How I Play The Sims 3 Rotationally

I play the Sims 3 rotationally (Sims 2-style) by using a variety of mods and settings. There may be other methods out there, but this is what works best for me.

The image above is from my Sims 3 Pleasantview World, where I play using this method in my personal game.

Required Mods

To play my way, you will need the following mods:

• Nraas Story Progression (All modules)
• Nraas Master Controller (Progression and Cheats modules)
• Nraas Register
• Nraas Careers (Unemployed module)
• Pregnancy Progress Controller
• Ani’s Mod of Randomness V2

Once you’ve installed these mods, follow the instructions below for setting up your world. You only have to do the major setup once and then it’s easy!

Story Progression: Setting Up Castes

First, you’ll need to set up a protective caste to prevent your families from progressing when you aren’t playing them. Here is how I setup my castes:

1. Click on City Hall or a computer and go to NRaas > Story Progression > Caste Options > Add New Caste. Name your caste something like “Rotations.”
2. Select “Caste: Apply to Household” and it will be highlighted in yellow. Click the check mark at the bottom to change the value to “True.”
3. Now change the following settings the same way:
   • Career: Allow Progression = False
     • Prevents Sims from getting or changing careers, retiring, and progressing in their careers while you aren’t playing them.
   • Caste: Priority = 5
     • Gives this caste a higher priority than any default castes. 
   • Flirt: Affair Adultery Chance = 0
     • Prevents your partnered Sims from cheating while you aren’t playing them.
   • Flirt: Affair Liaison Chance = 0
     • Prevents your single Sims from becoming romantic with partnered Sims while you aren’t playing them.
   • Friendship: Allow = False
     • Prevents your Sims from making random friends when you aren’t playing them. 
   • Household: Allow Move as Family = False
     • Prevents your Sims from moving to a different house when you aren’t playing them.
   • Household: Allow Move Solo = False
     • Prevents single Sims moving out of the household when you aren’t playing them.
   • Money: Allow = False
     • Prevents your Sims from being involved in monetary transactions, such as debt or mooching, when you aren’t playing them.
   • Money: Allow Inventory Management = False
     • Prevents the game from selling items in your Sim’s inventory when you aren’t playing them.
   • Money: Allow Purchase Deeds = False
     • Prevents your Sim from purchasing property deeds when you aren’t playing them.
   • Personality: Allow = False
     • Prevents your Sims from participating in any personality related scenario while you aren’t playing them. 
   • Personality: Allow Occult Change = False
     • Prevents your Sims from changing into occults when you aren’t playing them.
   • Pregnancy: Allow Adoption = False
     • Prevents your Sims from adopting while you aren’t playing them.
   • Pregnancy: Allow Can Be Pregnant = False*
     • Prevents your Sim from becoming pregnant while you aren’t playing them.
   • Pregnancy: Allow Participation = False
     • Prevents your Sims from impregnating other Sims while you aren’t playing them.
   •  Pregnancy: Newborn Last Name = Father
     • Gives newborn babies the father’s last name. 
   • Pregnancy: Rename Newborns = True
     • If anything goes wrong and your Sim gives birth while you aren’t playing them, you will be prompted to name the baby even if you’re currently playing a different household. 
   • Pregnancy: Unexpected Base Chance = 0
     • Prevents your Sims from having an unexpected pregnancy while you aren’t playing them.
   • Push: Allow Skills = False
     • Prevents your Sims from being pushed to perform skill building activities when you aren’t playing them.
   • Push: Go to Hospital Chance = 0
     • Disables the violent injury scenario that sends Sims to the hospital when you aren’t playing them. 
   • Push: Go to Jail Chance = 0
     • Disables the personality scenario that sends a Sim to jail while you aren’t playing them.
   • Romance: Allow = False
     • Prevents your Sims from entering into any new romantic relationships while you aren’t playing them. This only affects affairs generated by story progression. Autonomous flirt interactions performed by the sims themselves are unaffected.
   • Romance: Marriage Name = Husband
     • Gives Sims the husband’s last name after marriage. 
   • Romance: Marriage Name: Same Sex = Coin-Flip
     • Randomly chooses the marriage last name of same-sex couples. 
   • Skill: Allow = False
     • Prevents your Sims from gaining skills while you aren’t playing them.
4. Hit the check mark twice to accept your settings.
5. Place all of the families you intend to play rotationally (except for the current active family) in the Rotations caste. To do this, click on the map tag for the family in map view or click on a wall of their residence. Go to NRaas > Story Progression > Household Options > Caste: Manual. Click the check mark and then select the “Rotations” caste. Click the check mark until you’re out of the menu. Repeat for all families.

Note: You can add or remove families from the caste at any time.

*If one of your Sims becomes pregnant and you move to another household before they give birth, you must set an exception for them or the pregnancy will be terminated. More on how I handle pregnancies below.

Ani’s Mod of Randomness

This mod also helps create a Sims-2 style game. Once you install it, you can find the mod under Deco > Plants in the catalog. Place it down anywhere in your world. I usually place mine near the City Hall. It looks like a decoration, but adds some important functionality to the game. 

Here’s how I set it up:

1. Click on the “plant” and select Settings > Aging > TS2 Aging is [ON]. This enables TS2-style aging in your world. The inactive families will not age, but your current household will. 
2. Click on the “plant” and select Settings > Work > Remove Payments is [ON]. This removes any pay your Sim receives at a rabbithole career while you aren’t playing them.

Switching Between Families

All playable families should be placed in the Rotations caste except the current active family. Here’s how you switch between families:

1. Before you rotate out of household 1 into household 2, put household 1 into the Rotations caste as described in step 5 above.
2. Click on a wall of household 2’s residence, and go to NRaas > Master Controller > Make Active. Household 2 will now be the active family.
3. After switching, take household 2 out of the Rotations caste and play. To do this, click on a wall of the household’s residence and go to NRaas > Story Progression > Household Options > Reset to Defaults > Caste Manual > Rotations. (Warning: DO NOT just select the caste again to toggle off. You must follow this path exactly.)
4. Repeat this process when you’re ready to switch from household 2 to household 3 and so on. Each time, make sure to place the current family into the caste and remove the family you want to play next out of the caste.

Townie & NPC Aging

To keep the aging of your world in sync, it’s necessary to allow aging ONCE per “round” of your rotations.

I allow aging to remain on for all Sims that ARE NOT in my Rotations caste every time I play the first family in the rotations. When I move on to the second family, aging remains off until I make it back to my first family. This ensures that all non-played Sims age the same number of days as my playable Sims.

To allow aging, click on City Hall or a computer and change the following settings:

• NRaas > Story Progression > Town Options > Death:Allow Aging = True
• NRaas > Story Progression > Caste Options > Not Active > Death:Allow Aging = True

To disallow aging when you ARE NOT playing your first household, change the following settings:

• NRaas > Story Progression > Caste Options > Not Active > Death:Allow Aging = False

Playable Pregnancies

I try not to leave a household with a current pregnancy until the baby is born, but sometimes it’s necessary. In this case, you must make additional adjustments to ensure the pregnancy remains and the baby is not born while you aren’t there.

1. Click on the pregnant Sim and go to NRaas > Story Progression > Sim Options > Pregnancy: Allow Can be Pregnant = True. 
2. Now, click on the Sim again and go to Pregnancy Options > Pause Pregnancy. 

MAKE SURE YOU SAVE BEFORE MOVING TO THE NEXT HOUSEHOLD IN CASE SOMETHING GOES WRONG. I have had babies born and pregnancies terminated even when I thought I did everything right. So create a new save before moving on in case you need to revert back and try again.

Preventing Unemployed Sims from Getting Jobs

Even if you have career progression turned off in Story Progression, the game itself will still take any of your unemployed Sims and force them into roles as coworkers in jobs that you may not want them to have.

To prevent this, I use the NRaas Careers mod (unemployed module) to assign them the “job” of unemployed.

1. Click on City Hall or a computer. Go to NRaas > Master Controller > Sim > Intermediate > Career > Choose Job > Homeworld.
2. A list of all the Sims in your world will appear. Choose all the Sims you want to remain unemployed.
3. A list of all the available jobs in your world will appear. Scroll to the bottom and select “Unemployed – City Hall.”
4. A dialogue box will appear asking if you want to apply the job to all the selected Sims. Hit the check mark to apply.

Note: I have STILL had Sims dragged out of their unemployed careers and into roles as coworkers. This can happen if your world doesn’t have enough Sims to occupy those roles. You may have to check every household’s career status as you play them. But this should offer as much protection as you can get.

Stopping Immigration

Personally, I don’t like a bunch of random Sims showing up in my world. I also HATE paparazzi and tourists. Here is how I stop them from generating. If this doesn’t bother you, feel free to skip these steps.

To stop immigration of random townies:

Click on City Hall or a computer. Go to NRaas > Story Progression > General Options > Options: Lots > Options: Immigration/Emigration > Immigration Gauge = 0. 

To stop tourists:

Click on City Hall or a computer. Go to NRaas > Register >Tourists > Allow Tourists = False. 

To stop paparazzi:

1. Click on City Hall or a computer. Go to NRaas > Register > Global Roles > Allow Paparazzi = False.

Note: The game will still generate service Sims and there’s not much you can do about that. They are typically pretty bland and I just tend to ignore them.

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That’s it! These are all the settings I use to play rotations in The Sims 3. I will update this guide if I change things in the future or add any additional settings. If you play with other Nraas mods, see my Nraas Mods Settings page to see how I set them up for rotational play.