Round Robin Legacy Challenge
In March 2020, at the begining of lockdown, I had the idea to start a "round robin" legacy. These used to be very popular on Livejournal back in the day, and the idea was for a group of simmers to get together and play a legacy colaboratively! One player would take generation 1, the next player would take on the heir and play generation 2, and so on...
The earliest example I can find of the challenge is here. Back then, the only continuity between each players save and the generations would be the sims themselves, but I thought it would be cool to try transfering over the entire neighbourhood/save file. This way friends and relatives would transfer over between each player too, and the neighbourhood could grow over time. It was a little ambitious, but I got it off the ground!
I created the founder, Duncan Huckleberry, and started playing Generation 1. After His story was all wrapped up and the kids were getting older, I passed the neighbourhood along to the next perosn in the chain. If you want to see an overview of who/is involved, Grimbunnies has a lovely page here. The legacy is still currently ongoing - we're on the 5th generation right now!
My part in the legacy might be done, but I'll always have a soft spot for that first generation - it was some of the most fun I have ever had playing the Sims! So I've decided to archive my round here, too. Who knows, maybe someday when the official challenge is done I'll pick the neighbourhood up again and play some kind of spin-off/AU.
Generation 1
Introducing Duncan Huckleberry - and the romantic chaos that defined a generation. Duncan's round was filled with so much drama! For a sim that was entirely randomly-generated, he was certainly memorable - his romantic exploits and assholish nature were absolutely iconic, at least to me.
Legacy Rules
I am not sure how relevant or interesting these rules will be to most as they were written for participants in this specific legacy - but feel free to have a read if you're curious, or if you're thinking of running something like this yourself!
- Money - no money cheats! We won’t know for sure if you cheat of course, but let’s try to keep some of that classic legacy “challenge” in there. If any sims move out, they can keep the default £20,000 handout.
- Lots & Housing - Lot size is irrelevant. No restrictions on moving house and entirely up to you whether to move the heir out on their own, keep them living with parents, move the entire family, etc.
- College - no college as it slows things down too much! We want this legacy to be as viable as possible :)
- Spouses - anyone can be moved in as a spouse, townies, NPCs, whatever. Hell, maybe your heir is poly and gets multiple spouses? It’s all good.
- Aspirations/LTW/Turn Ons - randomise these!
- Supernaturals - these are allowed! let’s get wacky
- Heir selection - Heir polls are obligatory! Only the first three kids are heir-candidates. The family can have as many as they want, but only the first three count. The family can have less than three as well, if you don’t feel like raising all those sim-kids, though it’s good to have at least two for the heir poll.
- Playing the spares - Optional! Spares (or hell, previous generations too) can be townified, kept around, or played. Just keep in mind playing extra households will increase the time spent on a generation, so keep it reasonable.One option is to manually age them up using cheats, mods, or the freetime feature.
- Age - Each heir gets to start their life with a full life bar even if they spent a few days as an adult “back home” waiting for all candidates to transition. (Use elixir of life or mods for this - otherwise no elixir of life abuse!)
- Hacks & CC - do whatever you like here, just as long as it won’t cause problems for later players (avoid, for example, stuff like mermaids where later players won’t have the required mods!)
- Bodyshop CC - allowed since everyone usually makes over sims to match their own styles anyway - but avoid using custom genetics such as skintones & eyes. Stick to defaults!
Neighbourhood Rules
- Editing - Feel free to edit the neighbourhood to your liking, including adding new lots or making over existing ones!
- Downloaded lots - You can also add lots you’ve downloaded rather than building them yourself if desired.
- CC - Try to avoid using Custom Content in your decorating where possible, to avoid causing trouble for the next player in the chain. Some small amounts of CC are ok - just remember they won’t stick the following generation!
- Custom Memories & Food - avoid stuff like this! Any mods that can cause corruption when removed are likely to cause trouble. If you’re not sure what is/isn’t dangerous, best to avoid and play as CC/mod lite as you can :)
- Multi-PT/Plantsim mods - please avoid these, too!
- Townies - We will be starting out with this default replacement townie pool. Feel free to age some of them up (using freetime, or mods) or add new townies to the pool when it is your turn. If some of them just float around agelessly for the entire 10 generations, not a problem! that’s the classic legacy vibe ;)
- Subhoods - We won’t be starting out with any vacation destinations or downtowns but, if you would like to add these yourself when it’s your turn feel free :) Maxis vacations, default downtown, custom cc-free hoods, whatever! Just make sure any custom subhoods you add are safe & clean, follow the advice below.
- Corruption - Please practice good neighbourhood “hygiene” & make sure you are careful to avoid neighbourhood corruption as per this guide!
- Make sure to run the Hoodchecker regularly, especially at the begining of your generation & before passing it on to the next person!
- Backups - Make sure to back up the neighbourhood often in case anything goes wrong with it!
- Finishing Up - When you have finished your generation & it is time to pass it over to the next person, ZIP or RAR your neighbourhood folder, and privately send it to the next person in the chain.
Post Rules
- Please tag your posts with “Round Robin Legacy 2020”!
- You can use whatever style you like to document your generation - happy family one generation, a screwball caption story the next, and an angsty overwrought extra-posed one the third. That’s part of the fun, seeing the different takes on each generation.
- You do need to document somehow, though!
What Ifs
- People Who Drop Out: If the installment doesn’t get posted or the player says “Sorry, I started with the heir, but real life interfered, I can’t do it right now” it goes to the next person on the list.
- If the neighbourhood becomes corrupted/broken: We will stop using the “Legacy Neighbourhood” and instead package & upload the heir. The next player in the chain will then start out a new generation in a new neighbouroohd as per the “classic” round-robin rules: https://roundrobin-sims.livejournal.com/466.html
Requirements
- All participants must have a basic knowledge of playing “safely” and keeping the neighbourhood corruption-free (as much as possible, sometimes this happens for no obvious reason so you won’t get “in trouble” if something goes wrong)
- All participants must be able to use SimPE (to extract clones & fix DNA and stats) and Bodyshop (to include any CC used that generation, if desired). This is so that if the “legacy hood” goes wrong we can easily switch to the “classic” ruleset.
- All participants must have all EPs - having some SPs missing should be okay!
- All participants should be able to finish playing/posting their generation within a month or two - we want to keep this legacy viable and it’s not fair to the other participents if it ends up on indefinite hiatus.
