gameplay notes on injury damage

notes for inflicting gameplay upon story characters: 

This is sort of like the reverse of writing a story based on gameplay—here, I want to inflict gameplay upon my sims for something that happened in the story. Because otherwise, you know they'd walk around all smiley and happy and sim-like, even though something terrible just happened. TS4 sims don't have memories like TS2 sims do, so once their bad moodlets wear off, they completely forget that anything bad ever happened to them. No matter what it was.

And the moodlets are ridiculously short, most of the time. This brand new mod looks promising to help them last a little bit longer.

In game, the fight moodlet only lasts four hours, so that was kind of useless to me. I did let Justin and Jeremiah actually brawl in game, and yes, Justin loses every time against Jeremiah, lol! It must have to do with either their traits (Jeremiah's are much meaner) or their muscle strength (Jeremiah is stronger), because I think they're about matched on their fitness skill.

Anyway, this was more than just a little brawl, so I'll use several mods and cheats to inflict some lingering physical and psychological damages for these sims. (I am a cruel, cruel pixel-god, lol!)


For Willow, considering her age and having witnessed what she did, I picked +2 tense, added by debug cheats, which will be stuck until I remove it. At that level, it will be easy for her family to care for her and help her feel secure and happy, but you can also expect that sometimes the tension will rise up and she'll "remember". This will probably show up in outbursts or nightmares.

For Stephanie, who you will hear from in the next story piece, I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to tell you that I picked +2 sad for her. For different characters, different reactions would make sense, but for Stephanie and her internalizing, worrisome personality, sadness felt like it would be her default state.

These would be psychological damages, and because I've added them by debug cheats, they will last as long as I feel they should. I will remove them when I feel the sims have "gotten over it", whatever that might mean in the story. I have not decided yet how or when those would be removed for either of them.

For Justin, it was mentioned in the last chapter that he was in the ICU due to the severe beating Jeremiah dealt him, and that is largely what the next chapter is about. Due to physical injuries, he'll begin with a +5 uncomfortable, and I will drop that down to a +2 uncomfortable as he recovers, depending on the length of his recovery. The +5 uncomfortable is rather dangerous in my game (because of uncomfortable boosting, see here), which is why he will remain in the ICU to be carefully monitored. Justin rarely gets angry, but all sims get embarrassed by things from time to time. So I've also prescribed him some heavy medication that will drive his uncomfortable mood into dazed. It feels fitting for the events he's experienced—extreme pain overridden by heavy sedation. See, with mods, you can kind of bend these pixels into somewhat realistic situations. As long as he keeps up with that medication schedule, it will override most other angry or embarrassed moodlets he might spawn and keep him out of danger.

For the other family members, I have found a couple interesting buffs to add as I feel necessary. Both have text that relates nicely to what Jeremiah has done, lol! These are not permanent, so they will expire just as they would if they were spawned from regular gameplay.

sims.add_buff [x]

- tense: criminalmastermind (+2, 4 hrs) which reads: "Could that Sim really be a criminal mastermind? What's a Sim to do!?"

- sad: goodvsevil_sad (+1, 3 hrs) which reads: "Sad about evilness, Such a shame that they've chosen a life of darkness."

So all of this helps the sims feel more “in character” for what just happened in their story. Otherwise, you know sims, they’d just walk around all smiling and happy, even though something traumatic has just happened.

For Jeremiah, since he has shown little remorse or apology so far, I haven't added any emotional moodlets for him. But he has made himself a legit fugitive, so he’ll have some rules in place now, too.

- he is wanted on several counts: aggravated assault, attempted kidnapping, child endangerment (for incapacitating Willow's caregiver and then leaving her alone), fleeing the scene of a crime. In a few days time, he’ll also be wanted by the ISCA for failing to report to duty. He’s in big, big trouble.

- he cannot apply for any career except “criminal”, and he must still roll my criminal activities risk ROS, so if he gets caught, he'll be caught for his other crimes as well.

- he can make some money by working under the table, or by scavenging and selling.

- he cannot participate in anything that would require using his ID (unless he obtains a fake one, and that will only get him so far)… so, no loans or major purchases. No legal documents, which means never traveling out of the country (no passport). He can’t register for healthcare or receive services at a hospital, so if he ever gets himself injured, he's on his own.

From a gameplay standpoint, it sounds kind of fun to play. You could make a simming challenge out of it or something. The Fugitive Challenge? Does that exist? lol!

And I'm kind of excited to play through that. I haven't been in gameplay mode for over a year because of this epic story, but now Jeremiah is about 50% off-story, so he's not totally protected anymore. Gameplay can happen to him to a certain extent, and I'll consider whatever happens to him. There are a couple of plot points that I would like to see him meet still, but those aren't firm.

If you have any other fun gameplay restrictions that I might inflict upon Jeremiah, I would love to hear them!


a new ROS roll: 

I don’t do routine hood-wide ROS rolls anymore, apart from the random monthly health strike, but I do still like them in certain circumstances. So keeping in line with my other situational ROS rolls, like the birth rolls, or risk rolls for criminal activities, this would be another that is triggered only by certain events happening in game or in story.

This roll was inspired by Justin's story. I did some crafty internet medical research to find: when a person is assaulted severely, if it’s just hand-to-hand assault and no weapon, no stabbing or gun shot, what is it that actually does the damage? And I learned that it’s actually a brain injury, similar to the kind of injury a football player or boxer might have in sport, or also, shaken baby syndrome. From repeated blows to the head, the brain is knocked around inside the skull which causes swelling and bruising. This is lovely, I know, lol!

And it kind of irritated me that, in game, after a fight with another sim, they walk away with a 4 hour dazed moodlet and then it's all peachy again. No consequences, no lasting damages, no recovery period, nothing. Just like all those times Tyler walked away from his crashed rocket ship with only a 4 hr dazed moodlet. Really, lol!

Photo evidence of such nonsense:




Dude, you just crashed a rocket ship head first into the ground!!! And you just get to slither out of the wreckage with a 4 hr. moodlet?

Can they actually die from the rocket ship crashes? Mine never ever do, so for this and similar situations, I have to take things into my own hands. Tyler is lucky I wasn’t doing this roll back then, because he crashed a few times and surely one of the results would have been bad. I suppose this will put a lot of risk on my other astronaut sims. But that would be fitting in their career and the risky work they're doing. Keri will be story-protected until at least 2092, when she embarks on her quest to Cassiopeia, but after that, all bets are off!

I found most of these ideas on medical websites. Note: I am certainly no doctor and this is just for gameplay fun. Not all results would match all situations, but I suppose if it really didn't make sense (like if you rolled vision impairment from smoke inhalation, for example), you could just reroll.

There are no direct death results in this roll, because these are meant for sims who have not died but are facing the consequences and recovery of a severe injury. But a couple of them do deal multiple health strikes, which could result in death for a sim who is already unhealthy. You could consider that maybe they didn't die immediately from their injury, but died afterwards from complications.

The events in game or story which would trigger this roll:
— accidents, severe smoke inhalation (sim being on fire themselves, or more than 5 blocks of fire on the lot), rocket ship crash, severe assault, drug overdose, failed suicide attempt, saved from the reaper of all death types, scientist chemical explosion...

The roll and its consequences looks like this (this one isn't very long, so I'll just paste it here rather than uploading a .txt.)

*sim: Sim Name, date: ???
*event: ???

*injury:
Miraculously fine [5]
Brain injury, mild, vision impaired, wear glasses [2]
Brain injury, mild, change a trait to random [2]
Brain injury, moderate, change a trait to adhd
Brain injury, moderate, change a trait to insane
Brain injury, moderate, change a trait to dunce
Brain injury, moderate, change a trait to hot-headed
Brain injury, moderate, loss of libido, unflirty trait
Brain injury, moderate, amnesia, delete all relationships
Brain injury, moderate, amnesia, delete all traits (temporary, 4 weeks)
Brain injury, moderate, amnesia, delete all traits (temporary, 6 months)
Brain injury, moderate, amnesia, delete all traits (permanent)
Physical injury, mild, superficial, scarring [3]
Physical injury, mild, spacial difficulty, change a trait to clumsy [2]
Physical injury, mild, temporary, minus one fitness point [2]
Physical injury, mild, temporary, minus two fitness points [2]
Physical injury, moderate, permanent, change a trait to lazy
Physical injury, moderate, permanent, minus all fitness points & change trait to lazy
Physical injury, moderate, one health strike
Physical injury, moderate, two health strikes
Physical injury, severe, three health strikes
Physical injury, severe, four health strikes
Physical injury, extreme, five health strikes

*recovery:
two days
four days
one week [3]
two weeks [5]
three weeks [3]
four weeks [2]
six weeks
eight weeks

Some notes:
- a couple of these trait-related results would use custom traits.
- for the amnesia one, I haven't listed whether they would gain back their old traits or find new ones, or whether it would be a combination of both, I would leave that decision to the story.

So, that is a thing in my gameplay now, and it will be used for those accidental and story situations listed above.

I did use this roll on Justin, so he has an injury result and a recovery period for his injuries.

I will be honest though, I did reroll the first two results he got and I kept the third, lol! It was not the "fine" one, but it's something I can work with. Because Justin is still in story-mode for the time being and I do have plans for him, and because he is a precious jewel in my pixel world. I suppose you could say that he has the good favor of his pixel god (although you probably wouldn’t guess that from the hellish life I’ve given him so far!)

Between the added moodlets and the new ROS roll, I hope that these things will help to bring challenge and consequence to my gameplay, in a game where both challenge and consequence are overwhelmingly lacking!