What Lifespan Do You Like to Play?

[LlamaMama]

When you're not doing a challenge, what is your preferred sim lifespan?

The Sims 3 is my first experience with Sims, and I played with aging off for a long time. Then I played with long lives and liked that, but still, no one ever dies. So now I'm thinking of playing normal lifespans so I can follow generations past childhood and experience ghosts.

What lifespan do you default to?

[lianne]

I usually play on long lifespan because that gives me plenty of time to achieve whatever I set out to achieve. The only exception is when I plan to have children, when I would always go for normal. I can't cope with babies and toddlers for more than a few days at a time!

[SimMe]

I play on long with the following changes:

I age the babies up after the mom is rested
after the toddler learns to walk, talk and potty I age them up
on the child and teenager I age them up at the half way point

[NancyJ]

Long, until they've popped out a sprog and then I go to normal.

[Schipperke]

My sims are immortal.  (I play with aging off)

[malteser60]

I love playing the normal life span as I like the rapid changes, having to achieve so much in so little time, and the continuation of a family. However, saying that, I'm playing my WA game/story on the epic life span (can't remember exactly what it's called, memory like a sieve, anyhow, the longest life span), as I created a sim specifically for the tomb raiding and that is going to take a while as I want to explore every tomb, do every adventure, and complete all relic collections, including the minor relic collections (i'm a bit ocd like that!). However she is also having children and once I've completed WA and move onto the children I'll be turning the lifespan back to normal.

[TollingBells]

I like a normal life span for my sims. I've never had one die of old age, but I plan to this time...It's fun to look back at all the things your sim has accomplished in one lifetime.

[samoht04]

I play Normal cause I don't really get past Adult with most of them!  On Legacy there is an exception though. 

[LlamaMama]

I play on long with the following changes:

I age the babies up after the mom is rested
after the toddler learns to walk, talk and potty I age them up
on the child and teenager I age them up at the half way point

Long, until they've popped out a sprog and then I go to normal.

I like this kind of thinking. For the life of me, I don't know how anyone starts a legacy from scratch with a Normal lifespan. It seems much more doable with a Long founder lifespan, followed by Normal lifespan generations.

[Saltypaws]

I usually play on normal.  It also depends on the type of game I am playing on what life span.

[templesmom]

I play on normal the most, but I do sometimes age up my sim babies/toddlers/kids early if they have completed what I want them to do. I hardly ever see my sims die because if I play their children I move out the parents.

[Saltypaws]

I like to age up the sims too, but only if my little ones have done their potty, talking and walking.  Sometimes I will let them have a birthday and throw a party, but not very often.  I do like to micro manage, so with a houseful, it is a challenge when you have them at all ages.

[templesmom]

That just reminded me of a birthday party I threw for a child sim. The mom invited a friend of hers that was an elder and before the child could blow out the candles the elder dies and the the party clock ended and it was a failed party because nobody aged up. So, I don't throw many birthday parties LOL

[Saltypaws]

Wow, seems like they time that just right.  Almost the same thing happened to mine.  Young adult turns to adult and then mother dies as they are doing their little party thing, but she was just aging up naturally, so there was no actual party.  I can see when you throw a party though and someones dies, that would kind of put a halt to everything.

[jestina]

Normal is usually long enough. Most of my sims can accomplish their LTW before reaching adult anyways. No point in prolonging the cruising period.