Help with playing multiple households

[Stormi71]

So when I played Sims 3, I never had any mods, so story progression was pretty non existent. My gameplay style didn't really need to worry about this, though, as I never played legacy and usually didn't go past the second generation, and would add my own townies if required. I never played multiple households in sims 3 as I was worried my main sim household would progress in ways I didn't want to, the worst being move away.
So apparently in 4, there is basically no story progression, so if you want new generations, townies to have jobs etc, you have to play them. I did read that households don't randomly just up and leave like in sims 3, so that fear is gone.
So I'm wondering what WILL happen if I play other households for a while for the purposes of relationships, jobs, having babies. What happens to my main household while I play the other families? Does everything stay pretty much stagnant with them? Being there is no real story progression, I presume nothing changes? I'm worried about accidental death, like in sims 3 you'd get notifications someone had been hit by lightning or drowned, but I think that happened when the town was overpopulated?
Bottom line is, will my main household remain pretty much the same as I left it, or will things have changed when I play them again?

[Lisa46]

I tried this once and one sim in the entire town died, but that was after I had added 20 kids to the town.

[Ellenser]

There is no story progression, so households not being played won't build relationships, career levels, skills, etc. However, the sims around the town will continue to age even if you're playing other households (unless you disable aging in the game options)

[Naga]

As Ellenser said, if your Aging is on, they just might die of old age. You can also toggle an option for "Aging only in active lot". They could die one of the many emotional deaths in the game if you caused it, though.

[linmayu]

I've been rotating between 4 households, playing each for roughly 1 sim day at a time.  I noticed that sims DO build skills and relationships (both positive and negative) and pick up romantic interests while I'm playing other households.  I'm assuming they won't move out, have babies, or die though.

[Stormi71]

Thanks. I really just want to play other households to enable some story progression etc. I don't want to come back to my main household and find she's broken up with her soul mate boyfriend, or hates her child or something. But my main fear was her moving away or dying. I have aging set to long (which is not really that long to me as I am used to playing epic lifespan and setting individual age stage settings).
I think I might just make a separate save file and see what happens, so if it all goes pear shaped I can go back to playing just one household. It would be good if you could "freeze" certain households so you could do some story progression management and then go back to your main house and nothing has changed with them at all.
Oh, and emotional deaths? Can you literally die from embarrassment or a broken heart now? I better tell my daughter (who is 9) to stop making her sim pee herself in public or she might die!

[jillz]

It would be good if you could "freeze" certain households so you could do some story progression management and then go back to your main house and nothing has changed with them at all.
Oh, and emotional deaths? Can you literally die from embarrassment or a broken heart now? I better tell my daughter (who is 9) to stop making her sim pee herself in public or she might die!

You can totally freeze households you're not playing in the game options. Just go in and turn off aging except for your active household and your Sims won't die while you're not playing them.

And yes, your Sims can die of embarrassment, can die of too much fun, can die from lots of new things!

[Indira]

When I play multiple households, i usually turn off aging (for active and townies and other households). Then i roam around the different households and doing a few aspirations/whims, marry people, develope relationships, make babies and etc. When i'm back to my original family, I turn on aging till next stage, then off again to visit the other houses.

I don't want to manage other household's deaths or caring for their elderly and babies. I think one household is all I can manage with that much dedication, otherwise I will get the Tense moodlet from all the micro-managing without the fun.

[justproud2b]

I think there is story progression in the game when I brought people into my house in sims 3 they never had a job or any skills. In sims 4 when I bring people in they have skills careers and relationships good and bad beyond my family.