Instability Challenge: Rules

Update, September 2022

I would strongly advise reading the outcome of this legacy attempt before proceeding. You need to know what you’re in for.

Original Post

This mainly follows the classic Legacy Challenge rules with a few relaxations and one twist.

Relaxations

  • Starter home budget is $35,000, and there’s no sense forcing the player to pick the largest lot in town when there’s literally no chance of the final generation getting to live on it. (It isn’t only this particular challenge that features instability; the game provides plenty of its own.) It is suggested, but not required, that you reduce the family’s cash reserves to around 2000-3000 Simoleans to start. Give them some sort of challenge, at least–it defeats the purpose if they start out rich.
  • IDGAF which Lifetime Rewards you use. That Moodlet Manager costs 40,000 happiness points! If you can acquire it, do it. Or don’t. It’s fine.
  • I like powers of two, so eight generations = completion. As a numbering system, decimal is overrated.
  • Of course you can move in player-created Sims. Come ON. Sims NPCs are not for everyone. Indeed, a case could be made that they are not for anyone.
  • Of course adopted Sims are allowed. Verily again, I say unto thee: Come ON.
  • Count points if you’re a points-counter. I am not. Pass/fail for me, please.
  • Any lifespan length is fine.
  • One free trait pick per Sim, plus one required trait for each heir. See “Twist” for the required one. I don’t see much incentive to raise the Sims well if you can’t pick any traits for them, though. This way, heirs will have 1 free-pick trait, 1 required trait, and 3 random traits, and all other legacy family Sims will have 1 free-pick trait and 4 random ones.

Twist

Each heir must possess the Unstable trait, and the player may abort/prevent/treat delusional episodes no oftener than once per Sim week. All other episodes must be allowed to progress until the trait change becomes permanent.

In the event that the episode removes a trait without replacing it, you may randomly select a replacement trait using the Modify Traits cheat: press [ctrl-shift c] –> enter (without quotes) the text “testingcheatsenabled true” –> [shift-click Sim] –> [click “Modify Traits”]. In other words, it’s fine if you want to ensure that your Sim maintains the full roster of possible traits, as long as your replacements are randomly selected. I don’t think it matters whether the game does that, or you do.

If you are unfamiliar with the Unstable trait, you can read up on it here. Note that you’ll need to have Into the Future installed to use it.

If you don’t have Into the Future, no problem–you could easily mimic the behavior of the Unstable trait by cheat-coding the trait swaps yourself. Use something like a coin-flip to determine whether your Sim wakes up feeling Out of Sorts, and go from there. You’ll even have a slight advantage, in that your Sim won’t experience the -20 and -40 moodlets that go with Unstable.

This is also why I think it’s fine to pick one of their traits in addition to this requirement, because odds are, they’re going to change anyway. I’m test-playing an Unstable Sim right now and so far, she’s woken up with Out of Sorts, the prelude moodlet to a trait-changing episode, literally every morning. I think we needn’t be worried about 100% randomized trait selection under those circumstances, since instability randomizes them for you, and pretty frequently at that!