I can never bring myself to play cruelly. Whenever I play, I play to the absolute best, and basically make my Sims never know hunger or pain. I don't like seeing my Sims perish, so I tend to turn ageing off.

My more recent playthroughs have focused on one family, and I was brave and turned on ageing. I made a Sim, Eve Abberley. She lived a good life as a mechanic/electrician. With the self-employment careers mod, her job was to fix other people's machinery, being paid over time. She met her love interest, Gareth, and then married and had children - Faris and Michael. When Faris becomes a young adult, I assume direct control of that character, moving them out and letting Eve/Gareth run on auto-pilot.

Faris heads off to University and I take her down science path. She's a real whiz-kid. She meets Cedrick at University, and after graduating and working in the medical profession, have a child called Jason. Cedrick works as a busker/musician, and given the flexible working hours assumes primary care of the household while Faris works at the hospital. As Jason grows up, he receives an imaginary friend doll, who eventually becomes real. As they both grow up towards their teenage years, feelings emerge, Jason and his friend (who's name eludes me) start going out.

Now, if my old laptop didn't break the motherboard, I would have continued with Jason's path. He was set up to be an athletically-minded Sim.

I did briefly flirt with a homeless playthrough, starting with no home, no money and no skills. It is much tougher than you'd think, especially seeing how I started with a new city that I've never used before, so I didn't know all the good spots.