The Absent Parent Legacy Challenge

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In most legacy challenges you have your sims children live with you from the moment they are born. You have to do all the life stages with them. Sometimes, it’s just so boring going through the same things over & over again. At least for me it is. With this challenge you no longer have to do anything with your children until they are teens.

I got this idea after playing the Eggplant generation of the Very Veggie Legacy Challenge by lilsimsie. My eggplant sim would go through phases of wanting to know what it was like to be committed to one sim (it didn’t last). He had gotten a sim pregnant that I didn’t know about until they popped up on the family tree. The moment I saw that I decided they would be the heir, but I wasn’t going to raise them. I’ve been thinking about how to make this into a legacy challenge and I think I have it all figured out.

What Is The Intended Play-style?

I have taken my experience in completing a couple legacy challenges multiple times and the RP aspect I have from World of Warcraft (yes, I do indeed play on the MoonGuard US server. No, I don’t go to Goldshire) and combined them. It’s a guided legacy challenge with the urging of you to write your own story for your sims. For the goal folks – you will still have goals to achieve. For the story tellers – you will still have a story to tell. For everyone – you get to do both storytelling & achieving goals.

Some days just the ability to achieve something in a game I play makes me feel immensely better, like I can accomplish something even if my body and/or mind is making me feel like I can’t. I hope that this legacy challenge will help you with that as well. This legacy challenge is all about you & what you can accomplish. Even if it is just logging in to see your sim & that is all you can do

Guidelines, Because Rules Aren’t Really Needed Here.

• You DO NOT need any packs. Base game will work for this.

• You can use any cheats you want, if you want. Whatever makes it fun for you.

• You can be a regular sim or an occult sim.

• Any life span will work. If you are starting a new occult & want to do the base aspiration first (werewolves, fairies, etc) maybe pick normal or long at first. Regardless, you can change the life span any time you want.

• You DO NOT need to finish anything to continue onto the next generation. Most legacy challenges have you finish the assigned aspiration and/or career. That is not needed in this one.

Now To Plan

1. Decide how many generations you want to TRY to do. There can be just 1 or 10. It’s up to you.

2. Aspirations are going to be your guide through all this. Go through them and figure out which one you would likely NOT do and one you would likely do. As a lot of experienced live players will tell you – a lot of the time you can have more then 1 aspiration going at a time. EX: I would pick a creative aspiration for one I would always want to do & one tied to a specific pack that I would likely not do. You will do this for each generation.  Unless you want to plan for each generation ahead of time, then do them all now.

3. Don’t worry about careers unless they are tied to your aspiration(s). Pick whichever one you want until your chosen aspiration has decided for you.

4. If you want to plan ahead, go to Carl’s Sims 4 Guides & see what you will need to do for your aspirations. This can help if you make your house before you start, etc.

5. Is there any ‘side quests’ you want to complete? Such as finding Sylvan Glade, cleaning up Sulani, etc? If so, which generation do you want to do that in? This Reddit thread has excellent ideas.

It's Time To Start

• Make your sim that will be the legacy founder. Make it so they can’t get pregnant. You will turn this on to make others pregnant when you’re ready.   At the bottom of this page will be an image & instructions on how to accomplish this if you don't know how to do so.

• Decide where to live, make your house, or live rags to riches, etc. This is all up to you. You can also continue a finished legacy challenge with this one. You can even use a legacy challenge family you decided to stop playing. If you’re in a forever world you can use this to play in the same family just a branch that has moved out on their own (a legacy heirs sibling, etc).

• Choose which aspiration to start with (from the 2 you picked in step 2 in the planning) and start playing. Keep in mind you should play both aspirations you chose if you can.

How To Play

• Move your sim into the house/lot you want to start in. Start playing as usual. Get set up for your sim to succeed (or not that is up to you) with their aspirations. If you have Life & Death pack write a bucket list item if you need help deciding what you should do first.

• Go through the motions of every day sim life – work, play, working on aspirations, etc.

• At the end of your young adult life start thinking about having a kid. If you are on short life span turn on the ability to make others pregnant & go find a sim to make pregnant. If you are on normal or long life span turn on the ability to make others pregnant in the beginning or middle of your adult life stage.

• Choose one or multiple sims to have kids with. You will NOT be living with them. You can make them one night stands, partners who don’t live with each other, etc. The whole point is to not raise your children until they are teens.

• Once your heir is a teen have them move in with you. Any time in their teen life stage will work. Hopefully they will have a room of their own.

• Decide what will happen to their other parent. Keep them alive, ignore them, kill them, decide you want them to live with you too, etc.   It’s all up to you.

How To Move Onto The Next Generation

This is really up to you. Sometimes I feel the need to move on when they are teens, sometimes as young adults. I have had the previous generation live with my current generation. I’ve had the previous generation die and that is what caused my current generation to be played. This is all up to you.

Just A Reminder

You will not have ANYTHING to do with your heir until they are teens. That means no playing them or anyone in their household – yes even in a forever world. You are meant to let RNG control how your heir turns out. Once they move in you can change anything about them if you want/need. In forever worlds age them up & randomize their traits in CAS.

Let's Plan This Thing!

Below is a note section to help you plan your generation(s). Use 1 box per generation. You should be able to click on them & be able to get the planner in image form for you to save & use without screen shots, etc.

Need Some Help?

Below are some useful images & things I have included for you to use. I know you may know about how to change the pregnancy settings, etc. However I didn’t until a few years after I started playing live mode.