The “No Strings Attached” mod – “Friend with Benefits” relationships, and the art of hopefully not falling in love…
Is this mod compatible with WW? Yes it is!
What is it not compatible with? Nothing that I know of! This is all new code and very much its own thing so I can’t imagine it could conflict with much of anything!
What does it do?
It gives your Sims a new relationship type, Friends with Benefits. Any Sim can have this relationship with any number of Sims. Friends with Benefits are not jealous of each other, so they won’t mind to see their buddies interact romantically with others. You could even have a 4 adult Sim household with all of them Friends with Benefits with the other ones, if that’s what you wanted, for example.
What is this relationship type?
It allows for a romanceless romance relationship. Sims who are Friends with Benefits will have their romance stay at 0. They will not be jealous of each other. They will have access to a new menu, “Friends with Benefits”, within which they will find all love interactions that applies to them (note that some interactions are only for Sims who also have an official relationship and are basically regularly cheating with a ‘Friend with Benefits.’)
(There are two more interactions, “Offer to WooHoo in Hot Tub”, and “Make Out”, the latter available when sitting, just like the game’s original one. Note that Shower WooHoo is available only to owners of EP08 (Discover University); if you don’t have it, don’t use this interaction).
What Sims can ask another to be Friends with Benefits?
To be able to ask, Sims must be adult (= Young Adult to Elder). A Sim can’t make that offer to boyfriends/girlfriends and spouses. For some reason I also blocked it from ex-partners, I might change my mind later.
What happens when a Sim asks another to be Friends with Benefits?
Either the listener accepts or refuse. Acceptance grants a moodlet, sets romance to 0 and blocks it there, and grants the relationship status and pie menu. Refusal gives your Sim a negative moodlet.
A Sim that is in an official relationship (married or boyfriend/girlfriend) is much more likely to refuse your Sim’s advances. A single Sim is much more likely to accept. In either case, both acceptance and refusal are possible. (Because I don’t want to ruin anyone’s storytelling plans, you can ask again as many times as you’d like, so if the outcome with a specific Sim really matters to you, you’ll get that outcome eventually – if you have the patience. )
Once your Sim has the relationship status, they will feel Flirty near their friend with benefits. More on this later.
What is the relationship track, and how are points earned?
When Sims are friends, they gain friendship points. When they’re romantically involved, they gain romance points. Well, when Sims are Friend with Benefits, they earn Friend with Benefits points. These points are earned when using interactions from the ‘Friend with Benefits’ menu. You will almost never see point loss, because standards are rather low if all your Sim is looking for is a WooHoo buddy, and great conversation isn’t necessarily a requirement. The relationship will lose points, rather, through not seeing each other for periods of time.
The point of an FWB relationship, from my understanding, is to date without the commitment of sentiment. However, humans can’t always compartmentalize that easily (I know I couldn’t!), and getting too close can mean developing feelings.
So I built the track around this idea (but it’s optional, there are settings to play without this part if you don’t want it): if a Sim wants to not start having feelings for a Friend with Benefits, but still wants to have a good time and a comfortable relationship with them, they’ll aim to be somewhere towards the middle of the track. If the relationship gets too close, Sims start feeling sad when near their Friend with Benefits, instead of Flirty, which they would feel at lower relationship scores. They’d need to stay away for a while, so that the relationship gradually diminishes over time.
NOTE: you can turn this off!If you’re more into the idea of free love without sadness etc etc, you can turn off this system. You simply have to have ‘testingcheats on’ (open the cheat console with ctrl+alt+c, type in testingcheats on, then shift+click on your Sim, you’ll see the option to ‘Make Sim Unable to Fall for FWB’. You can turn it back on anytime in this same menu. If it’s turned off, Sims will not feel weird near a Friend with Benefits with high relationship, but simply more flirty instead. You can also set this for other Sims, by going to ‘actions’ then ‘No Strings Attached’. You can also set the eexact relationship level wanted there.
Other things:
* If the relationship has developed beyond 80 points, your Sim becomes able to “Ask to Become Couple“. If the other Sim is in an official relationship, refusal is much more likely than if the Sim is single. In either case, refusal and acceptance are both possible. Rejection will make your Sim sad…
… while acceptance will remove the ‘Friend with benefits’ relationship, free the Romance bar and fill it to 30.
* The Friend with Benefits relationship can be terminated at any time (Sims won’t do that autonomously, it’s up to you). Termination grants moodlets and of course removes the relationship.
*You can ask a Sim if they’re seeing others by “Ask about Seeing Others” (note that after being used, this interaction will be unavailable for a while – you can’t do it every hour). It’s similar to the game’s “Ask if Single”, except it will also tell you if this Sim is in another ‘Friend with Benefits’ relationship on top of the one they have with your Sim.
* Sims in official relationships and in a FWB arrangement can “Confess to Having an Affair“. If the listener is not in an FWB relationship too, they will get upset… If they are in a FWB relationship as well, however, they will be surprised, and your Sim too!
(I just thought it would be very amusing to have this situation!)
NOTES:
– If you use my mod “Road to Romance”, interactions between friends with benefits will grant romance skill points.
– If you use the Cheating Module of my mod “Contextual Social Interactions”, the interaction “Confess to Having an Affair” from a cheating Sim to their committed partner will trigger that mod as well, and give you all of its drama. Of course, if a Sim who is cheating with a FWB gets seen by their official partner, the mod will also trigger.
– As of now, Sims can’t autonomously ask others to become Friends with Benefits. I may consider have that happen, to the condition of your Sims being single, if you all seem to be wanting it to be 🙂
– There will be a few more WooHoo locations eventually.
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If you are having issues or questions, you can ask about it:
– In comments down below or in PMs
– In a PM on Twitter
– On the Discord Server
Curious about my other mods?
See mod index here 🙂
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