Hi there. I hope it is okay to ask this here. I have printed out all of SP options, and tried my best to figure them all out myself and do this. But it is a bit overwhelming. I am hoping someone can direct me on what to do.

What I want is for story progression to affect the whole town, except a few families. I want the families I am playing to basically be like Sims 2, where they don't progress without my direction. I thought perhaps I did this with the castes or by the lot they are on, but I am not sure. Can anyone possibly tell me what to do?

Also, I want to be able to quickly turn aging for the entire town (including my families) on and off. So when I play one family, the whole town will be aging, but then I turn it off, and nobody does. But I don't know which option that is either.

I'd really appreciate any help. Thank you.

Question #2 is easiest: When you want to change aging for the entire town, from city hall or a computer got to NRaas / SP / Town Options / Death: Allow Aging. Either set it to true or false, whichever the case may be.

Question #1 is a little harder, at least for me since I don't really know how things were in Sims 2, but I think what you're looking for might be the Stasis option. It's available at the Caste, Town, Household, and Sim levels. As I understand it, sims that are in stasis basically don't change unless you make it happen. Since you want it to affect only a few families, you can probably set it at the Household level for each family -- it will then affect everyone living in that household. I know there are several others here who play with similar settings who'll probably be able to give you better advice on this, though.

Hi there, and welcome to NRaas.

I'll answer your last question first because it's easier: on City Hall or an in-game computer,
NRaas > SP > Town Options > Death:Allow Aging > True/False.

But you might want to think about that a little more. If the entire town ages only when one household is being played, and you are intending to play other households in turn, then you will miss all of their birthdays (except for the first household).

As for the first part, what you are describing is what many of us call Rotational Play. We've had quite a few threads on the topic over the years, but we've never made an FAQ page out of it because different players have so many variations on the theme that they prefer.

Here is a recent such thread: http://nraas.wikispaces.com/share/view/72716682
If you hit the "Show More Replies" link near the beginning, you will see the settings I use and then other members responded with some of their variations.

...ahh, first ninja post of the week, thanks simwahine.

Thank you. I will check that thread and see if I can find what I need within it then. I thought perhaps that death setting was for aging, but I wasn't sure. I didn't think about the birthdays. Perhaps I can have aging for the town on, and for my families on ONLY when I play them?

That's how I do it. The household that happens to be active always ages, the rest of the town only ages when I play my "main" household. There is a pre-made caste called "Not Active" that allows for that. In theory, at the end of a full cycle, the entire town will age up evenly.

In practice, things still get out of synch because despite all intentions, I don't spend a precisely equal amount of time with each household that I play in rotation. Sometimes I get bored and move on faster, sometimes I get fascinated and stay put longer. But MasterController is always standing by to help smooth out any obvious unevenness after a while.

OMG that is perfect. I will check that out then. I have a hard time understanding the castes. I liked your settings (in that other thread) but I want the aging like you mentioned here. I will check out the options you've mentioned, but probably come back with another question or two. I hope you don't mind. You are a blessing, I have been trying to figure this out on my own for over a month. AND, I kept setting the caste I was making to ONE, thinking THAT was top priority! Bonking myself in the head, I see from your other post it would set it low. Gah..

Hi, I cant load the link you provided. It says Page Not Found

Also, I cant find on my current SP>Town Options>Death: Allow Aging. Was it moved in the SP updates after you answered this question in 2015

This discussion is from over three years ago. The thread it references is even older and has long since evaporated. We don't have infinite retention on message board threads. But the Rotational Play settings discussed back then proved to be so popular that we made a separate wiki page out of them.
<a href="http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Story+Progr ... ettings</a>

The Death:Allow Aging setting has not moved, but there are some circumstances where it will not show up. One is if aging is switched off at the built-in Game Options level, that acts as a master off switch for aging across the board. A second is if active play is currently in a world that is foreign to your actively being played sims -- they are on a vacation or at Uni, for example. There is no aging in foreign worlds nor back home when the currently played world is not the active sims' homeworld.