), 105, 106, 107, 108, 109
Deep Blue
The open expanse of the ocean, and the islands within it, hold secrets beyond comprehension in their depths and constant storms. It is said that there is as much below as there is above.
Primary Area effect: rain/underwater (same effects as rain)
Regional Titan Boss: Wailord (water)
Main game route equivalents: Sootopolis city, Cave of Origin, Sky Pillar, Ever Grande City, Pacifidlog, Seafloor cavern, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, parts of 126 and 127
Special Area: the Delta Stream
Ripping across Hoenn's skies is an air current known as the Delta Stream, which powerful pokemon use as a causeway between regions and across the world.
Only accessible in the postgame, and with a "helper" pokemon that can fly. This entire region is above the clouds, and the only points that poke up are the peak of Mt. Chimney, Sky Pillar, and an updraft over Mt. Pyre.
Primary area effect: tailwind
Regional Titan Boss: Salamence (Flying/Dragon)
The Endgame Plot: after the titans are quieted
Once every boss has been defeated, the endgame storyline starts. Despite every titan being quieted, the land still quakes, and the seas still swell. The elders of Mt. Pyre urge you to investigate these at their source: the inner lava chamber of Mt. Chimney (subregion of Volcanic Slopes), and the depths of the seafloor (subregion of Deep Blue).
As you can probably guess, this is the introduction to Kyogre and Groudon.
The first fight with each of them uses your own pokemon, and gives you a "false" win- after you "faint" them in a suspiciously easy battle, they each revive into their primal forms, and head to the mountain island that would become Sootopolis. Hear, they battle on a kaiju-like scale. The MC watches the destruction from Mt. Pyre.
For the second time in the game's story, the MC makes a wish: this is beyond me. I wish a savior would come. Jirachi directly unveils itself for the first time to answer the call, touches the MC, and speeds off into the distance. A cutscene follows Jirachi to Sky Pillar (only a raw, uncarved spike of rock at this point), where Rayquaza is seen coiled around the top. Jirachi leads Rayquaza into the upper atmosphere, where it undergoes a primal/mega evolution. It pivots, shooting down towards earth, building speed.
The player takes control of M-Rayquaza as it slams down to earth, staggering Kyogre and Groudon away from each other, and engages in a special fight where they have to defeat both of them.
After this, Kyogre, Groudon, and Rayquaza may each be found at Seafloor cavern, Mt. Chimney, and sky pillar respectively, and may be defeated and captured. But its highly implied that they only go along with this willingly, and will freely resume their duties as the lords of the land once the MC passes on.
After the plot is completed, steps and murals start being carved into Sky Pillar, allowing access to the Delta Stream.
The post game would allow for infinitely generating Titans, rematches with previously captured Boss Titans as "enrichment" for them, and general gameplay loop grinding for items to train pokemon.
Yay, okay, no ones gonna read this far but uh. Yeah. That's the general idea I had. Hope it made at least some sense LOL
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DM Tip: The Trouble With Treasure/ An Alternate Wealth System
If you’re a player or dungeonmaster who’s at all interested in game design you might’ve noticed D&D’s treasure and economy systems suck. You also might have noticed even if you’re not interested in game design, because the longer you play d&d the more it becomes glaringly obvious that the game doesn’t actually HAVE a treasure and economy system despite pretending otherwise. This is a major problem given that seeking riches is one of the default adventuring motivations, and largely stems from the fact that back in ye-olden days gold was directly related to experience points, so wealth accrued exponentially in line with the increasing cost of levelling up. This is why magic items cost to damn much despite being not only a staple of the genre but absolutely necessary to the long-term viability of certain classes (as I discuss here in my post about gear as class features).
After being cut lose however, nothing was really DONE with gold in d&d from a gameplay perspective: Treasure generation largely fell to dm discretion or random tables, and the useful things a party could buy steadily shrunk to the point where characters could be stuck with their starting equipment for an entire campaign. “Too much gold and nothing to spend it on” became one of the major criticisms of d&d 5e, but only touched on the problem that without something worthwhile to spend treasure on the party has less and less reason to venture into the dangerous unknown, take dodgy contracts, or perform any of a half dozen other plot beats that make up traditional adventuring.
The system likewise breaks down once you pass a certain threshold of wealth, or once you try to model larger economic activities: divvying up a lockbox full of dungeon plunder to reequip your heroes before launching out on the next mission works great for the first couple of levels, but completely falls apart when you're dealing common enough story tropes such as running a business, transporting cargo as merchants, or caring for the estates around a castle.
What I propose is splitting d&d’s economy into two halves: Wealth, which represents the piles of GP and other coins the party carries with them, and Resources, more abstract points which chart how plugged in the party is to local systems of production, trade, and patronage.
If you’d like an explanation of how these systems work, and how they can improve your game like they improved mine, I’ll explain both of these mechanics in detail below the cut, as well as subsystems that let your party open businesses, operate estates, build castles, and make a living as merchants.
Wealth: I wanted to limit the amount of money my players kept with them without instituting an encumbrance system that might drag things down. Instead I wanted to rely on a more “common sense” method of tracking wealth, and get them thinking about their stores of gold as a physical object rather than a nebulous point pool they can dip into.
Conveniently, every character starts play with a coin pouch, which can hold up to 300gp (about 6 pounds). I use this as a “soft cap” for how much money a character can be expected to be carrying around with them, not including jewellery or small valuables like gems.
Theoretically a person could have more than one coin pouch, carry their wealth around with them in a chest (15,000gp) or a cartoon sack with a dollar sign on it (1500gp), but this becomes increasingly cumbersome and provides a greater and greater chance that the party will be targeted by thieves. I don’t need to add any more mechanical crunch to this factor, I just inform the party “ hey, you look like you’re carrying a lot of money, better be careful going forward” and plan my encounters accordingly.
Instituting this cap likewise prevents gold from losing all meaning once the party is high enough level to have found their second or third treasure hoard. Sure, they might be living it up in an aristocratic lifestyle back home, but when it comes to set out into the wilderness they suddenly have to think of GP as a resource along with spellslots and hitdie. Getting robbed, forced to give bribes, or simply losing their coin pouch suddenly becomes an actual threat to them regardless of level.
Resources: The party has a pool refereed to as resources, representing their holdings, relationships with patrons, and personal enterprise. The party’s total resources are pooled, and are represented on a scale from 1-50.
Every week, provided they have contract with their economic network, each member of the party party receives earnings equal to 12.5 gp x (the party’s total resources) representing them drawing a living from the connections they’ve already made (working a trade, doing odd jobs, getting payouts from investments)
In order to obtain a new level of wealth, the party must either invest 500gp per point of wealth they which to obtain into a new or ongoing business project (either their own, or that of a trusted contact). Alternatively, the party can get their resource pool boosted by forming agreements with tradesfolk or wealthy patrons, who may grant the party such agreements out of friendship or as part of a reward for doing quests. Resources are recorded with a number beside them, representing how much of the party’s total resource pool they represent. This is so that if something happens to jeopardize that resource, the party knows exactly how much of their earnings are up in the air.
For example, a party that saves a merchant captain from pirates early on in their adventures might be rewarded with a share of her ship’s takings, gaining 1 point of resources. In the future, they may pour some of their adventuring loot into her business, increasing their total amount of holdings with her to 6, and their weekly payout to 75gp. If that captain and her ship were then lost in a storm, those resources would be frozen, halting the party’s payouts and encouraging them to discover just what it was happened to their friend as the base of a new adventurehook.
Buying against Resources: D&D is weird in that it prices magic items, ships and castles like they can be bought off the rack, when in any pre-industrial society most “new” things would have to be constructed from scratch with labours and artisans paid a steady amount over months or years until the thing was complete and then delivering it directly into the hands of the one who commissioned them. Sure a weaponsmith or apothecary would likely have a storeroom full of items to sell to clients walking in off the street, but shipyards aren't spending years churning out galleys to leave them waiting for a buyer like a used car lot.
Because plenty of games involve at least a section where a party might establish a fortress, fix up a ruined estate, or commission a magical artifact, it helps to have a guideline: Find the base price of the item, chop it in half if the party or one of their business contacts can source the resources (or if they’re fixing something that’s broken) Next they need to pay for labour, “reserving” points out of their own resource pool to hire on workers and supplementary materials, divide the item’s price by (500x the number of resource points the party is willing to spend) to find how many months it’ll take for the item to be finished. Note that during this time, the party’s effective resource score is reduced by the amount they’ve reserved. This makes it possible for a mid level party to start refurbishing their dream castle early, rather than having it simply poof into existence once they’re too high level to really get use out of it.
Ongoing Services: Rather than worry about keeping track of hirelings, or a number of other factors, I let my party reserve points off their resource pool indefinitly to retain the services of NPCs. Each “holding” the party has (buisness, ship, estate) likewise requires one resource kept in reservation for general maintenance, unless the party want to take a month off and maintain it themselves.
A party that owned a tavern then might reserve one resource to maintain their establishment , another to pay for the staff, and begin to think about hiring on some guards for a third as something is causing fights to break out more frequently.
Another party which owned a pirate ship, they’d reserve one resource to maintain the ship, another to pay the crew, and a third to bribe the harbormaster who looks the other way when they bring unsanctioned goods into harbor. After hearing about their big score however, their corrupt contact asks for yet another resource worth of bribes, potentially stretching the party’s resources a bit thin.
Using Resources to be a merchant: If pirates come up often in this post it’s because I drove myself half mad several years ago trying to run a skyship campaign, and the logistics of hullspace v supplies v the staggering price of trade goods v market demand drove me up the wall. I lacked a simple system that would let my party FEEL like they were high-risk traders without having to slow the game down with accounting. Here’s my Alternative: there’s a special type of resource called “goods” connected to caravans and trade vessels, which can be expanded like any other. At the end of every month who’s ever in charge of that venture (Player or npc) makes a mercantilism roll ( possibly charisma, possibly wisdom, + some relevant proficiency) for each of those goods based against a DC set by the dm regarding how good trade is doing in that region. If it’s a success, the markets are flowing, and the goods rating goes up by 1. If it’s a failure, they go nowhere, as no profit is made. If they fail by 10 or more, those goods loose one point due to bad investment, and if they succeed by 10 or more, the goods double. When the party receives their payment, they can chose to cash out for 500gp per point of good, possibly then reinvesting in the venture.
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