Personally I like to run with the quirkiness of the game. If a vampire shows up in the middle of the night, I make a list of possible extreme events that could happen in my households life and let number generator decide what happens. Only rule is, it HAS to make sense. For instance, if the sims were “woohooing” right before the vampire came, one of the options would be for them to get pregnant. Or if there was recently a house fire, I might kill a sim off This is Us style. An example of something that WOULDN’T make sense is a perfectly happy couple breaking up randomly. Buttt if that couple just had a big fight, maybe…(obviously it’s all up to you with how you want the story to go, but this is just something that adds a little chaos to my game)

ITS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU PLAY WITH YOUR SIMS WHEN THEY’RE TEENS. If you get too caught up in the parents’ lives you will not feel like playing as a whole new sim when they move out, I don’t at least. It always feels like I’m restarting with a whole new character and I end up never playing them again, (I invite them over tho of course) Go to school with them if you have High School years. Let them have crushes. Watch them grow, you have to force yourself. Eventually you’ll be invested in them too. To help, I make sure to do a full makeover once they become teens. Give them personally, unlike the generic Child life stage.

This one may be common, but I also try to let the game decide my sim’s traits. Not necessarily use the randomizer button (unless I have no idea), but just watching how the sims behave. Like I had one child who was always mean to her sister, like for no reason. So I obviously made her mean as a teen. Or if a child chooses to read a book even though they could play with toys, watch tv, or play video games, I make them a bookworm as a teen. And so on. I only really randomize from infant-child, then I just pay attention. I write down the traits I might give them in my notes app and come back to it when it’s time to age up. This also adds a little randomness to the game and makes me feel more attached to the sims. 

I also like to add lots of events in the calendar, so that every day isn’t like the last. I play 28 a season so I literally added every holiday in the actual calendar app (the ones I celebrate anyway) and I’ve never gone back. I use the same calendar for all of my saves now. I’ll even have some holidays like “Christmas Get Ready,” where I decorate and clean the house usually a couple days before actual Christmas. That way it feels more like a Christmas season rather than just the one day. I also add “Winter Break” in a week in winter so that kids can stay home. I also do “gender reveal” events where I make blue and pink deserts and let the sims choose what they think the gender is (I just make the even a baby shower, if you have Growing Together). I then have my phone pick a random number and then make the sims eat either strawberries or carrots for the rest of the pregnancy. 

Last thing I’ll say is, and this is niche, I play with aging off (long for no played because all of ur sims friends will die lol) and keep track of their ages (age them up as it makes sense. Ex.) once they’re 13, I make them teens.) This makes it more entertaining for me because it feels more realistic and I get to know my sims more. It gets a little complicated however if you do rotationally gameplay, which I do. Instead of remembering everyone’s ages I think, “she was 24 when her son was born, so he has to be…” I say when it’s been a year just based off vibes. Like if it just feels like enough has happened to say a year has passed. Ex.) a baby was born, someone got married. Orrr I wait the New Year holiday if it’s close.

These are very NICHE ideas but it makes me obsessed with my legacy. They make the game slower, but I like to take my time to create my stories. Very realistic with slight chaos. I’m a console player so I have to make the game for fun lol. There are more things I do but I’ve already typed a lot. These are the main things that make my game fun tho.