The Sims: Difference between revisions

* [[Cloudcuckooland]]: The entire 'verse, in the original and both sequels. Planting eggs in your garden and growing "eggplants", garden gnomes that come to life at night, men giving birth to alien babies...and that's just the ''tip'' of the iceberg.

* [[Dastardly Whiplash]]: [[Punny Name|Malcolm Landgrabb, the evil landlord]].

* [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything]]: Averted in ''The Sims 3''. Let's put it this way: By the time your Sim is promoted to an executive chef, your boss is still going to be a line cook.

** A lot of "aversions" in ''The Sims 2'', as well. Thanks to ''Seasons'', streakers at ''University'' will run around fully clothed if it's cold outside. ''University'' in general was forgotten about a lot in the later expansions.

* [[Everyone Is Bi]]: Sims can engage in romantic interactions with members of either sex, although there's a couple of places where, given the same relationship values, it assumes a romantic relationship for opposite-sex pairs and a platonic one for same-sex pairs. ''The Sims 2'' changed this by providing a sliding scale of sexuality. Pregenerated characters start with a given sexuality and the sexuality value is primed for initial pairings in a family, but after that, their interactions with other Sims determine whether their value increases or decreases. Notably, this only impacts a few things, such as their Wants and their autonomous behavior; a player-controlled Sim will ''never'' turn down a romantic interaction, or refuse to do one if directed by the player, with ''anyone'' (aside from direct family members) that they have a sufficient relationship with. A happily married male Family Sim with three children will readily accept his male friend's romantic behavior toward him while his wife is in the room, no questions asked. (Said wife may not be so tolerable of this behavior.)

** There are mods which allow the player to give Sims specific sexualities; Gay, Bi, or Straight and mods to allow checking the internal value.

*** [[Can't Unhear It|And now you'll notice it every time.]] You're welcome.

* [[Sugar Bowl]]: The whole game world. Though one can easily make a [[Crap Saccharine World]] out of it.

* [[Super Serum]]: In the ''Livin' Large'' expansion pack, Sims can create a variety of different potions using a chemistry set, which causes different effects when drunk depending on its [[Colour-Coded for Your Convenience|colour]]:

** Red - Makes the drinker's [[Heel Face Brainwashing|worst enemy]] [[Love Potion|fall in love]] with them.

** Purple - Turns the drinker temporarily into an uncontrollable [[Frankenstein's Monster]]. It goes around [[The Jinx|attempting to use every appliance, plumbing fixture and piece of home electronics in the house, causing them to break]], and throws [[Hair-Trigger Temper|temper tantrums]]. For some reason, monsters will also interact with art easels and [[Hidden Depths|paint bestselling pictures with them]].

** White - If the drinker is sick, it [[Magic Antidote|heals]] them.

* [[Video Game Cruelty Potential]]

** [[Cruel Player Character God]]: Somewhat obvious given that you're taking almost complete control over the lives of several people. You can easily and intentionally kill your Sims through starvation, [http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=122 burn their house to the ground] as a result of bad cooking, and if you prefer to keep them alive, prevent them from going to school, force them to flirt with their (attractive or unattractive) neighbors, drive them into bankruptcy, and start familial and neighborhood conflicts that last a lifetime. Also, [http://www.somethingawful.com/d/feature-articles/sims-3-life.php this.] Or [http://meodia.com/article/281/sadistic-ways-people-torture-their-sims/ this list] detailing the various ways you can be cruel, the basement one it rather, disturbing.

** Sims' cats can be trained using the same techniques as dogs. While real-life cats ''can'' be taught to do tricks, they usually need a bigger incentive than just "Master wants me to do it."

** [[Somewhere an Ornithologist Is Crying|All Birds Are Parrots]]: There are five possible bird "species" to stock your birdcage with. Four do, in fact, resemble species of parrot. One, however, resembles a falcon. Yet it's still possible to "Teach Birdname to Talk" and "Play With Birdname" although in real life you would not play with a falcon without protective equipment, nor can you teach one to talk.

* [[Anal Probing]]: The (actually light green) [[The Greys|Greys]] in ''[[The Sims]] 2'' have pollination technicians, who abduct, probe, and impregnate [[Mister Seahorse|Sim men]].

* [[Back From the Dead]]: You can plead with the Grim Reaper if your [[Relationship Values]] are high enough. In the ''University'' EP you can earn a career reward that will allow you to buy back the dead.

* [[Comic Book Time]]: You can play for 20 generations but the game still retains [[Mundane Fantastic|(mostly)]] early 21st century technology and aesthetics.

* [[Cursed with Awesome]]: The Grilled Cheese Aspiration. You can rack up aspiration points really quickly by doing various very simple tasks involving grilled cheese sandwiches. With Free Time you can get a benefit that allows your Sim to conjure grilled cheese out of thin air, meaning you never have to worry about cooking again and you'll achieve the Lifetime Want (Eat 200 Grilled Cheese Sandwiches) in no time.

* [[Dark Is Not Evil]] / [[Light Is Not Good]]: Angela and Lilith Pleasant are pretty much the same, only different because of their uneven treatment by their parents. Angela's described as "patient and dutiful", and even her name means "angel", while Lilith's name means "demon from the night" and she's a rebellious teenager who wears dark clothes and spike bands. Despite that, Lilith's seen as a [[The Woobie|woobie]] by most players while Angela's seen as an annoying [[Mary Sue]] ([[A Worldwide Punomenon|just like her mother!]])

* [[Darkskinned Blonde]]: Ophelia Nigmos and Dina Caliente

* [[Dead Artists Are Better]]: Paintings increase in value after the painter dies.

* [[Death From Above]]: If a Sim spends too much time Stargazing without a Telescope, they might get crushed by a satellite. Which can then be sold for §1,000.

* [[Eye of Newt]]: In one case, literally.

* [[Face Full of Alien Wingwong]]: Alien abduction, which for adult males (like Pascal Curious) leads to [[Mister Seahorse]].

* [[Fantastic Racism]]: How else to describe how normal non-knowledge Sims feel about the other life states?

** In Strangetown stories, the Grunt-Smith rivalry is almost always portrayed as caused by General Buzz's racism (specieism?) against aliens.

* [[Form-Fitting Wardrobe]]: Some of the clothing mods.

* [[Freaky Is Cool]]: The core philosophy of a Knowledge Sim. Most Sims fear [[Alien Abduction|alien abductions]], encountering bigfoot, [[Came Back Wrong|having a relative resurrected]] [[Our Zombies Are Different|as a zombie]], or getting turned into a [[Our Werewolves Are Different|werewolf]], [[Our Vampires Are Different|vampire]], [[Plant Aliens|plantSim]], [[Functional Magic|witch]], or any other non-standard state. Knowledge Sims utterly embrace all of the above, and [[Ninja Pirate Robot Zombie|all combinations thereof]].

** [[I Just Want to Be Special]]: Knowledge aspiration Sims tend to have wants like this. See [[Nightmare Fetishist]] below.

* [[I Love the Dead]]: You can choose zombies as one of a Sim's turn-ons.

* [[I'm a Humanitarian]]: The Cow Plant ''kind of'' causes this. It eats people, then produces milk which can be drunk. Some Sims will express a desire to drink milk made from certain Sims they don't like.

* [[The Inspector Is Coming]]: Critics can review your establishment in the ''Open for Business'' expansion pack, and they can give you either positive or negative reviews.

* [[I Was Told There Would Be Cake]]: Overlaps with [[The Cake Is a Lie]] - the cow plant reward taunts Sims with a slice of cake, only to eat them instead. It then produces milk that extends a Sims' life.

* [[Kiss of the Vampire]]: Sims are hypnotised, and then visibly smile while being bitten by a vampire. The "Neck Bite" interaction also causes a major relationship boost.

* [[Loads and Loads of Loading]]: At least they kept the old "reticulating splines" joke.

* [[Powered by a Forsaken Child]]: By regularly drinking Cow Plant's milk, which temporarily prevents aging, a Sim can live forever. [[I'm a Humanitarian|As long as you keep feeding the plant...]]

* [[Power of Love]]: If two Sims love each other enough, it's trivial to plead with the Grim Reaper.

* [[Product Placement]]: By default, the only video game your Sims can play in ''The Sims 2'' is ''[[SSX]] 3'', though ''[[Sim City]] 4: Rush Hour'' and ''The Sims Bustin' Out'' can be purchased and added to your household's library. In ''Free Time'', each family is presented with a computer preloaded with ''The Sims 3'', plus they can buy ''Spore'', ''Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars'', ''EA Sports FIFA 2008'', and ''My Sims''.

** Plus, if you look closely at the scenes in some of the paintings you can buy, you will see places of even a character from the My Sims games.

** Not to mention the IKEA and H&M item packs.

** Ford vehicles are downloadable from the official EA site as add-on custom content.

* [[Punny Name]]: Olive Specter's multiple dead husbands (e.g. Hugh Thanasia), all of whose names are puns for things related to death or murder.

** In ''The Sims 3'', about 90% of the inhabitants of Twinbrook have these as names. For example, there's a newspaper girl named [[Meaningful Name|Dee Liver]]. [[Hurricane of Puns|It gets more and more ridiculous from there.]]

** One of the wall hangings is titled "The Fifth Element."

** There's also the "[[Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy|Unlikely Whale Sculpture]]".

* [[Smart People Play Chess]]: Playing chess increases your logic stat.

* [[Speaking Simlish]]: The [[Trope Namer]]. Sims speak in a made-up language called "Simlish." This "language" was made up on the spot by the recording artists. There's even a sound clip that's supposed to sound like the Sim is speaking a French variant of Simlish. ''Written'' Simlish is usually represented by Zodiac symbols, a little Greek, and a few that seem to have been made up by the creators.

* [[Spell Construction]]

* [[Spiritual Successor]]: ''The Sims Social'' to ''The Sims Online''

* [[Super Fun Happy Thing of Doom]]

* [[Superhero]]: The final stage of the Law Enforcement career path is this. [[Gameplay and Story Segregation|The only Super power your Sim gets is flight and can only be used to go to work.]] What a rip-off.

* [[The Thing That Would Not Leave]]: Due to some kind of bug in the game, a guest might stay until three in the morning, and then the player would get this dialogue with the guest's portrait in it that says "You invited me to spend the night, but then you didn't let me get any sleep! I'm leaving!", just because the player didn't say 'goodbye'.

* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: Sims left to their own devices tend to either do nothing on their own or do incredibly stupid stuff. ''Medieval'' flat out tells you in the intro that the Sims are "dumb" and have a tendency to doom themselves and their civilization without your guidance.

* [[The Unfavorite]]: Lilith Pleasant.

** Ripp Grunt appears to also fall under this trope.

== The Sims 3 (and expansions) ==

* [[Absent-Minded Professor]]: Any Sim with the "Absent-Minded" and "Genius" traits.

* [[Adult Child]]: Any adult with the Childish trait. They play with toys, play tag, and things only kids would do. Premade examples include Zelda Mae, Madison Van Watson and Molly French.

* [[Adventurer Archaeologist]]: You get to play as one with the ''World Adventures'' expansion.

* [[Alternate Reality]]: The neighborhood the game ships with is set 25 years prior to the events the first Sims game, but there are a few differences that make ''The Sims 3'' universe irreconcilable with the other two games (see below.)

** It's worth adding that you can play those 25 years, or the generations equivalent to that time. You can play, for instance, Bella Goth through all her life until she dies of old age surrounded by grandsons, while never having married Mortimer nor moved out of her home town, nor having gone mysteriously missing. Thus creating an undeniable alternate reality where the people and towns of the other games never existed.

** Egyptian mummies in China and France. Slightly justified for France, given that Napoleon ordered the archeologic explorations of Egyptian ruins. For China, not so much.

*** [[The Mummy Trilogy|Shout out, perhaps?]]

* [[Awesome but Impractical]]: Ambrosia, which when eaten increases lifespan by a huge amount, gives the second best moodlet in the game, and turns playable Ghost Sims into regular Sims-- but it requires a Life Fruit (rare, requires Gardening skill of at least seven), a Death Fish (easy to find, hard to catch, requires a very high fishing skill or suitable bait, which requires suitable bait , which requires suitable bait, which requires suitable bait, though the starting bait in the series is easy to get) and a Cooking skill of ten, plus the recipe costs 12,000 Simoleons! With some work, though, you can guarantee yourself a steady supply of the ingredients.

** By spreading the work amongst a few Sims it becomes very doable. Of course, the family will still have to acquire the recipe and ingredients and reach the necessary skill levels, but no one Sim needs to have all the requisite skills or ingredients. However, it's completely possible for an individual Sim to create ambrosia before they even age to adult, without cheats or any help from other Sims.

* [[Butt Monkey]]: Unlucky Sims and/or Loser Sims. See also [[The Woobie]].

* [[Card-Carrying Villain]]: The Evil trait, complete with the ability to steal candy from babies.

* [[The Casanova]]: Hank Goddard, Parker Langerak, and Xander Clavell all aspire to be this.

* [[Cats Are Mean]]: Cats with the Aggressive trait.

* [[Cloudcuckoolander]]: Any Sim with the Genius and Insane traits.

* [[Playing with Fire]]: A Sim that is the legitimate offspring of a firefighter has access to 2 hidden traits. The first is Fireproof, which pretty much falls into [[Boring but Practical]] territory, but it does gets very interesting when it is combined with the second trait, which is (ironically enough) [[Pyromaniac]], a trait that enables the Sims who have it to set everything they want to on fire, and even get a happiness boost for doing so. Daredevils can also survive being on fire for 3 hours (others die after one).

** A [[Unicorn]] in the ''Pets'' expansion pack can also ignite anything they want to at the cost of magic points.

* [[Pregnant Badass]]: There is [[Good Bad Bugs|nothing]] stopping a heavily pregnant International Super Spy from raiding the 'secret' criminal base.

* [[Prequel]]: Set about 20 years before the first game, the default neighborhood features Bella Goth (neé Bachelor), Mortimer Goth, and Kaylynn Langerak as kids, and Michael Bachelor as a teenager. <s>Mrs.</s> Miss Crumplebottom is a playable adult.

** Riverview continues this with Betty Newbie (neé Simovitch) and Bob Newbie as teens and Skip Broke as a child.

* [[Put on a Bus]] / [[Character Outlives Actor]]: Unplayed Sims can randomly "move away", being deleted from the neighborhood, or randomly die. A mod to fix this (and a lot of other quirks) arose almost immediately, and in the tool to customize said mod, Pescado used to reference these tropes directly ("nobusdeaths", etc.)

* [[Sadist Show|Sadist Writer]]: Mean spirited Sims seems to be VERY good at writing stories that are focused on belitting or making fun of people and/or their political affilitration