"Who's Your Daddy?" Challenge Rules

The goal of this challenge is to create a family with 26 children, or, rather, 26 pregnancies, each of which has a different father. I say “family” because your original Sim, a woman, will marry and have a “traditional family,” but there will be a whole heck of a lot that’s not traditional, too. Why do this challenge at all? Well, I always tend to create sims that look alike. To help me spread my wings a little, I thought I’d try something like this.

To start, create a female adult Sim in CAS. You may choose her aspiration, appearance, personality, turn-ons and turn-offs if you’d like, but I find it more fun to randomize. If anyone would accept a suggestion, I highly recommend a travel-sized Yahtzee game to help with random selection of many, many things. I won’t bore you with ways to randomly select things; you’ve done a lot of that and you undoubtedly have your preferred methods. I would suggest not having too much CC genetics for your original sim, or else you’re going to have 26 very similar looking children in one or more attributes. It would make sense to make her a popularity or romance sim for the father-finding end if you decide not to randomize, but she’ll also have a lot of children, so family makes sense on the other end. In the end, it’s up to you.

Move her into a lot. This can be a pre-made lot with an existing house, or an empty lot of any size. Just remember, once she moves in, you won’t be allowed to move her back out or use any money cheats, so choose wisely. There is a point bonus for starting her out on an empty lot; this bonus is greater if your sim did not attend university, since she would have less time to earn cash and start buying furnishings, but there is still a bonus for a university graduate start on an empty lot. I think starting from scratch, especially with Seasons installed, is tough, but do-able. I don't want to forbid pre-made houses (yours, others' or Maxis') because some folks just don't get the same kick out of building I do, but since it does require more effort to build a house while also playing the challenge, there's a bonus for it.

The husband must be an NPC, downtownie or townie (or anyone else non-playable), and, for reasons you’ll see later, he cannot be Mr. Big or really anyone recognizable as a special character at all. Your sim may not marry immediately. She instead must wait until her first child has passed from toddler to child before she marries. She can, of course, be planning ahead and find her guy and fall in love, but she may not marry him until Baby A is a child. He may not move in until it’s time to marry the bride. This will most likely mean your sim has at least two children, and possibly more, by the time she marries. I figured it would just be too easy to have her marry immediately and get all the money a new spouse brings right at the get-go. As an alternative, if the idea of all these babes out of wedlock offends you, you may create a husband for your sim in the same CAS family with your sim; this way, the amount of money he adds on is minimal. Then again, if all these babes out of wedlock offends you, this might not be the right challenge for you . . .

Your female sim may work, you know, because all those moms on TV with 18 and 42 children also work. Wait, no, they don’t, but I just don’t feel like restricting the mother’s career is a necessary part of the challenge. In fact, it may make it more challenging. There is a catch, though. Your female sim may not hire a nanny herself. Only her husband or a teen child may hire a nanny, and they may only hire her to track their schedule. Thus, when your sim’s husband is at work, the nanny will come to help. When he’s there, he has to help. The same goes with teens: you may hire a nanny to track their schedule, but keep in mind the teens jobs only run for three or so hours, and that’s how long the nanny will stay. If you choose not to have your husband and/or teens work, that’s fine, but that also means those that don’t work cannot hire the nanny. I mean, how would you even pay for the fire-starting, dessert-making, bath-taking, child-ignoring frenzy?

There is a point bonus for not using any other services besides the nanny. These forbidden services, should you choose to try for this bonus are: the butler, the gardner, the repairman and the maid. You may use the pet obedience trainer, but if you do so, you forfeit the point associated with training that pet. You may use the matchmaker, the bartender, the exterminator, the garden club and the pet and human adoption services without losing the no services bonus as these services don't present a significant advantage, and may actually turn out to be more a disadvantage if used. There is a point bonus for additional service sim fathers, detailed with the point count below; since the butler, the gardener and the maid are still service sims, you may hire any or all of them one time, for the purpose of your sim establishing contact with them. Once she's established that contact, you should have her dismiss these sims immediately, without allowing them to perform their jobs.

If you have Apartment Life, the option exists to ask your neighbors to watch your children. If your sim is married and/or has a teenager, only the working spouse or teenage child may ask a neighbor for childcare. The only way your sim may ask a neighbor herself is if she is neither married and none of her children are teens at the time she asks.

Your sim’s husband must remain alive at the end of the challenge. No killing him off, nor allowing him to die for the inheritance. Of course, your female sim must also survive the challenge, and still be an adult, or just recently an elder, to have birthed so many children. The husband can be an elder at the end of the challenge, so long as he remains alive. He must also remain in the household the from the wedding onward.

Your sim must marry before becoming pregnant with Baby N. Part of the fun will be having her get pregnant while sneaking around her husband. She must marry before the challenge is halfway complete. There’s also another reason you’re going to want to have him around for awhile . . .

Your sim’s husband must have an alien baby, the old fashioned way: he must be abducted. If you have Free Time, feel free to use the summon aliens reward. I don’t want to punish people for being as addicted as I am and having them all, of course! Your sim’s husband’s baby does count as one of the 26.

No one else is allowed to move onto the lot. You may adopt, but these children will not count toward your total for the fathers. You may only adopt infants. The only other exception would be a truly accidental death of the husband. You don’t have to replace him if you’d rather not, but if it really was an accident, there’s no harm in replacing him. Again, it has to be another NPC. Another option is listed at the end when I briefly discuss the actual children.

Half of the conceptions have to occur on the lot; that’s 13. More can occur, but not less. The husband's alien child does count as one conception on the lot, provided that's where he was when he was abducted. If your sim purchases a vacation home, she may conceive children there, but they will only count as "at home" conceptions if her husband is also present on vacation with her at the time.

You may use the voodoo doll to accelerate or initiate any single relationship with one potential father. Once used thus, it cannot be used thus again. It can still be put to any other use you'd like. You may use love potion, given its very temporary and rather mild effects.

Now to the other fathers. Your sim must have a child with 25 different sims. If a pregnancy results in twins, that’s still only one father, so it only counts as one, not two. There must, however, be a set of twins in there somewhere. If they happen naturally, awesome. If they have not happened naturally, for whatever reason, by Baby T, you may use cheesecake to create them. You may not boolprop twins. I don’t think that’s really going to be necessary, since the game designers made the incidence of twins approximately 20 times higher than in occurs in people naturally, but you never know.

Here’s a list of other kinds of fathers. I tried to separate out those that you can have with just the base game, but it’s been so long since I had just the base game, I no longer remember exactly what came with which. Also, there are so many that are half in the base game category, and half in an expansion pack, my efforts to make two separate lists were thwarted. If you cannot make 26 with just the base game and EPs that you have, you may need to add others, such as a child with one man of every aspiration, or a man with each sign of the zodiac, etc. There are also going to be way more than 26. I had picked out ones that I think should be priorities as they‘re the most interesting, but you can choose among them yourself to make up the alphabet. This community has no shortage of creativity, so I'm sure the choices will be interesting to say the least.

A father for each one of the three different kinds of blue eyes, one for brown eyes, and one for green eyes. This is going to mean a lot of close-ups to determine eye color in townies. Remember that the baby needn’t have the same eye color as the father. This will especially be the case if you select dominant genetics for your original sim.

A father for each color of hair, brown, black, blonde, red, custom and gray. Yes, this means she’ll have to have a child with an elder. Custom refers to any hair that bins into the custom hair bin, not new hairstyles that bin into one of the current hair colors.

A father with elven ears.

A father who is an elder. This is a separate attribute from the hair category. Of course, unless you CC your elders up quite a bit, they’re both likely to have gray hair, but some overlap is going to be inevitable.

A father who is her husband. Yup, he’s going to get his, too, don’t worry. Obviously, the fact that he is her husband means that he cannot fill any other attribute requirement, hence why a Joe Nobody works best.

A father who is a service NPC. I’ve hemmed and hawed on how to define this, so I’m just going to define who they are and leave it at that. For the sake of this challenge, a service NPC will include male maids, butlers, gardeners, exterminators, the repo man, police officers, firefighters, mail carriers, repairmen, delivery personnel, cashiers on community lots, cafeteria workers in universities, DJs, drivers, tour guides, hotel staff and any and all restaurant staff, including the food judge on the cuisine hobby lot. Some of these will be easier to connect with than others, but they all fit a general service category in my mind.

A father who is female. Yes, this will require boolprop or a game mod, so if you’re not comfortable with that, just choose another father.

A father who is a college student.

A father who is a professor.

A father who is a breakdancer.

A father who is a mascot. Llama or cow, it doesn’t matter. The coach and the streaker also count here, if you so desire. I was going to suggest not putting your sim through college first, but I realize now that adults sims cannot visit university lots. That said, it would be a good idea to put your sim through college long enough to meet a mascot and get them into your contacts bin, then drop them out or continue on with college as you desire.

A father who is the headmaster.

A father who is an alien. This is different from the husband/alien baby. Here the father of the child must be the one who is the offspring of an alien abduction, not the child.

A father who is a vampire.

A father who is a plantsim.

A father who is Santa Claus or Father Time.

A father who is a vacation native. The baby must be conceived on vacation. Extra points if you conceive one in each vacation destination. There's also a bonus for skills learned from vacation dads.

A father who is a werewolf.

A father who is a ghost. I’m not sure if this is possible, but maybe someone can try and tell me? I suppose you could also do this by killing someone, having pictorial evidence of the phantasmic state (so he has to haunt once), then fully rezzing him and having his baby. The pirate ghost also counts here.

A father who is a zombie.

A father who is the unsavory charlatan. Your sim must interact with him, including the risk of getting pickpocketed.

A father who is a mannequin. This includes the “living statue” character. For a regular mannequin, woohoo should be the course of the day. I'm not sure if woohoo with the living statue is possible; if so, great! If not, let's say you'll need to tip him. Any amount is okay. Not all guys give up their swimmers for free, you know!

A father who is the grim reaper.

A father who is the social bunny. No, you probably won't be able to woohoo the bun, unless you've got some serious modding going on, but your sim will require a visit from the social bun-bun and will need to complete one interaction with it before allowing it to go (and before you swifly manipulate its genetics).

A father who is the shrink.

A father who is a simself. You may use mine, or anyone else's, male or female, with or without custom content.

A father who is a servo.

A father who is a bigfoot. You won't be able to woohoo, so hugging will have to suffice here.

A father who is a genie.

A father who is a witch. An extra point if you have one of each.

A father who is a black sheep. We'll define "black sheep" as a combination of all the creatures which your personal collection of expansion packs supports. It's not necessary for this father to be all of the creatures at the time of conception, only that he's been all the creatures in his lifetime. The black sheep father may be created by any method you choose, but if you create him without cheating, there is a point bonus.

A father who is a burglar. No, you are not expected to conceive the child during his initial visit, but yes, in order for him to count, you’re going to have to let him steal something. Getting over that initial resentment is part of the challenge.

A father your sim meets using the matchmaker. He doesn’t have to be young or pretty, so feel free to spend as little as you’d like. Randomness is good. Dates obtained by using the wishing well also count for this category.

A father who is Mr. Big.

A father who is The Slob.

A father who is a hobby icon. Any of them are fine. More points if you collect them all.

A father who is the mother, i.e. a plantspore baby. Obviously, this would involve making your sim a plantsim first. I see this as having plenty of both advantages and disadvantages, so I thought I'd throw it in there.

A father of the different signs of the zodiac. You would use "Ask . . . What's your Sign?" to discover it. You MUST use that interaction, even if you already know the sim's sign, for this to count as this category of babydaddy.

I count a kajillion there, so that should given anyone lots and lots of choices.

Each father can fill only one requirement. If, for example, your sim, Mary, has a child with a man named John, who has blonde hair and skin #4, John may only count for the blonde father, or the skin #4 father, not both. Feel free to move them around if you’re able. If John was meant to be the blonde father, but later on another blonde guy comes along and you really want Mary to have a child with him, you can bump John into the skin #4 slot, if you haven’t already filled that one. If you have, as long as you can bump that guy into yet another slot, you can still move them around. I suggest keeping a detailed list of just who everyone’s father is, and what their attributes are, even if you’re not using them for that particular attribute.

A note about the more peculiar fathers. There’s absolutely no need to do everything the old fashioned way, only what’s specified above. If you want to boolprop a zombie to live next door so your sim can meet him and ultimately produce a child, feel free. The courtship and woohoo should be cheat-free, however. The pregnancy, also, should be cheat-free unless, in the case of certain creatures, you need to boolprop to make them either selectable, or to produce a pregnancy.

The kids should be named following the letters of the alphabet. It can be the English alphabet, or any other; I’m not picky. The challenge will be complete no sooner than when Baby Z becomes a teen (so we can se what s/he looks like, of course!) but no later than when baby Z becomes an adult or goes to college, each child has a different father, per the list, and hubby is still alive. Why the alphabet? Ummm, because the one I use on an everyday basis has 26 letters and that’s a lot, and it would not be challenging if it weren’t a lot. If you’d rather number them, be my guest. As for the kids aspirations, feel free to choose, or randomize, depending on how difficult you want it to be. Feel free to use elixir of life on the children themselves, but if you do so, you forfeit any skilling bonus that child might otherwise be entitled to (see scoring below). Once the kids a) turn into adults or b) leave for college, they may not return. The only circumstance under which a child may stay as an adult is if the husband has died (and it has to be a real accident).

Points: I really don’t care about points, but I thought I’d make a scale for those who want one.

+ 1 point for every child with a different father; add 0.5 points if twins result beyond the single required set; add another 0.5 points (per extra baby, beyond two) if you've got triplets/quads and you get . . . wait for it . . . triplets or quads. -1 point if you never have twins.

- 0.5 point for any child who is not a twin but shares a father with one of its siblings. In other words, two pregnancies by the same dad.

+ 0.5 point for every child born before your sim marries and her husband moves in, minus one. Since he cannot move in until baby A is a child, you don't get this bonus for Baby A, and since he must move in before Baby N, you cannot receive this bonus for Baby N or any subsequent children. You can receive it for babies B through M, however, as long as your sim remains single. If twins result from B through M, you do receive this bonus per child, not just per pregnancy.

+ 5 points if you have a child with every male member of the garden club; these can, of course, also fulfill another criterion and you’d still receive this bonus.

+ 5 points if you have a child with every male hobby icon; these also can fulfill another criterion and still qualify you for this bonus.

+ 1 point for each additional NPC you use as a father, after the first one. NPCs will still be defined by my list above.

+ 10 points if your sim never goes into aspiration failure

- 0.5 point every time she does go into aspiration failure

+ 5 points if your sim’s husband reaches the top of any career for the first time, add one additional point for every additional career he maxes out

+ 10 points if your sim does the same

+ 5 points if your sim and/or her husband achieve their LTWs (5 points for each); this counts only for each sim's original LTW. If your sims achieve multiple lifetime wants, you receive five points for the first one and one additional point for each LTW. If you happen to achieve a LTW for any of the children before they leave home, you may give yourself five points for that as well.

+ 5 points if your sim doesn’t use any services (maid, gardener, butler, repairman) aside from the nanny; you do not lose this bonus for using the emergency tab on the phone to summon the relevant sims.

+ 5 points for any additional alien abductions of any adult in the household, beyond the required one; 5 additional points if that alien abduction results in an extra green baby, beyond the required one.

+ 10 points for any alien abductions of teens; given limited time and resources, these are harder to achieve and worth more accordingly.

+ 1 point for having a child with each type of witch: good, bad and neutral.

+ 5 points for a black sheep father created without cheating.

- 5 points for every child taken by the social worker. You’re not having all these children just to give them away. If the social worker comes and you successfully plead for your child(ren), this deduction is only -1 point. Both deductions are per child. Also deduct 5 points for any teen that runs away.

- 10 points for any (and every) child that dies; the ways to kill them are pretty restricted, so they're easy to avoid, especially with the social worker on the loose; this point loss does not apply to teens, who can look after themselves.

+ 5 points if you have a child conceived in each of the vacation destinations. The child’s father can meet any other requirement; only the vacation conception is necessary to gain this bonus.

+ 1 point for each and every skill you learn from a vacation dad; since these fathers can meet so many other requirements, and because they're such a motley crew, I don't think they need their own category; you do, however, get an additional point for learning any dance, gesture, skill or story, or completing a task set forth by a vacation native before having his child. You don't have to learn from these sims to use them as fathers, just to gain the extra point.

+ 5 points if you have a child with each of the social bunnies. Bunnies need love, too, and we all know how bunnies can reproduce.

+ 1 point for every child that learns all its toddler skills (just potty, walking and talking, the nursery rhyme isn't necessary), learns to study before teening and gains at least one scholarship to go to college with. If you can teach your kids and pop them out, you should be rewarded. Note: the teen doesn't actually have to go to college; s/he just has to get the scholarship. If you use elixir on any single offspring at any point, you forfeit any skilling bonus that offspring may have earned. It does not negate the bonuses his/her siblings may have earned.

+1 point for each child that gets into private school.

+ 5 points for each teen that has 10 or more scholarships when s/he departs for college; any ten will suffice. Again, actual college attendance is not required. The same restriction regarding elixir stands as above for this bonus as well.

+ 1 point for every gold badge earned by a child before s/he leaves home. Restrictions regarding elixir still apply.

+ 3 for adopting a child. This is a one-time bonus, so you earn three points no matter how many children you adopt. As stated above, you may only adopt infants. This bonus is forfeited if your adopted child(ren) is(are) removed, even if you successfully plead and win him/her(them) back. Your adopted children are eligible to earn you skilling point bonuses.

+ 1 point for every pet you teach all tricks to during the challenge; the pet need not remain alive at the end. Because, you know, you won't have enough to do.

+ 5 points if you never use the Gootentaugen, Jumbok or snapdragons on anyone. +5 more points if you never use any career or aspirational rewards at all. You can still gain this bonus if you use Elixir of Life, giving the limited number of options we have to extend our sims' life expectancy in TS2.

+ 5 points if your sim does not attend university and starts her family on an empty lot. +2 points if she does attend university, but still starts on an empty lot. No point bonus is awarded for a university graduate moving into an house which is already built.

+ 20 points if you upload any or all of your story so that I might read it

As for other rules, there aren’t many. Feel free to open businesses, use all the items your sim and her family can earn, and generally run amok. Oh, wait, one more rule: I want pictures! This could be very entertaining, so I want to know how it goes.

Mods to allow mannequin babies to be born can be found at Mod the Sims 2 by either bloodredtoe or treeag. I use the one by bloodredtoe and it’s worked just fine for me.

Just so no one accuses me of sexism, feel free to try this challenge with a man instead. You’d have to, of course, boolprop nearly all the pregnancies instead of just a few, but if that’s your game, go for it. Keeping in mind that you’d have to have him still woohoo each person before boolpropping a pregnancy.