Scandals system

[Neodarkside]

So the scandals sounded fun at first, but am getting annoyed with them, especially with Fairies and Vampires. They have Unfair Fairy and Plasma Thief, that if they use their powers to gain emotion/thirst, it causes a Scandal with severity medium. That much I'm ok with. But it feels like within the 7 days for it to fade away, I haven't gone without getting caught in a Extortion scandal by another sim, its 100%. And what I hate, its always a Sim that character knows. Good luck if that Sim was someone you were working on befriending. As of right now, once a extortion happens, there are no console commands or MCCC options to remove it, from what I've read, you can disable scandals in options and that clears it. And Yes, I am aware we can shut them off including NPCs finding your secret and Extorting you, I just want the system to be better, for example. 

 

I feel like dealing with the Extortion attempt is terrible, there is zero retaliation that I've found. Your options for the Extortion when it pops up is pay the fee or call their bluff. So far I've seen zero retaliation from the Extorter when I called their bluff on one of my Sims. Your options are, go online and apologize, go online and lie about it, write a book about the whole thing, nobles I guess can have a press conference, but that seems to be it. These ballsy Sims called out a Vampire and Fairy in my household. I couldn't find any interaction with the Sim, like Command: Threaten to drop extortion, or some Mean action that says "I will make your life a living hell if you don't stop". Or even if you dig up dirt on them and expose one of their secrets, you cannot counter Extort them to drop theirs. The thing is, my Sim wrote a Memoire book for their scandal/Extortion that had 3 days remaining, they received no money for publishing the book, the Scandal faded away on its own 3 days later, so I don't even know if the game was working fine.

 

So I don't know if I'm just not doing things right with the Scandal system, am I missing something, but OMFG there feels like ALOT of improvement. 

[Z0mBieP00Nani]

Scandals?...

[Neodarkside]

On 4/28/2026 at 10:33 AM, Z0mBieP00Nani said:

Scandals?...

 

The Royalty expansion added scandals. They start as secrets, Married Sim woohoos with another, the Secret is now semi exposed. Base game allows for random Sims to learn the Secret and expose your Sim in a Scandal and blackmail or extort the Sim. 

[Neodarkside]

20 hours ago, ethonkent said:

Infidelity specifically should have been included in either lovestruck or even growing together. While lovestruck added some mechanics you still can’t talk to your partner about it - only loyal trait sims can confess, but otherwise it’s only catching them in the act that allows sims to react but they can still on,y use generic breakup, argue and apologise options. The counselling options are also generic and nothing specific about cheating including if you have a baby that is not your partners. Options like in RPO mod would have been so helpful for gameplay.
 

 

The entire system is... mediocre, it really had room to be improved before implemented, really hoping for a player rework. I ended up turning off the Blackmail by NPC part of the DLC. The game ALWAYS picked a Sim my current Sim knows, even ones starting to become friends, or just creating a situation that is utterly stupid. Played Sim A and NPC are best of friends, SIm B is part of the household and also best of friends with Sim A. NPC suddenly wants to blackmail Sim B. Do you really think Sim A will be totally fine with that? How about a Sim who already hates my Sim? Sure I guess if my current Sim doesn't have any, or how about use one of the many Evil or Shady Sims already in my world? Why pick someone off my friends list?

 

And why is there ZERO retaliation? You Blackmailed a vampire..... just means you want your neck chomped. I found zero ways to confront the blackmailer. Zero Mean/Mischievous intereactions, finding their own secret does NOTHING as well. Like expose my Secret and I reveal yours! Plus the only thing I ever saw was Sims near my currently exposed Scandal Sim, all nearby SIms down is boo them and give a thumbs down. Reputation didn't decrease, Sims friendly meters didn't decrease. Even having my Sim write a novel to self expose their Scandal, I saw nothing happen. 

[DoctaSax]

Removed the post quoted above because a spam link was edited into it later.