Character Inspiration

Several posts ago I went on a rant concerning the differences between personality in the Sims 2 vs Sims 3. Creating unique and interesting to play sims has always posed a challenge for me. I always tend to either create the same character over and over again. Such as a family oriented, green thumb sim who's a natural cook with a husband that's athletic and handy. Or I make someone so completely boring to play it becomes a chore to load that family. So, I've worked on developing a system that works for me in regards to creating fun and interesting sims.

One of the first steps in my process is determining the type of character I want to play. By this I mean does this sim concern herself with her career, is she more into a hobby, or is her hobby her career. The life goal, or lifetime wish is really going to determine the choices I make regarding traits. A master thief probably doesn't want the coward trait.

For my next step, I've incorporated Sims 2 Aspirations into traits.

Family -- Family Oriented
Fortune --Ambitious, Workholic
Popularity -- Charismatic, Schmoozer
Knowledge -- Genius, Bookworm
Romance -- -- Hopeless Romantic

When I choose a character's Aspiration I take into account their Lifetime Goal or Wish. Once again, I don't think a bookworm would make for a very good Master Thief. One thing I want to note here, with the TS2 I disliked EA's opinion on what a Romance sim was. The idea of Hopeless Romantic feels to fit better in my opinion. It pairs well as a secondary aspiration with family oriented, or for a more EA traditional Romance sim just add the flirty, great kisser, and commitment issues traits.

With an aspiration and lifetime wish chosen, I want to choose a hobby. This is something for my sims to do on their downtime. Hobbies can feed directly into their lifetime wish or have absolutely nothing to do with it. These are just some of the traits I've decided to consider as hobbies.
Adventurous
Angler
Artistic
Equestrian
Green Thumb
Handy
Natural Cook
Photographer
Virtuoso
Writer

With my master thief, I think I will choose art as their hobby. The artistic trait is not necessary at all to advance through the criminal career, but it does create an interesting storyline. Now, my master thief isn't just a general master thief, she's an art thief. This also gives me a fun hobby to do on her days off or when she's reached that pinnacle of the criminal career. When starting a new character there are five traits to choose from. I've used up two of those traits. One for aspiration and one for a hobby. With the remaining three traits I'm going to choose what I've determined are utility traits to flesh the character out. In other words what traits are going to help accomplish her lifetime goal or hobby.

So, with my master thief I decided that for her aspiration I would choose the ambitious trait. In essence she'll be a fortune sim. I choose this for several reasons. First, since her lifetime goal is a career, fortune felt appropriate. Secondly, ambitious is just an amazing trait overall. The ambitious trait increases the amount of lifetime happiness points when wishes are fulfilled by 15%. That's a huge increase! Then I choose artistic for her hobby because I like the idea of an art thief. For her filler traits, I'm going to choose kleptomaniac, athletic, and good. Kleptomaniac just fits with the character of a thief. She'll need athletic skill to progress in her career and this trait will speed up the skill leveling. The good trait I choose because I didn't want a totally rotten sim. Maybe I will play her as a modern day robin hood. Either way I have several ways to work a storyline with my character now.

Surprisingly she stole the light rather than the expensive statue next to it