More Awesome Than You!

Please vote your choice, within the range of your actual physical age. All ages can choose the "meh" vote, in place of an age group vote. Only one vote per person. No changing of votes. Vote in order to see the total.

I have not voted yet.  :)

I was only thinking today that we just don't have enough automotive mayhem in TS2. Given that driving is shockingly dangerous for the average moron who is utterly incapable of driving more than 30 feet without hitting something (http://"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6500867.stm") or drive at speeds greater than an asthmatic tortoise with gout without needing the length of an international airport runway to stop safely in the unexpected event that something appears in its path. If nothing else, the occasional sim should get offed in a car pool pile up.

Yeh, but then we'd need things like a "driving" skill, and all my sims would take to driving armored vehicles. Why do you think *I* drive a TANK?

Because you're too fat to fit in an ordinary car?

The "accidental" deaths in the sims aren't that accidental, imho.  You have to have a complete slob to die by flies, for example, or lay off the macro long enough for them to get splatted by a satellite.  It takes so long for them to get to death conditions that it seems one either has to be a poor need-manager, or has to cheat to achieve that result.  For a person who likes to play idyllic families, that's cool.  Some people want to be benevolent deities, and provide their pixel-people with everything they need to be happy.  Largely, I fall into that category.  It's not very realistic, but some people like that escape.

Other folks want to have a little more realism.  There's danger everywhere, especially for children and teenagers in that "I'm invincible/immortal" mindset.  Every parent knows that there's no such thing as childproofing, completely safe driving, or partying, whether the child is a child, a teen, or in college.  In my game, I would like a greater chance of accidental death, not because I get a thrill from it, but because I like a little reality in my game.  Not every child lives to be an adult.  Not everyone who attends a college fraternity escapes alcohol poisoning.  Not everyone who has a heart attack survives it.  If I can't bear to lose a sim, I'll turn its aging off, and if it dies accidentally, I'll use the GrimmyPhone.  Not everone plays like that, true, but it is an option to achieve the results.

(http://209.85.48.11/9229/31/emo/laught16.gif)

I haven't had a truly accidental death since one of the neighbors passed out in front of the pool ladder way back in Sims 1.  Even then, it wouldn't have happened if I'd actually been paying attention instead of looking at a magazine.  I usually let my Sims lead relatively uncomplicated, tragedy-free lives, but sometimes I want to get rid of someone for story purposes, or pare down a certain age group (way too many fugly teens when you add a Downtown), or because they're a Maxian atrocity with no redeeming qualities.  I don't give them a lingering gory death, I just click on various deaths with the Insimenator and get colorful ghosts for my cemetery.  I don't even sit there cackling over it.  Not always.  :D

again:  (http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d192/kewian/_dieslaughing__by_brokenboulevard.gif)

Shows what you know. Tanks are more cramped than ordinary cars are. Cars don't use their internal space for anything, whereas tanks need that space to be tanky. Stupid Witch Puffs.

I can't remember the last time I had an accidental death in the game. My problem with them is that they are all so stupid, not that they occur often. I wouldn't mind life being a little more hazardous for Sims, I just object to having Will Wright's personal fears about fire projected onto my game, especially in the form they take in the game. And the running with scissors, and pool death, and Sims playing instruments till they starve to death. Dumbness. I think a lot of it is laziness on part of the programmers and developers.

There is so much potential in the game, and instead we get spontaneous combustion from working out.

What accidental deaths?  My Sims seem to be invincible and so far have survived setting themselves on fire, heatstroke, and lightning.

I'd like to see an accidental death that wasn't caused by glitches.  The only truly accidental death I ever had was due to a Maxis bug.

To get an "accidental" death (i.e. not by old age) I have to take extreme measures to ensure it happens.  Hardly an accident if I'm doing that.  I'd like my sims to die by other means than old age, but I don't like having to choose which sims to kill off.  I'd like some randomness in the process - even sadorandomness would be better than none.

I did use the decimate function on the lot debugger once pretending it was something like a plane crash for storyline purposes, but I got some funkiness in the game when one of the sims it selected was a baby.  For my larger neighbourhoods I've been considering making a list of my playable, killable (i.e. no babies or toddlers, who can't die) sims in a spreadsheet, then using a randomise function to choose how many to kill off, which of them will die, and what they'll die of.

35-55 age group.

Lightning is probably the deadliest due to its instant hunger hit, which can kill. Sims hit by lightning also have a high likelyhood of peeing themselves as a result of the bladder hit. It's a bad thing. The lightning itself, however, appears to be nonfatal.

The only time I had a Sim die of something other than old age without me planning it was way back in the base game. I was busy paying attention to something else, and one of my Sims managed to starve to death in that time. Negligence on my part, not really accidental.

I didn't answer the poll because none of the answers really apply. It's not that I want more death, I just think it should be handled differently. I was trying to kill off a household once, and it happened when a Sim started a kitchen fire. Of course she just ran around for hours on end waiting to be engulfed, while her housemate was upstairs in the bathroom rocking out to her MP3 player. She didn't come downstairs until the first Sim perished, and then she eventually died in the fire. While the whole scene was quite amusing, it's also not really the type of death I'm looking for. I want more random death. I like the occasional element of surprise.

I think the problem is that in real life, people only accidentally die through intentionally destructive acts or extreme stupidity on the part of themselves or others. Everything else is natural causes. Since sims doesn't include acts of lethal violence nor self-destruction, accidental death is understandably somewhat more rare.

I tend to be benevolent in my role as She Who Smites And Rewards At Whim. It takes a lot to piss me off in real life, and that patience carries over to the game. I also don't want to risk BFBVFS by indulging in wholesale Sim slaughter.

Exception to usual Kind Deity settings: willfull and incorrigible stupidity and arseyness. But you couldn't call those banishments / deaths "accidental".

Accidental deaths involving annoying Townies would be grand, but they tend to target useful or appreciated characters almost exclusively.

I don't know if I want MORE or LESS deaths, but I would like some changes in the methods of death, I guess.  A lot of things just seem so weirdly unbalanced; it's apparently very easy to die of hyperthermia in Seasons, but totally impossible to freeze to death.  It's relatively easy to be scared to death on a lot with multiple ghosts, but practically impossible to die of plague.  I don't have a huge problem with how it works, but if I were making the game, I'd tweak this stuff.

Put me in the "what accidental death?" camp - I think you have to be a fairly incompetent player to have any non-bug-related accidental deaths to speak of.

Another "tweak, please" here.  I've never had an "accidental" death that didn't involve either a nasty bug or else my going far out of my way to set it up, and I would like a bit more lethality to risky actions.  (Even if proper precautions should prevent or limit said risk; fixing an appliance with 10 mechanical should have a very small chance of a minor shock, fixing an appliance with 0 mechanical while standing in a puddle should kill you no matter what your motives are.)  And on a tangential note, I do wish there were more nonlethal bad things that could strike our sims.  Suddenly having a sim kick the bucket can kill your inner storyline as well, but something to occasionally shake up their little pixelated lives is needed to keep it from the usual utopian daily cycle.

Just for the record, BTW, Maxis already implemented a "no deaths, thank you" cheat in the game.  Turn off motive decay and the major causes of death can't bother you anymore.  You're then left with satellite, flies, disease, cowplant, and old age.  The cowplant is entirely voluntary, old age can be turned off with a separate cheat, and it's almost impossible for disease to actually strike a sim down.  Flies can be bypassed if you just hire a maid, which leaves only one very rare "oops yer dead" that can't be disabled by base maxian code.

I have never lost a sim unintentionally.
I had a pregnant woman almost die from glitchy deadly morning sickness, but I saved her by normal pleading.  The only other close call I've ever had was when skilling a sim manually, and using the red-bulb-machine thingy to boost him when all his motives were low, when a ghost came by and spooked him to death.  Again, saved by pleading.

It took me two generations of constant cloud watching to kill a servo by satelite.
A fire alarm or sprinkler takes away any chance of dying in a fire.

With nouniprotect I have lost a few dormies to starvation and fright, but I wouldn' mind seeing more of them die.

One of the primary themes of Sims2 over Sims1 was the whole generational thing. In the original game, you had children and adults, period. There was no growing up or getting old. That pretty much killed the game for me after a month, maybe two. It got incredibly boring in a very short amount of time and pretty soon I was spending all my time building lots that were never played. With Sims2, there's suddenly this whole circle of life (cue Disney-fied music). Now I'm completely addicted to the game and have been playing for almost a full year straight (I do sleep once in a while.. oh yeah, and there's that whole work thing).

With adding old age and dying from old age, they also had to add in the accidental deaths. First off, they were in the original game, and second off, if sims could die one way, they had to have a variety of ways for them to go as well. While the accidental deaths aren't really so accidental, they do exist for a reason.

I actually think they fit with the tone of the rest of the game perfectly. Sure, they're exaggerated and a little cartoony, but honestly, if you look at the rest of the game play, it's exactly the same way. They've introduced supernatural elements in the game from the get-go (aliens) and in each expansion have added something else. Each time, it's been a little bit silly, but completely fitting with the tone of the way the base game is designed. It's all a little silly and cartoony. And personally, I love it. I like that little bit of silly thrown into the soap opera drama of living the daily lives of my sims. It's what I find to be fun. For people who don't like the way the game itself is designed, there are mods a plenty out there given an open invitation to muck with the game as much as you want. Don't like the way something works? Go change it and more power to you. It's the way the game works on its most basic level and is one of the things that lets it thrive.

I get really sick of people bitching about how stupid Maxis/EA is for doing X, Y, or Z. It seems like in some communities (this one's not as bad as others), any time there's something that a player doesn't like or wishes was different, they go on about how horrible and evil Maxis is for not thinking exactly like they do and designing it their way. Oy. Hell, in some communities, if you even give an inkling that you might like something that Maxis did, you're instantly tagged as a sheep. It's like it becomes uncool to actually *like* the game you're spending an inordinate amount of time playing.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I'm content with the way the game is right now. I generally never have accidental death except for some free roaming cow plants here or there. I'm not sure I'd want to increase the number of accidental deaths, but I sure as heck wouldn't want them to disappear either.

The only real accidental death I had was by the pregnancy glitch, and I managed to save the mom in a plea.

I am not certain that I want more accidental death, per say, but what Soylent Sim said: more nonlethal bad stuff. Not ALL the time, but once in a while, to throw my gameplay into a loop. That is why I like the chance cards: they end up negatively sometimes. However, I don't know if I trust the game's sadorandomness enough to make these Bad Things come up only once in a while. I also wouldn't mind that these Bad Things can be increased/decreased based on how the Sim lives.

Now what I want is more townies/dormies killed. It would be hilarious if one did something stupid and got killed as a result. Not ALL the time, of course, but once in a rare while, just for immature giggles.

My current count of death types for my main neighborhood (not counting Sims that died and were sucessfully given a second chance through Reaper pleadage):

Old Age: 8 (I allow my Sims liberal use of the Elixer of Life, with the requirement that they have to be Platinum at night to take it)

Disease: 2 (Both Sims dropped dead unexpectedly shortly after I loaded the lots - game glitches.)

Starvation: 2 (Non-playeable Uni Student dropped from starvation via piano playing - shades of the Red Shoes. Probable death of an NPC maid in one of my dorms. I didn't know he was dead until I ran across a death memory in one of my Sims memories. I assume he never got the 'time to leave' message and cleaned until he dropped, in the girls bathroom.)

Electrocution: 2 (I make my Sims repair their own appliances)

Lightning Strike: 1 (Season townie outside hottubbing in the rain. I think he may have been hit twice.)

Scared to Death by Ghosts: 2 (Families should have moved the tombstones out to the cemetary rather than leaving them about for gloating/knowledge-sim-wants-to-see-a-ghost purposes.)

Cowplant: 3 (Secret Society)

The only really "accidental" and non-glitch death (not counting the Old Age deaths) is the one townie hit by lightning. Probably I could have prevented that by shooing everybody inside when the rain hit.

I'm generally a benevolent overseer (see liberal allowances of Elixer of Life) but I like my Sims to tell me their own stories as much as possible. The few glitchy deaths definitely added memorable milestones in the history of the neighborhood. So for me, more unexpected deaths, more randomness (at one point I ran my list of Sims through a random number generator to select 10 to have babies), more unexpected 'good' but very rare events (a Sim could discover an oil well in her backyard). SimCity used to have a Disaster mode that could be turned on and off at will. That sort of thing could work nicely in context of the Sims.

Count me as one of the fans of the fantasy silliness of the game. I can't wait to give the wishing well a try. (Although I'd welcome a very nasty troll at the bottom of the well too.)

My sims get old, but NEVER die - always resurrected.
I always can restore the original hood, and choose another story line.

There is a troll at the bottom of the well, Mrs Crumplebutt.

I got strangely giddy last night seeing a sim that I can't decide rather I want her to live or die catch herself on fire making crepes suzette  (I always have a strange vibe when it might be risky to make, and tend to make my sims make in then for some hopeful fire inducing drama)  She was a pile of ashes when I decided to wake her lover up and have him plead if he could make it there in time.  Sadly he did.    I should have let her remain a pile of ashes on the floor.

The only sure fire way I have found of making "accidental" deaths more common is leaving large amounts of tombstones and angry ghosts on lots.  It is almost a promised accidental death per generation. 

I also turn off the picture in picture that shows special events.  Every once in a while I will stumble across an "accident" that happened to late for me to do anything.

I personally wish the way pleading with the reaper works could be changed.  It is too predictable.  If someone with a high relationship is doing the pleading it is pretty  much guaranteed that pleader will win.  I wish it was more random.

I like accidental deaths - the game isn't a challenge any more if everyone's rich, happily married, and with lots of children.  It adds a bit of interest to their stories.

A hunger hit? My sim got hit by lightning yesterday and came running in the house with her bladder and hygiene all the way down, but I didn't notice she was low on hunger. As she was pregnant at the time, I'da likely noticed a big hunger one. (a littller one I wouldn'ta noticed.)

I've had a wife at 100/100 with her husband plead for him, and fail.  I then tried to resurrect him with insim, but it borked, so I had to kill him again.

I thought that the highest chance of winning against the reaper was 90%. Of course, the chance is probably sadorandom, like many other things in the game.  ::)

How do you turn that sucker off? I've managed to find all the other annoyancy-type things like the cut scene thingy, but that one strangely eludes me. :D

The only time when I had sims dying accidental deaths was when I just got the base game, to be honest, and didn't know about stoves bursting into flames and other fun goodness.

Nowadays I just don't get accidental deaths. I'm not particularly keen on having them, mind you, and if I do want to get rid of a sim I'll do it myself. (The old pool-without-a-ladder trick was a favourite until I got tired of ghosts leaving puddles all over the place, now I just use the Insimenator)
I really don't get how your game can still be a deadly hazard for sims after more than a week's worth of playing.

I've had maybe one accidental death.  That was when I was playing with nouniprotect and my sim got scared three times in a row.

I had a pregnant sim die once.  But I'm saying that was a glitch as she just sorta keeled over for no reason (most of her motives were yellow at worst).  And when the reaper came in he jumped and disappeared.  All the husband found there was an urn stone when he finally made it there.

I had a vampire die when I sent her to uni.  She was the fourth one out of the taxi and died instantly when she aged transition.

Oh yeah, I had a nanny grab the cowplant cake once too.  But that's just a nanny being a nanny.  (ie.  Dumb)

I voted no change, although I wouldn't mind a slightly higher chance of bizarr-o death.  I very rarely have accidental deaths in my game, and I'm not always that careful when I play.  Most of the accidental deaths that I do have are visitors who get taken by a hungry cow plant in an unlocked enclosure.  I had a pregnant sim die after coming home from a community lot (this was before Nightlife) and her husband couldn't reach the Grim Reaper to plead.  All of those sims I was able to resurrect with the resident knowledge sim who gets major aspiration points for such endeavors, so it's not a big deal at all.  

Other than those and the inexplicable choking death, I can only kill sims with testingCheats or extreme  effort, and sometimes that doesn't even work.  It gets frustrating sometimes, especially when I play the Legacy Challenge and my house is packed with three generations of sims, some of which (elders) have served their purpose (elders) long ago (elders).  I would love for some of them to be vulnerable to a "wierd" death just to get them out of the way and to make my ghost collection less monochromatic.

Of course, I'm someone who loves the aliens, vampires, zombies, werewolves, plantsims, cowplants, death by falling satellite doofiness.  Even when I try to be serious with the game, something awesomely ridiculous happens and I realize that I have much more fun when I just embrace the fact that I'm basically playing with cartoon characters in a cartoon dream world.

That entire cutscene and transition thing is basically instantly lethal for vampires. Don't move them in that way, or if you do, quit-without-saving immediately and reload the lot to bypass the cutscene transition, and instead they'll just by standing by the curb already transitioned and you can have them run inside. Alternative safer methods include merging them into an existing dorm.

It's in game options somewhere, there's a clickable bit with on/off.

For me, I think I agree with more or less everyone about more randomness, bad events (and maybe good ones too) and adjustments to the death actions.  I'd like it to be easier though to kill off sims when you want to.  I once killed 10 Jack Thompsons - actually I wanted them to kill themselves and set them up with whatever it was - sure I could cheat but I wanted him to die 10 times over due to his own stupidity.  I also wanted multi-coloured Jacks.  Some were ok and pretty straightforward (a fridge and barbecue in a locked room is a dead cert) but I got very, very, very bored waiting for one of them to starve and had to cheat with the satellite thing.  I see the new *cough* stuff pack doesn't include funerals in the new party ideas.  I'd really, really like a funeral option.

Fortuantly, I had a backup of the hood I just made.  A little habit I got into whenever I'm ready to send large groups of teens off to uni.  Moved her three roommates in, waited till night, moved the vampire in, then synced them up with College Clock.

I had another un-explained death once too.  The newspaper npc came by the lot that morning at seven like usual and just died.  No animation or anything.  She just went "poof!".  And her tombstone appeared in front of the cowplant.  A fenced in and unreachable cowplant at that...

I only had two accidental deaths: one occurred when a sim got too close to the ground flamethrowers on a community lot, and another when a visiting sim swam to exhaustion in a ladder laden pool. But I didn't save on this last one (chicken!) ;)

Could it be possible to set the game clock to 19:00 hours when the family moving in has a vampire?

For a starvation death:  Dig a very deep basement.  Don't bother with stairs.  Use moveobjects on to move the sim there.  They'll be far enough away that you won't hear them whining about their needs, and you can go about playing the house as normal (in your case that would have been killing off a few more Jack Thompsons).  Check back on them a few sim days later and they'll be dead.

Read this years ago on some forum in a topic about ways to get rid of Marsha Bruenig and another harrassing townies.  This was before there was a phone hack to put an end to the harassing calls.

I voted "No Change", but my real opinion wasn't one of the choices.  I would like to see an increase in truly random deaths, and a corresponding decrease in the predictable ones. 

I don't think I've had any unintentional deaths since I was first learning the game. An occasional random death would add some risk.  On the other hand, the WTF deaths really annoy me.  My (pre-Seasons) sim can spend hours engaged in a variety of outdoor activities with no problem, but if he looks at the sky a falling satellite is gonna crush him?  That doesn't make any sense.

Maybe your cowplant has a long, sticky tongue, like a lizard?

Nah - I had him on top of a pillar - far more biblical.

My first thought on seeing the title was "there are accidental deaths in Sims2?"  But then I remembered I actually had one of those, once...

Is this poll for a proposed hack?  Will it make sims smarter?  Cuz that would prevent about 99% of accidental deaths... I mean, if they are stupid enough to stick a screw driver in the back of a turned on, plugged in computer, don't they deserve to die by electrocution?

The poll is the result of an argument that started in the 'scarecrow' thread. It's worth a read to see where this all started. It'll also explain why the answers are divided by age group.

The age groups aren't even correct. There's no 35 or 55. That's still 30 and 54.

I haven't even had an accidental death in two years of playing the game - mine have all been from old age. I had a close call once - a sim set herself on fire while cooking (The stove didn't burn, but she did. It was sort of odd.) in a house without a fire alarm. She survived in the end, which is good because she's a favorite.  I wish some of my less favored sims would catch themselves on fire - shrink the neighborhood a little - but I'm a big softie. I can't kill them off deliberately.

Most of my sims have sprinklers, but I decided not to give one to Sim-Brynne after a funny incident, because Sim-Brynne has an onboard extinguisher and is therefore self-extinguishing.

Since one of the main points of the argument in that other topic was the experience of loved ones dying, I don't see that the age groups are that valid, really.  The most death-intensive period of my life, if I can put it like that, was when I was 30 when my (now ex) husband and I lost 4 close relatives to unrelated deaths within a time frame of 3 weeks, and another relative had passed away 6 months earlier.

Reading that topic and this poll, it seems there's an assumption that you need to be 35 or over to have experienced the loss of close friends and/or relatives, and thus will feel differently about accidental deaths in the game.

I'm beginning to think that some of us somehow have forgotten it's a game...

It's NOT real life and at least in my 'realm' the only connection to real life is that sometimes it distracts me from doing what I SHOULD be doing...

My relatives consider it akin to when I was 7 and played with dolls - according to them, my 'dolls' are just virtual now.

In any case, death is a part of life.  I've always believed that.  So death, even odd non-sensical death, should be a part of a 'life simulation' game...

I've only ever had one death that wasn't old age. Sim Me overheated on the treadmill and burst into fire the first time I played with Seasons, before everyone started posting about the problem.

I have only ever had one accidental death in my game. The servo started making a Baked Alaska which he was addicted to doing, I canceled the action and told him to do something useful, then instead of just throwing it away I had one of my Sims finish it off and he set himself on fire with it  ::) The same thing happened again a couple of sims days later except it was the servo that did it with max cooking skill. I'm starting the think this game has lucky and unlucky game sessions the way things happen sometimes.

After I originally read this thread and voted for more deaths I had a visitor (playable sim) at my lot catch fire in the hot tub, lucky I was busy with another sim in the garden or I wouldn't have noticed and he would be dead. Guess I got what I asked for.

I voted for increased deaths, but really I'd like what a lot of people seem to prefer, not so much more stupid or bizarre death (although I admit I do have 2J's satellite drop increase hack), but illness should be deadly on occasion (I never treat sims different when they are sick, and they never die on me). Of course, I micro-manage my sims, so whenever they try to do something stupid, I can usually tell them to do something else. I really ought to let more of them electrocute themselves, I guess, but the first time I figured out that was possible I killed Nina (who I had my self-sim wooing, and she's one of my favorite sims), so I ended up not saving it. And now that I have Monique's save game reminder, preventing an accidental death (usually from me neglecting one sim for another) that I don't want is even easier. It also be nice if sims who froze could die from cold rather than having to die from starvation eventually. They could be treated like drowned ghosts for all I care, they leave puddles everywhere because they're "thawing out".

I've had a pure, 100% accidental death when I installed Seasons. My sim was raking leaves during Fall, and when I chose to burn the leaves, the Sim decided to walk over the leaves.  :-X A rather stupid decision, really, since he immediately caught on fire and nobody was around to extinguish him. The guy owned four business, too, and they were all inherited by his sister.

I don't think I would like more need-depletion deaths, because I spend enough time micro-managing my sims without having to worry that they will kill themselves if I don't pay attention to them for a few seconds. 

However, I remember that my only death in game was from the mysterious choking death.   I exited the game and reloaded it but she got up and started choking again.  I had to replay this quite a few times before her family successfully rescued her from ole Grimmy.

I have to admit that it certainly was a pretty exciting episode.

So a slightly increased chance of random death from various causes might be fun (so long as it's not starvartion, or something you need to micro-manage).  You always have the option to reload the game if you can't save your sim (and he's a favorite).

But what that I think would make the game more realistic and fun is to make disease more meaningful.  As it is now, your sims get "sick", they cough a bit and then get better.  I'd love it if there was a chance that they would get worse and worse and potentially die.  The game always says "Make sure your sim gets lot of rest".  Well it would be nice if that meant something. 

You could have the whole family stricken with disease.  It would make creating a hospital in game mean something.  You could still save your sims by using a cure, or by pleading with Grimmy.

I know we discussed this in the past, and maybe that's where the decimate option came from, but it Could be so much fun if that could be done through disease.

Could a more virulent form of disease be modded?

How did you do that?  I had my sim standing between 2 piles of burning leaves and nothing happened.  I thought maybe they were safe from leave piles burning.  Might not be so lax next time!

In the three years that I've been playing this game, there have only been three accidental deaths in my game.  Two by disease and one just this week from a satellite.  My neighborhoods get very full of sims because they breed like rabbits and they take a long time to die of old age.  I'd like a few more of mine to kick off without me having to plan it.  I feel so guilty, killing sims....

Teen to 35 - increase deaths.

I play with aging slowed down, I basically turn it off completely until I feel like growing the younger sims up. (Usually when they've maxed all available skills, or have enough for scholarships, or I'm just plain sick of looking at them) I try to keep everyone around the same age level, but this means my adults/elders are around forever. I rarely have an old age death, I'm still playing Mortimer Goth and Olive Specter.  ::)

More deaths would be interesting. But, I'm too cautious a player to initiate them. I keep their motives up, so motive-related deaths are generally harmless. I send them inside when their temperature gauge gets to either the extreme low or extreme high, and have them warm up or cool down as quickly as possible. I stick smoke alarms in the kitchen, in whatever room I've stuck the fireplace, and on the outside walls - just in case. (Though lightning fires inevitably get put out by the rain, which is neat) And only recently have I started playing with free will on. (I'll turn it off when I need them to do something specific, but 90% of the time I leave it on)

I recently had a pregnant sim die from 3-bolt syndrome; I think the only previous time I had an accidental death was shortly after I got the base game, years ago.  I was playing in a hand-off style, watching to see how well they would handle their own needs (answer: not very well).  I watched her relax on the bed next to her sleeping husband, pillow fight with him, pick a book to read at the kitchen table while he ate, and attempt to get into the bathroom to clean the tub while he used the toilet (only to be kicked out by BUY over and over again), all while her hunger bar got further and further into the red.  Finally she keeled over dead right in front of the refrigerator.  I had the husband plead with the Reaper and she survived, but I seriously considered leaving her dead.   :P   Stupid sim.

I am 21, and I want more random deaths. Especially for the elder age, whom I typically find boring since they're plat and just putting around. I've probably had a few random deaths since I've been playing, only one seems to come to mind right now. My most favorite sim ever got struck by lighting on my first day of playing seasons... twice! He was in the hottub during a storm, got struck, and when he climbed out of the tub he got struck again, I was pretty horrified. Thankfully his wife was hanging around, and saved him.

I only really feel attachment to this one sim, so I would really enjoy increases in death. I haven't experienced anyone freezing or spontaneously combusting yet, but just in case I have my fav sim's daughter going into the paranormal career so we can get the phone to revive him, just in case.

You have to be pretty negligent to let your sims die in a lot of cases, and for the ones that are really just "whoops" it makes the game more interesting in my opinion. I also make it a habit of ignoring sims I don't really want anymore and focus on the rest of the family (I can't bring myself to engineer their deaths) hoping they'll off themselves in some way, but they still live on!

I don't think I've ever had an accidental death. It's way too easy to keep sims alive and able to procreate, which (in my experience) leads to over-population and predictability. That's why I instituted my "Random Death Policy."

Every sim day at 6 o'clock, I roll a die for every teen, adult, and elder sim in a household. The number rolled determines whether they take a run with the Giant Scissors of Death. As a sim gets older, their odds of having to run with the scissors gets higher. It goes like this:

Teens to age 30 - Only if the die lands on 1
Ages 30 to 59 - Only if a 1 or a 6 is rolled
Ages 60 to ? - Even number, they run; odd number, they don't

If they do keel over, I roll the die again. If it lands on an even number, another sim can try to save them. If it's odd, no such luck.

So far it's done a pretty good job of thinning out the population a little bit and keeping things interesting. It's actually kind of exciting to see whether they survive or not. Sometimes it's hard to accept the death of one of my favorite sims or one I had specific plans for (my self-sim's child's future partner died as a teenager - pfft), but I make myself stick to it. I mainly play Pleasantview with a couple of my own families, and so far I've lost Cassandra (age 32), Darren (59), Daniel (71 - almost made it natural death!), Angela (36), Brandi (54), Brandi's son that she was  pregnant with at the beginning (16), Lucy's and Alexander's oldest daughter (16), and one of Angela and Dirk's kids (14).

The unpredictability of it makes everything a lot more interesting to me. I don't like having control over everything.

Right now I am considering how to best get rid of a couple of unfortunate sims. They should have been part of bringing the legacy of the Whyte family on, but honestly, they are too darn ugly to ever be alowed anywhere near the genepool again. My guess is they fell out of the ugly tree, and hit every darn branch on the way down. Sheehs!

Anyways, if anyone happens to have that pair of scissors, the one that actually kills, id love to get my hands on it :) Starvation, fire, overheating and all that havent taken to those sims yet... They seem to be blessed.

Most of the accidental deaths I can avoid, but the ones I would really like the option to turn off or just plain eradicate are the fire deaths. I know this emanates from my very real fear of fire and I can't seem to get a grip when it happens in the game, to a Sim I have been nurturing for what seems like an age. I never think about pleading with the reaper because my own fear has skyrocketed and like the lady who posted the poll I always exit without saving.

I can't find my "no fire" hacks after Seasons, so once again I have removed all the fireplaces and cook with sprinklers and fire alarms. I personally think it sucks that the fire places are so dangerous in the game; I was brought up with a real fire and have many friends and relatives who still have them. None of them has ever burnt the house down or themselves by using them (although I am aware people do). I wish the odds were much lower I guess.

The other risk I would eliminate is the "watching clouds/stars", the rare occasion that I play my Sim self I would like to lay back and stare skywards like I do in real life and drift…without the risk of an outdated rusty satellite hurtling towards me. (In real life I am lucky to see tiny meteorites let alone space junk!  ;D) 

Safe fireplaces exist, as this is a frequently-cited Annoyance. I have some, but it has been a while since I built a house, so I'll have to hunt them down in-game next time I play and cross my fingers that the creator labeled them so I can tell you where to get them.

Or, hmm, maybe SimCat will help. I think I bunged them into a Fireplaces folder at one point, but it may not have survived my last 'puter poop out.

It was a genuine accidental death that inspired me to start designing the Death-by-Freewill Challenge.  I had a huge house party going on, and lightning struck two guests in an outdoor hot tub (twice... I think).  The party was so hectic that I didn't even realise what happened till I saw one Sim wandering around with the black-and-burned outfit on.  Then I noticed Grimmy marching toward another black-and-burned Sim in the back yard.  Oops.  IIRC, the party was still a Roof Raiser.

I must be a neglectful player, because I've had several other accidental deaths.  One party host died of disease, because I didn't let him rest enough.  Another party guest died in an elevator.  And (before JMP's warmthfixes), two party guests died from catching on fire in hot tubs.

I guess I throw dangerous parties.

I voted for meh -- who cares.

I remember when I discovered the danger of (pre-Seasons) hottubs. My man was playing his self-sim's son, who got engaged to the Cheerleader in college, before we knew it was a VBT, and at his Wedding Party he starved to death in the hottub (I wouldn't be surprised if it was partially 3-bolt syndrome!). Since he hadn't married the girl yet, there were no residents on the lot to plead for his life. As his first accidental sim death (this was, like, a week after we first got the game and Uni and NL) he ended up quitting without saving. His elder self-sim hadn't even died of old age yet!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot... I also had a party guest starve while playing guitar.  He didn't leave when the party ended.  He stayed, kept jammin for hours, and died.  Probably a bug.

That makes 6 accidental deaths at parties.  Time for a FOX 5 Special Report!

I'd like the deadly scissors as well.

BTW, just give them a makeover using the surgery machine.  It's a simple matter to fix the genetics afteward (takes 2 minutes).

I've had a problem with letting go of my characters and allowing them to die of old age.  But I think I finally have come up with a solution that will help me get over that.  Using sim surgery I export every sim that I play, either born in the game or not.  What I plan to do is, assuming I get this far, is reintroduce my favorite characters appearance in the later generations by using Theo's sims surgery plugin.  It makes senses in a "Oh she's the spitting image of her grand-mother" way.  This way I get rid of sims who aren't too good looking and I get to see my favorite chars again.

Does anyone have a rough idea when the deadlier scissors would have been available? The file I have is from 5/4/2006.

I hope Theo's sim surgery differs from regular sim-surgery in that it does not involve the creation of useless sims, but merely a straight LXNR replacement.

The one I have is dated March 22, 2006; I'm pretty sure it's the deadlier version (I've had a sim or three die while running with them :) )

Deadly scissors: I think they still work, they're simply not as deadly as they used to be. I recently put the latest downloaded version from the official website to use against Lorenna Sunset (knowledge Sim and the prettiest adult female in my game) to satisfy her desire to beat death. Her SO, Flower Forth, had a desire to save someone from death. Neat when it works out like that, but I held my breath when Grim showed up. I've only had one high relationship ever fail the pleading, but still.... (Loved the tension, however.)

Lorenna did have to make several runs with the scissors before she got the desired results.


Death to Ugly Sims?: I'm still a bit puzzled over the prejudice against ugly Sims in the game. Sure I want some attractive Sims in the game, and I'm very pleased when a plain child blossoms into a swan, but I like to be able to spot a Sim going by on the street and immediatly know who it is. Everytime one of my Sims makes an age transition, I send them to the mirror, put them temporarily in a generic hair style with no makeup, glasses, or facial hair, then take screenshots in full face and profile. I've got enough of them now that I can say that the Sims I deem the most attractive are almost identical, with only noticeable differences in the minor facial features. Since I want more variety among the population, I don't kill the uglier ones. (Okay, the really ugly ones I don't let breed as much.)

Of course I've got a large number of Sims at this point, so there's room for a lot of variety.


Difficulty letting go of my Sims: Yes, I'm a wuss. I can't pick and choose which ones to bump, especially since I'm not practicing any sort of eugenics program. But its cool when one of them bites it at random. And with the capacity to resurrect the dead, I don't feel quite so bad about letting them go. At some point I intend to get a group of bereaved relatives together at the household of the one Paranormal expert and roll a number to bring one of my dead Sims back. Some fun tension, because I won't know until then who it will be.


That really appeals to the random events freak in me. I may adapt it for my own game.

Another request for dealier-than-you scissors please.

Ok, since I'm posting I'll say that what I'd really like is more objects like those that are pretty much instant or interesting death and you have the option of whether to use them or not (so people that don't want their sims to die can easily choose not). What I most don't like about the available ways to kills sims is the need to be mean to them first.

I have a difficult time letting my sims stats go all down red/playing badly on purpose so motives and aspirations are low (and I micromanage to a ridiculous point - my sims can't do much at all without me knowing it and either letting them or stopping them) and it seems like the vast majority of the deaths require good numbers of low stats or they aren't deadly, and then you wait... and wait... and wait while they starve/drown/get low enough for the next lightning bolt to kill 'em. I want optional instant death. I want the scarecrow scare to kill - don't hafta use it if I don't want it.

I have several death-type mods, but I wish EA would do some more - they fit better in the game, and they can do the instant thing or add other ghosts and stuff that modders can't do (or not easily) so what I end up with is just another form of lightning (no offense to modders) or poison that means I have a starved ghost (fits and it's fun, I just want some different ones too).

But seeing as how EA won't even give us more wants and ltws and turnons and all, and took away the scissors too, I'm not holding my breath for more 'bad' stuff.

I didn't answer the poll cuz polls are Verona's to do but I belong to that second group there even if you count Pescado's way.

PS: Yes I love the random death roll idea and will probably blatantly steal it as well :) <adding not-thanks here>

Yup. That's why Theo's sim surgery plugin is definitively MoreAwesomeTM.  It allows you to load a package file (created with body shop) in order to perform the surgery.  The other method is next to useless.  Who wants to clutter their neighbourdhood with a bunch of useless clones.

I don't mind ugly Sims, I mind mutant freak Sims. I have quite a few born in-game fuglies whom I rather like. The difference between them and Maxis ugly is that my fuglies look human. Maxis ugly is scary.

If you've got some really ugly ones, maybe you should submit them to the Chernobyl Challenge. :P

Thank you that would be great! ;D

There's Carrigon's Forever Burn Fireplace hack.

As I posted about wanting a plague forever ago, yeah, I'd definitely love to have more non-me-induced deaths in my 'hood. I do have a storyline going but I also like to see what happens with the Sims themselves, and that also affects what happens in the storyline. (I.e. one of the villains keeping someone's wife in the attic because he wouldn't stop rolling wants to interact with her... *whistle*) But, yeah, I've had a few choking deaths that were pled back, and one death by disease at a party because I got sick of trying to quarantine one of the diseases going around and just let them stay sick as visitors. That's about it, blah.

I'd love to see Sims dying in childbirth as they pop one out on the kitchen floor (maybe then I'd have a playable finally in the adoption pool!) and I'd love to see elders have heart attacks and Romance Sims get VD and random car crashes, etc etc etc. Of course, a lot of people don't want this stuff at all, which is why hacks are so great :P But I'm a writer at heart and I love the game because it allows me to have my own story with plot twists that can surprise me, with things that I didn't plan from start to finish *grin*

I humbly decline to vote as teen-35 is not a valid age group. The differences between an 18 year old and a 35 year old can't be quantified. Heck, I'm 28 and the ickle highschoolers might as well be aliens.

As such, I've got to go with the "what accidental deaths?" crowd. The only accidental ones are townie ones, in the hottub. Everything else is easily preventable. Sheesh, I wish death in the real world was as easily preventable. Just put a sprinkler by the fireplace and hire a repairman and you're good.

I looked, and the files were completely unhelpful.

The names: ASCDarkBrickFireplace
ASCDarkStoneFireplace
ASCFireBrickFirePlace
ASCLightFieldstoneFireplace
ASCRoseFieldStoneFireplace
ASCTanStoneFireplace
ASCWhiteStoneFireplace
AXSFieldstoneFireplace

Perhaps someone will recognize them? If not, the Carrigon hack works, and you don't have to play Hunt the Fireplace in-game.

I've had an accidental death just recently.  I had a sim who just graduated college, she was having a party, she invited her friends, and as she lit the Creme Brulée she then caught fire.  Everyone surrounded her and did the fire dance not helping her at all.  Through the whole thing my husband and I was laughing out butts off.

Many, many moons ago, I had a teen autonomously try to repair the computer, get electrocuted, and die.

I had somebody in the family plead, and he made it.

Had I known this was going to be the only accidental death I was ever going to see, or that this man would one day father a bunch of ugly children with Lillith Pleasant, I wouldn't have had anyone plead.

Well, I got the mysterious choking death a few times too, but that was a bug, not an accident.

Edit: Wait. I just remembered another one. My very favorite sim ever once stopped by to visit her brother, and I decided to have him "Paint Portrait" of her. She was first trimester pregnant, and collapsed and died, I assume of hunger, after standing there so long. Her brother plead and she lived though. That one I do not regret because I loved her so. This was probably back in the base game.

Oh and despite me possibly sounding somewhat gypped and bored, I still voted "meh, who cares?"

Could someone actually share (or post a link to) the older more deadlier scissors? I never downloaded them before because I didn't realize what they were when I saw them at first.

Ugh. I can't get my scissors to work. They do a little jumpy-poo and the things disappear.

The problem with the older, deadlier scissors is that they auto-delete themselves in a game version of OFB or higher. The main reason EA updated them is so they would work in OFB, and since people had been complaining, they decided to make them less deadly as well. But, theoretically, couldn't you change the "deadliness" value of the new scissors to that of the old scissors, if you could figure out what this value was for the old scissors?

I have to agree with many here in that accidental death seems very rare indeed, and even intentional death can be very difficult to accomplish sometimes.  Even still, with a certain reward object, death is only a bin where sims go to await revival, so what harm is done?  I could not answer the poll because I could handle more accidental death but only if the means were not completely bogus.  Considering MaxisEA's track record I don't believe this is possible.  So if an answer like, "Yes, no, maybe?" could be added then perhaps I could cast a vote.

In all I have to say that death is handled reasonably well compared to other issues.  For myself, having a sim possibly die in flames is a small consideration compared to the annoyance of having one hardly able to look at a stove without it bursting into flame, regardless of cooking skill.  Or how about having one dash from the sidewalk to the back corner of a large community lot just so she could slap the bejeezus out of some dude who flirted with her once?  Or what about the joker who just polished off a cup of joe standing right next to a dishwasher and a sink, yet for some reason he finds it necessary to march to the other side of the house, down two flights of stairs, just so he can put the empty 'coffee' cup on a 'coffee' table?  And what of this gem, because their fun meter is basically maxed it seems like a good idea to turn the TV on and off repeatedly until it explodes?

Death in TS2...no, it doesn't bother me much...sometimes they deserve no less.     

I can't stand accidental deaths--especially when I was a noob and didn't know about InSIM or Sim PE.  It was rare in my game--one family when I was a noob and didn't know you had to have a fire alarm by the fireplace-- one Uni townie got stuck to the pinball machine (error in machine)  I thought everyone had gone home(had to force error on the Sim that was asked to join before he was the next victim.  But Season's is the worst for accidental deaths.  I had a Sim at the Crypt night club catching up on friends and I forgot that I had put a couple hot tubs on the patio-- well,  I had a headache and had the sound off--I went to the back of the building to find a Sim that needed to talk to my Sim and Grimmy was there--I summoned a close friend over to plead and he won but upon further inspection, I found 4 other graves there.  Wow, can't play with the sound off--I guess.

You need to get Pescado's warmth fix mod from here (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=7708.0) to keep sims from spontaneously combusting while in the hot tub.

Actually the age range I want more random deaths for is teens to elder. But given the choices at hand I chose teen to 35.

I would like to have an increase in accidental deaths that were not caused by me. If they could autonomously go look at clouds or stars, for instance; Actually there are a lot of ways that sims can die accidentally... but they don't usually do those things autonomously.

I still want a plague that has  a random chance of turning into an incurable pneumonia no matter how hard you baby the afflicted sim.

I also want a reasonably simple way of killing specific townies without having to spend a month waiting for them to die of starvation in a box.

More random dying!

I have that but the deaths were from lightning.  They stay in that tub so long that if they get hit by lightning--they will die.  Later, I put a covering over the tub so it won't happen again.

Guess you haven't checked out the new 'Smite' option on the Lot Debugger... :)


Ohhhhhhhhhhhh -- yea, I didn't think of that.  Haven't had any sims randomly hit by lightning yet, since I changed my main hoods to start off in winter first. I'll have to keep that in mind as spring rolls around.

Wait, wait...

are the age ranges supposed to be sim ages of sims you want to die more, or simmer ages (as in, trying to prove the point that younger people like random death more, as was brought up in the other thread)?

Well, I read it as simmer ages since the argument that spawned the poll was about 'older, more life-experienced' people getting upset by all the callous discussion of killing off sims but let's not start that again.

I think the conversations pretty much show what simmers think.

about the age thing? If that's referring to me, you'll have to spell it out for Stupid Kuronues to understand.

Though if you're saying in general about the poll, yeah, it's pretty clear

Yeah.  :)

In theory, I like the idea of more deaths, but not so much the freaky accidental deaths, because more types of 'normal' death would make the game more realistic, IMO. In practise, however, the sim-deaths kind of throw me for a loop. Even when I know that a sim is old and about to keel over, it somehow always takes me by surprise and makes me a little bit sad, especially if it's a sim that I created and have gotten attached to. On the other hand, when I'm playing Brandi Broke as a black widow, or killing off random sims in order to populate the graveyard, so that my knowledge sims can actually fulfill their 'see a ghost' want, I don't feel too bad about it, because a) it was planned, and b) I didn't get very attached to him/her/them, since c) see examples a and b. :P

Having seen my very first Death by Lightning this evening, I can say things are just spiffy on the ratio.  Heck, the first girl got zapped in the hot tub, got out, and got nailed a second time, then died.  Yahoo!

The other dormie got nailed in the tub, got out, and promptly wet herself.

The very first time I fired up Sims 2 I killed my first sim. She starved to death. No accidental deaths since then, though. When my neighborhoods get big I do a dice roll, too. And when I used to run a medieval neighborhood I would roll after birth to see if the mother lived, and if someone got sick I roll for that sim, and every sim they came into contact with before I got them into bed. As for instant death, I just InSIM them.

I tend to restart my game so often that accidental deaths seldom get to happen.  I also don't get too attached to my sims so I have induced just about every death at least once.  I used the zombie apocalypse in conjunction with a working gun recently and offed many sims... then started a new 'hood.

But back when I played one hood and actually had several house and families going I used the Flamingo of Doom http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=35518 and had a blast with it.  I wish it would get updated and have it be autonomous with maybe a chance of something nice happening too.

For reference I'm 37 but most of the deaths that have affected me IRL occurred when I was young.. starting with my father dying when I was 7.

I'd love for a message to pop up sometime and tell the family that Mommy/Daddy died on their way home in a car wreck.  I think death is way to predictable in the game.

Honestly, as much as I tend to baby my sims, I could definitely stand to see a little more accidental mayhem of all kinds, including "unscheduled" sim-death. It's probably due to the fact that I try to keep their bars as green as possible that even when I encounter one of the rare potentially-lethal situations (autonomous electrocution by computer fixing, etc.), my sims always manage to bounce back pretty much unscathed. I think what irks me about sim-death most is that a sim will bolt for the shower or the fridge hours before they should even be *thinking* about a sandwich or a bath - like they're all hyper-aware of the slightest dip in their needs - but they'll strum that frigging guitar until they're about to keel over dead. Likewise, when I'm actually *trying* to kill a sim for that "saved from death" want, it takes forEVER for them to finally snuff it, but a few minutes on the treadmill - outside in the middle of winter - has them bursting into flames. And I don't want to see more "realistic" death in the form of car crashes and such, but non-lethal plague is just silly. If you're gonna give a sim the plague, there should be at least a mild-moderate chance of them not surviving it.

When I leave my sims to their own devices, the only mayhem I get is of the "too dumb to quit drumming before you starve to death" variety. But I'd love to see more mayhem to the tune of infidelity, unexpected inheritances, and so forth. Pretty much all my sims aspire to flirt with people other than their committed partner, but they never do. My Sims 1 sims were total horn-dogs, always turning up in the corner of some community lot making out with their wife's best friend. Of course, it would be easy enough for me to set up an affair or whatever, but that's the sort of thing I'd like my sims to surprise me with. So in my desire for more autonomous/unscheduled mayhem, I would definitely welcome more accidental sim-deaths. After all, I can always just exit.

you should get ACR (Autonomous Casual Romance) by twojeffs  :D
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=4691.0

That's probably a good idea, Sleepycat - ACR is one of those mods I keep *meaning* to try out, but then I get distracted by some other bit of shiny. In honour of Celebration!Stuff... or possibly in celebration of it being midnight on a Monday... I've decided to do a total reinstall of my game from the ground up, in order to have a better handle on all the extraneous saved games, orphan meshes, and any accumulating gremlins that may be lurking about (I'm not really attached to any of my characters right now, so it's as good a time to do it as any). Aaaaanyway... tossing a little ACR into the mix sounds like fun - I think I'll actually do it this time!

ACR is the best "investment" I made :D It improved my game tremendously, I like the surprises and unexpectedness

I finally broke down and tried ACR. I'm finding it enjoyable enough, so far, but I don't like having to set up each individual neighbourhood and/or family, and I'm having the same problems that I have with any autonomous actions - the sims decide to do them at the LEAST convenient times (like right before the carpool arrives). I'm keeping ACR in my game, for now, but I honestly don't know how long I'll be able to stand it. I like to play with free will on, because I like the autonomous conversing, flirting, etc, but I can't stand it when they decide to go off and cook lobster thermidore for no good reason. No-autonomy hacks have become my best friends. That said, it was kind of funny to see Bianca Monty putting the moves on Oberon Summerdream at a party, with no prompting from me. :D

I leave freewill on and then tediously micromanage. If they're doing something I don't want them to, I click it off and occasionally tell the stupid sim to 'stop that, right now' when it doesn't go away fast enough. ACR goes away fast enough, so I don't have any issues with it. (I must have the game paused more than it's running...)

I didn't set up every house though - I set the hood, and then I set houses that I want to be different for some reason, but if I'm satisfied with the way it works standardly, I just leave them be. Oh and I use... uh, not-static so it'll change based on what I do/let them do.

<loves ACR>

I generally micromanage my sims only on the weekdays. I'll give them two hours before bed to goof off, but other than that it's work/skill build/homework/friend build. On the weekends, it's a free-for-all. I'll check their needs ever four hours or so just to make sure they aren't pillow fighting themselves into bladder failure, but that's it.

ACR has been interesting. I have a Grilled Cheese non-zombie (a first, but she was my legacy girl and rolled Romance so I couldn't bring myself to zombify her)/Family sim combo right now and every 32 hours like clockwork, it's time to strip and woohoo. They could be on the way to get a bottle for that toddler they had against the Oversoul's wishes (ugly little thing it is, too) and they'll drop that for a little hibbity jibbity. Cracks me up. Toddler's starving, but they're getting it on.

Frankly, I don't mind the thought of having a little bit of random mayhem in my game, but it's been virtually mayhem free, and I've been playing since TS2 was released.  I did experience the bug related pregnancy death you mentioned in the scarecrow thread, which was triggered when a Sim visited a community lot whilst pregnant (but before she started to show), but beyond that, the only two accidental Sim deaths I've experienced were death by fright and death by satellite.  The death by fright incident would've been avoidable if I hadn't built a mausoleum to house the urns of 9 generations of dead Sims & let one of my knowledge Sims fulfill her "see a ghost" want.  The death by satellite incident would've been avoidable as well if I hadn't let Daisy Greenman watch the pretty clouds.

Considering the number of ways that a Sim can die, I guess I've been lucky.  That or I just rule my Sims with an iron fist.  Probably the latter.  I don't let them do stupid things very often unless the population is in dire need of culling.  Or the whim strikes me.  Or they continuously engage in stupid or annoying behavior during those odd moments that I feel gracious enough to grant them free will, in which case, I generally feel the need to punish them.  In my game, stupidity is a crime and, depending upon its severity, it can be punishable by death.  It's my version of natural selection.

i have been waiting for a hack like this since 2005.

D:

the sims is too cookie-cutter! i never use fire alarms as that at least gives me a CHANCE of accidental death......

I would love a deadlier illness, and random car related deaths. Instead of teens getting acne they could get ill, and be contagious.

The only "accidental" death in my game was when I had a sim with an influence... prank want do it, her sim husband electrocuted and killed her brother at her wedding.

At one stage, during my apocalypse challenge I was rolling at birth and every age transition for death, either by risky childbirth or a "failure " to thrive.

I know in real live death can be a tragic painful thing, but my game is so saccharine at the moment, I need drama. Maybe not days of our lives drama, but something.
-Skadi

I have never had a Sim die accidentally, and I'm too soft-hearted to do something like wall them in a room to watch them starve to death.  The only accidental thing that ever happens to my sims is getting caught flirting (and that's only happened twice in all the time I've played).

The closest I've ever come was today, when I forgot that a vampire teen would still run like an idiot to the mailbox to look at his grades, even if he was going to school in a car and parking in the garage.

EDIT: I'm not sure I want more death incidents, but maybe make them a little more lethal when they happen.  Currently it seems like if you're even moderately on top of keeping your sims' needs satisified, they'll be able to survive just about anything.

My most ridiculous accidental death was when I killed a sim off on purpose, so to grant his ressurection wish - and his wife lost to Reaper. Then it was an OFB community multiple death, when I carelessly bought a club with those furnace thingies (got quite a bodycount with it. Including a Grand Vamp!). Oh well, at least I found out kids can die. There were a couple of glitch cases, too, like sudden illness or 'died on another lot' thing. Also, death of a de-roacher who was cleaning mess left after death-from-flies setup and got eaten by them himself was quite accidental.


As for having qualms about killing off sims...I dunno. I obliterated entire nations in Civ series and left bloody footprints over Duke Nukem maps, so probably it's too late to worry about one more or less murder of a bunch o'pixels. 8)