What is autonomy?
Firstly, before the list of mods, what the heck is autonomy? I’m glad you asked! (You actually didn’t) Regardless, autonomy is what being a human is! You have values and thoughts that are your own! Adding autonomy to sims allows for further gameplay! Take religion (spoiler alert), if you look at someone who is religious versus not, the reason they do things, their decisions, are vastly different thus adding some spunk and drama in life. Now add that to the Sims where everything is spontaneous and godonly knows what’s going to happen.
1. More Traits Mod
The traits you can add to your sim are quite limited, thus limiting personality quite a bit. An excellent way to add more personality to your sims is by adding more traits. The original game only comes with a limit of three traits that you can give to your sim, this mod gives you two more optional trait slots, thus giving your sims more personality.
Mod features
- Toddlers get two trait slots
- Children get three trait slots
- Teens get four trait slots
- Young adults, adults, and elders get five trait slots
Get the mod here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/more-traits-in-62838078
2. Autonomous Proposal Mod
A problem with the original game is proposals. You see, for a proposal to happen, you, the player must decide. I mean, come on! As a player, I want MY sims to be surprised with a proposal! An easy fix to this is by downloading the autonomous proposal mod which makes it so your sim will “choose” if and when to propose. Additionally, NPC sims can ALSO propose, adding surprise for you! This mod also adds an option to add polygamy to your sim’s relationships!
Mod Features
- Autonomous Proposals
- Autonomous breakups
- NPC’s proposing
- Polygamy relationships
- No marriage restrictions
Get this mod here: https://modthesims.info/d/591860/autonomous-proposals.html
3. Better Sleep Autonomy Mod
Sleep is an odd topic regarding the sims. Every sim basically has the same terrible sleep schedule...ironically like me, but instead of going to sleep and staying asleep they will go to bed and wake up a million times until they literally die…at least that was always my experience. I mean, I also wake up a million times but I don’t DIE! Alas, this mod makes it so sleep schedules depend on the sim, some will sleep until they need to be awake and other sims will go to bed at the last minute and wake up last minute too! It all depends on the personality of the sim.
Mod features
- Proper sleep scheduling
- Player no longer controls when a sim goes to bed (making it autonomous)
Get the mod here: https://modthesims.info/d/663675/better-sleep-autonomy.html
4. The Life Decider Mod
Bored of making decisions for your sims? Or marrying an NPC just to have them have no personality? This mod fixes those problems! By randomizing every aspect of your sim INCLUDING friendships or degrees, it limits what your imagination needs to figure out and allows sims to be their own person offering YOU more gameplay!
Mod Features
- Randomly generates skills
- Randomly generates career
- Randomly generates income
- Randomly generates friendships and enemies
- Randomly generates degrees
- Randomly generates bonus traits
Get the mod here: https://www.kawaiistaciemods.com/post/the-life-decider
5. Small Vegetarian Overhaul
Sick of wasting one of your sim’s personality traits as vegetarian but still wanting sims to be vegetarian? This allows your sim to still eat vegetarian autonomously while also not losing a personality trait. It also makes it so you can choose throughout the sim’s life.
Mod Features:
- Allows sims to be vegetarian without losing a personality trait
- Can make a sim become vegetarian or stop being vegetarian later in the game
Get this mod here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/small-vegetarian-45598334
6. First Impressions Mod
Just like real life, everyone has first impressions of people, negative, positive, a little in between. If we humans have them, why shouldn’t sims have them too? This mod adds moodlets to your sim after first meeting someone that lets them experience first impressions. First impressions aren’t controlled by us the player but instead by chance, which gives your sims a larger sense of autonomy.
Mod Features:
- Variable moodlets appearing after meeting a new sim for the first time.
Get this mod here: https://lumpinoumods.com/2020/12/08/first-impressions-mod/
7. The Hopes and Fears Mod
Everybody fears and wants things. Looking for a mod to add whimlets that occur after certain circumstances? Maybe a whimlet after your sim experiences a fear, or even desire. Add this mod to your gameplay then!
Mod Features:
- Overhauls and adds whimsets based off specific circumstances or aspirations
- Adds more potential fears
- Adds whimlets for venues.
Get this mod here: https://modthesims.info/d/670360/the-hopes-amp-fears-mod-version-1-2-0-1.html
8. Smoking Mod
Addiction. Something many people will experience in their lives…so obviously the best idea is to add it to your game too! Depending on how you play the sims, many players might choose to go for a more realistic approach and that includes adding circumstances you can’t always control like addiction. This mod gives more realism to your game and your sims personality while also making them look cool. That is a joke kids, smoking is never cool.
Mod Features:
- Smoking animations
- Addiction mood buffs
Get this mod here: https://necrodogmtsands4s.tumblr.com/post/169939984705/smoking-mod-v4-addiction-system-by-basemental
9. Food Holiday Traditions Mod
Food has always been an important part of my life. While I do not have a strict schedule when I eat specific foods, often times after a big exam or finishing a school semester I will treat myself with my favorite food, like donairs, pho or sushi. Who says sims cannot be the same way. With this mod they are able to celebrate the food they love by adding a holiday or event into the calendar. Just a new way to celebrate food.
Mod Features:
- Adds food tradition event.
Get the mod here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/49351794
10. Meaningful Stories Mod
Sometimes people are tired, sad or uncomfortable, maybe happy or very comfortable. However, they may be feeling, those feelings can be caused by small things like terrible plumbing or big things like a forgotten birthday. However, those feelings might come up, adding them to the sims creates more realism to the game, making emotions seem more dynamic which is precisely what this mod does.
Mod features:
- Added moodlets
Get this mod here: https://roburky.itch.io/sims4-meaningful-stories
11. Contextual Social Interactions
Are you looking for a more conversational sims 4 gameplay? Something that will improve dialogue options for your sim. This game adds more talking subjects that can both happen by your choice or automatically, depending on your sim’s personality. The more stoic a sim is the less likely of them to talk about more serious subjects.
Mod Features:
- Improved autonomous dialogue options including divorce, pregnancy, and more!
Get this mod here: https://lumpinoumods.com/2020/10/20/contextual-social-interactions/
12. Rambunctious Religions Mod
Religion is pretty important to day to day life. Even if you are not religious, many social norms and government systems come originally from religion! While this mod doesn’t add “real” religions, it adds some fake ones to the game! You won’t find Judasim or Christianity but you will find “Worship of the Watcher” or “Cult of the Cowplant”. While meant to be a humorous mod it can still be used seriously to add some religious routine (if your sim chooses).
Mod Features:
- Four new added religions
- Interactions based from religion. Ex: Praying, converting, mocking, arguing.
- Religious Events
Get this mod here: https://lumpinoumods.com/2020/10/20/rambunctious-religions/
13. LGBTQIA+ Gender and Orientation Overhaul Mod
You can do and be anything in real life! The only consequence is what people say to you and how they treat you. In the Sims 4, there is no barrier of peoples responses to you identifying as a particular member of the LGBTQIA+ community but there is the barrier of the game not having a huge amount of options to specify your identity. This is where this mod comes in, overhauling gender and orientation.
Mod Features:
- Gender Identification
- Ability to transition genders
- Being able to identify as a particular member of the community
- Lot traits
- Coming out event
Get this mod here: https://lumpinoumods.com/2022/06/07/lumpinous-lgbtqia-mod/
14. Relationship & Pregnancy Overhaul
While this mod technically adds seventeen different ones to your game, I feel as though it is an integral one to giving your Sim more autonomy. It gives your sim an opportunity to make choices or experience things that the game would otherwise not provide. Miscarriages, dating apps, paternity tests, etc. It adds that added aspect of pregnancy and sexual health that is so interesting to play with!
Mod Features:
- Dating App
Relationship issues
Surrogacy
Paternity Testing
Teen Pregnancy
“Woohoo” transmitted diseases
Protection from pregnancy
Custody Arrangements
Miscarriages
Side effects of pregnancy
Mod Features:
- Memory Acquisition
- Visualizing Memories
- Moodlets.
Get the mod here: https://lumpinoumods.com/2022/10/30/memory-panel-a-memory-system-mod/
15. Memory Panel Mod
Memories are such a human experience. Sims aren’t humans but that does not mean we cannot pretend! This mod allows the sim to remember experiences and reminiscent later on in the game leading to a moodlet.
Mod Features:
- Memory Acquisition
- Visualizing Memories
- Moodlets.
Get the mod here: https://lumpinoumods.com/2022/10/30/memory-panel-a-memory-system-mod/
