The only time I ever have free will turned on is when I'm doing party scenes with lots of people supposedly mingling and I don't want to deal with making everyone talk to each other manually.

Sometimes it leads to craziness, however, such as at the party after Paul's wedding. Ethelwyn and Hetty were all over each other, Dunstan was swooning over Vash, Flann was pigging out on jello and flirting with Sir Sigefrith, etc.

I also have a Selective free will mod of some sort, that lets me turn off Free Will on individual Sims while leaving it on for most of them. I find that very handy.

In terms of the actual story, I don't think I could deal with the randomness so much. I already have a pretty good idea of what I want to have happening in the story when I start taking pictures. And especially since Sims do such stupid shit when you set them free, like swinging from refrigerator doors and throwing water balloons at each other.

Do I ever force my characters to do something they don't want to? That is all I ever do! I don't even think of it in that way... my Sims are actors, and I'm the director, and I just tell them where to stand and what to do. I write their lines later.

The Old Man makes a shocking propositionSir Sigefrith and Flann declare their secret loveEmo Vash is offendedOsh's first glimpse of FlannFlann polishes off another plateHetty makes a pass at ShosudinHetty takes the initiativeTwo romances that might have been

Flann was about three months pregnant at the time so I guess we have to forgive the jello cravings. Flirting with Sir Sigefrith over their respective jello plates, not so much. (Although if I were sitting next to Sir Sigefrith I'm not sure I could resist...)

I LOVE those pics! They are so funny! I always have free will turned off too but maybe I will put it on sometimes just for fun. My sims still do annoying stuff sometimes. Like Noah and Harndall are always making that happy face and swaying from side to side with their hands clasped. It just doesn't suit them at all. It really freaks me out when they look up at me sometimes (like "Verity why are you making me do this again? I don't want to kiss that guy" that is weird... and they never do it when I actually want them to look into the sky... meh).

I think I am going to leave it off sometimes now just for fun to see what happens. I really love those pics... especially emo vash being pooey and Vash and Dunstan getting along like a house on fire And poor Flann pigging out on jello.

Off, they're to unpredictable with freewill. Plus, like Lothere said, having them play water balloon fights in the background of a medieval story is not quiet realistic But during normal gameplay, where I play them just for fun, then I turn it on, otherwise its to much like hardwork making them do every little thing, like watch tv for fun etc.

Lol to the Eithne pics, maybe she's not as shy as we'd like to believe she is, he he.

At first when I played the sims, I didn't even know you could turn freewill on and off, so I'd pause whenever they were finished doing what I had commanded. It made playing the game very, very, very long

So I was like you to, always controlling them. Never really letting them have fun unless they needed it. But since, its just become to much effort to keep cancelling actions that they continuously do, so instead I let them get it out of their system. Although I'm still somewhat controlling. At one point I continously used maxMotives and had them constantly skilling inbetween work and socializing for promo's. I can't say I'm to good at the game though, if I didn't cheat they'd constantly be waving their little pixel arms at me and going into aspiration failure. I'm actually terrible at controlling them, and don't get me started on trying to keep up with all the friends they need for promo's. Darn its hard to keep that up, at one stage I tried to cheat and make them friends through boolprops sim modder, but they always ended up falling in love with one another instead. So at one stage the entire hood loved everyone, it didn't help matters when everyone started slapping everyone else and getting the 'you cheated on me' memory. Had to cancel that hood eventually because no one would speak to anyone..........would have made an interesting soapie though.

Now I cheat and change the aspirations to mostly non career based ones, its just easier Silly sims