About the Challenge

The challenge I'm running here is based loosely on the Reality Show Challenge.  I say 'loosely' since it's not an overly defined challenge, and I bend or break pretty much all the minimal rules that they do have.  If you're interested in the genre, you may also want to look at the Big Brother Challenge, though I'm not really following those rules either.  That said, I do have rules that I'm following and I'll probably mention them in the blog when they become important to note.  I'm too lazy to write them all out specifically (though if someone asks me for specifics on something I'll probably tell you), but I'll explain the major ones:

1. Hands off/Free will - As I'm not using a Master of Ceremonies style Sim (there's already too many Sims in this place!) I will provide a few rare instructions (like to call the repairman, for example), but 99% of the time what the Sims are doing is what the game's AI told them what to do - and I specifically make an effort to ensure that what I do tell them what to do is minimally invasive and fair.  I make an effort to give my instructions to them when it doesn't interrupt them whenever possible.
2. Voting - Whenever I say that the Sims voted on something (like who to kick out of the house, for example) this means that I checked everyone's relationship panels, and I simply assume that they cast their vote for whoever they like the most or against whoever they like the least depending on whether they're picking someone for a good thing or a bad thing.  In the event of a tie, I assume they made the difficult choice at random and use random.org to determine the result, even if I imply in my narrative that they did otherwise.
3. Schedule - I have, as much as is possible, planned everything in advance: how many Sims are getting kicked out each week, under what conditions they'll be permitted to call a repairman, the exact time on which day that I'll be checking for votes - everything.  This keeps things as fair as possible.
4. Sim Creation - It's actually possible to cheat somewhat in this thing by giving Sims certain advantageous traits since so much is determined by popular vote.  Give them enough positive traits and they'll be everyone's best friend.  But I controlled for that by strategically not pointing that out and keeping an eye out for people choosing traits that don't fit their character, and I believe that nobody tried to cheat the system.
5. Pre-existing Relationships - Unlike your typical challenge of this type, as these Sims are based on characters who already know each other I've recreated a few aspects of the relationships they have.  Specifically, I've given them their family relationships, but even more interestingly I've taken every romantic feeling from a one-sided crush to a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship (we don't have anything more intense than that in the forum at the present time...) and made them romantic interests for this challenge.  Given the sheer number of love triangles, squares, hexagons, and other more complicated shapes to be found in this group, a couple of these Sims won't be able to give someone a friendly hug without half the household erupting in a jealous rage.  How this falls to pieces and who ends up with who should therefore be especially fun to watch.

A few more things for the people who want to know:

• I have all the expansion packs up to Seasons, no stuff packs, no custom content besides mods, and minimal store stuff.  The mods I use are the AwesomeMod as well as a few NRAAS mods.
• The world I am using is Neverglade by Pyronium3 - it's probably the best custom world I've ever found.
• Why yes, my computer is awesome, thanks!