Traits and Aspirations

I've been wanting to connect my Sims' traits to the aspirations they choose. The traits are random, I'll roll the dice and let the game decide on their traits--unless I think that trait really doesn't fit that Sim, then I'll roll again in those cases. 

 

But it was the aspirations I didn't know what to choose for most of my Sims. So I set up a page in my Sims spreadsheet that shows each trait, the description provided on a website I found, and then the aspirations I chose that will fit that trait. I may still do some editing to those aspirations on each trait, but I'm working on it for now.

 

(You can click on the picture for a closer look.)

I went through each description of that trait and selected corresponding aspirations. Some traits have a lot of aspirations to choose from, others have just a few. I can use one trait to decide the aspiration that suits that Sim best, or pair both traits together if they both are listed on a certain aspiration.

I also worked the satisfaction reward traits into this list. A Sim can choose satisfaction rewards based on what their aspiration is.

This is helping me a lot and for some Sims I am reconsidering the aspirations they currently have. For example, Lily Gates-Watson had aspiration of computer whiz. Not terrible for her, but with her traits of perfectionist and loves outdoors, instead I changed her to a renaissance Sim. She already has the quick learner aspiration trait from her first aspiration being in the same knowledge category, so I took that and the perfectionist trait plus my own story of her to mean that she wants to be good at a lot of things, not just computer programming! She’s studying history as part of the knowledge side of her. I haven’t yet decided what her career will be, but I’ll take all of these traits into consideration.

Adam Smith has the traits of bookworm and loves outdoors. He also has the trait of gregarious which came with his original Leader of the Pack aspiration. But that aspiration really doesn’t fit him. So I changed it to Freelance Botanist to suit his original two traits. That’s why he is majoring in biology.  

I like this method so much better to have things really sorted out and make me really think about each Sim before choosing the aspiration.

And I’m so invested in my Sims I do have spreadsheets that keep track of every Sim and family, their birthdays and anniversaries, university majors, each round’s schedule, and now the traits and aspirations. I’m a geek myself, lol! But it does help with keeping track of everything.