Has anyone been watching The Handmaid's Tale? It's based on the book of the same title, by Margaret Atwood. I'm thinking of making a hood based on that, and would like some brainstorming ideas.

Here's what I'm thinking. I would create a normal hood and play it with my regular rules for a few rotations to get families moved in and individual story lines started. Then a war occurs (off hood), and things begin to change. The 11th rotation I would take the sims in the lower economic circumstances and halve their money (it's all taxed for the war). Then I would lower fertility in the higher economic group to 0 for all women and about half for the men.

The 12th rotation would find all women fired from their jobs and no longer able to work.

The thirteenth rotation would find the families of all lower-class groups broken up or living in hiding. The higher up groups could then begin teleporting in young women to act as handmaids. They would be locked in one room except for the ceremonies. Older women who were captured and teleported would become Marthas. A similar fate would await a handmaid who ages to elder. Men who were teleported and children/babies would become servants and/or soldiers.

I'm thinking this style of gameplay would work well with my OCD.

Anyone have any ideas?

I haven't watched (not sure I can in my country ) or read the book - that may be easier to do around here.

It sounds interesting, though my Sims will simply start a revolution if they are being taxed for a war (or at all ). As it is absolutely and completely different than my way of playing, I doubt if I can offer any good ideas, but I will be interested to see how this turns out!

It's on Hulu here in America. There was a movie based on the book. It was made quite a while ago. I don't remember it well, except it didn't do justice to the book. The book has probably 20-25 years on it. It's probably still easy to find, though. Margaret Atwood is the author.

So, the people in your military hood would object to being taxed for war. Interesting. lol

How would you play a family in hiding?

I had to read that book for english class a couple of years ago.

I'd lower fertility before the rotation where war breaks out.
I would teleport all children of lower ranking familys to the higher ones to get adopted. Mothers can be teleported in to serve as handmaids. Childless women can either become Marthas or work in the brothel (for high-ranking officers, of course), maybe according to age.

How long would you keep a handmaid? If I recall correctly, they had a limited number of tries (three?) with one family and then a limited number of familys (also three?) before they were given up on as handmaids. Don't really remember what happend to them, though. I think the handmaid didn't know and didn't think it was good. So maybe brothel afterwards or execute them?

Since ceremonys took place on their fertile days, maybe set a weekday since sims are always fertile.
If one gets pregnant, I'd throw dice for miscarriages or stillborn/deformed babys. Maybe 50% chance for miscarriage and 50% for a stillborn. A handmaid that had more than one miscarriage/stillborn also shouldn't be a handmaid anymore.

Get them a chance of escape if they meet a certain person by chance? Her maybe escaping was a big part of the book, after all.
Low-ranking males should serve as gardeners or guards. I'd leave ACR on to create some drama with that. If they get caught woohooing handmaids, both should be executed.

This sounds horrible. But also, might be fun. I'm not sure about the percentages of fertility/miscarriage/stillborns needed to make the neighbourhood survive. But on the other hand, that book was about a society dying from infertiliy, so it might not matter so much.

Great ideas! Thanks for giving it a thought.

I will do the miscarriage thing, but I'm not sure how to do a stillbirth. I guess if they get a bad die roll on the last day of pregnancy, I could make them miscarry and call it stillbirth.

A family in hiding will be locked inside their house. If they have to venture out for food, there will be a chance of their getting caught. They will have a choice of being shot trying to escape, being successful at escaping, or being captured. If they are, indeed, captured, there will be a fifty percent chance anyone living with them will be discovered as well.

Holding the ceremony is a good idea, and will give them about four tries to get pregnant. I will probably move some around, but I think I will give them the four tries in one family as a general routine. Of course, if the woman has a baby, she will have to be relocated once the baby is no longer an infant. Can't have her getting attached.

If she doesn't succeed at surrogacy before she becomes an elder, she will be binned for possible reassignment. If she turns elder while staying with a family, they will have a choice of keeping her as a Martha, though I doubt many will exercise that option.

Marthas and handymen who don't perform well will be executed.

The idea of a kept woman sounds great. I'll have to think how I can execute that. I think if the man of the family and the handmaid have a triple bolt, I can make that happen somehow.

And of course, ACR will make things interesting. If the handmaid were to fall in love with a handyman, I would try to make them escape. We'll see how that goes.

You're right. Existing children will have to be teleported to wealthy families.

I'm looking forward to it. I just started a hood in Sunny Meadows. I was planning a zombie apocalypse there, but I think I will do this instead.

How do I have a YA without sending her to college? I think I need that.

Yes, a woman with a successful pregnancy should be relocated to another family as soon as the baby is born! Can't waste those ressources, after all.

I guess you could simulate a stillbirth by aging up the baby (or just waiting) and then killing off the toddler? I think there are also mods out there to kill babys, but I don't have them so I don't know the name. Or just abort on the third day, but I kind of like the idea of them knowing the baby was born.

YA without college is also a mod I don't have, but I know it exists somewhere.

What do you mean by kept woman?

How many familys will you start with and how do you decide their status?

My pixels will object to being taxed. Some of them will probably go off to war quite happily, as long as they can punch the enemy.

(I am going to try to find the book via our library - they can normally order books from the bigger ones they don't have, and we are not bad at all in getting books written at any time, but we are not lucky enough to have that many television stations- well, we actually do have a lot, but most of them are pure rubbish. And we seldom see anything new, it is months old when it arrives here).

What do you mean by kept woman?

Oh, my I am old, aren't I? A kept woman is a woman who is a mistress to a married man, usually wealthy, who gives her a place to live and pays her living expenses. She's essentially another wife to support.

I'll ask about the YA without college on where can I find. I think I have the mod but I'm not sure and if I do have it, I never learned to use it. So, I'll check that out. But since my girls will no longer be going to college, I hate to lose that life stage, you know?

I'm just the opposite about killing an infant. I can't stand the thought. I have the WTFBBQ for example, but have never put it in my game. I just can't. I've learned how to let toddlers die during Purge days in my communist hood, but I don't think I could do that to an infant. I'll play around with just calling the miscarriage and stillbirth and see how satisfying (man, I'm sick) that is.

I typically start hoods with just one family. Since I started Sunny Meadows after my last round with my main hood, it already has a family in it. I like to do it that way because I can create families at my leisure, learning who they are and kind of deciding what direction they should go in. It also is a natural way to kind of stagger life stages. That can be difficult for me with my OCD. So, I'll use the short rotations at the beginning to kind of establish the hood story. You know, things are bad. The area is polluted and people are generally unhappy. There's saber rattling going on. That kind of thing. I think when I hit ten families, I will start the actual war.


EDITED FOR O/T. My status is still in remission and the doctor says I'm doing really great!

Good news Smorbie

Thanks, Maxon. I wanted everyone to know because you've all been so sweet an supportive, but didn't want to start a new thread about it.

I am so happy to hear that, smorbie1 - keep up the good work

Wonderful news! Lots of hugs!

For 'handmaid', read 'slave'. I hated 'The Handmaid's Tale'. It was all about enslaving women, and raping them. I'm glad to say that The Sims 2 does not support that style of play. You called for ideas: here's mine. I hope your new neighbourhood is a dismal failure. So there!

@music2ologist, you are being kind of nasty. That last part about hoping her neighbourhood was a dismal failure is a bit too much, though I do agree with your sentiment about being glad that Sims 2 does not support rape and the like. Being an egalitarian, I love the way Sims 2 gives men and women equal opportunity of success, and that it doesn't allow rape - if the other sim rejects, there's not a damn thing the sim wanting flirts or woohoo can do. However, there's really no need to insult @smorbie1 since she just wants to act out a story.

And yes, I know I am no angel. I've rubbed a few people the wrong way in the past, making a few silly posts because I was in a zany mood and feeling very lucky to be alive after an automobile accident that could have killed me. But please try to be a little nicer.

thank you, Jdcapio.

music2ologist, You had a very strong reaction to that book, I can see. It really touched a nerve. I read it many years ago and thought it was an interesting piece of scifi and nothing more. That was before I became aware of how women are treated in the Muslim religion. And it's bad, really bad.

But, here's the thing. My simmies aren't real people. And they aren't being raped. I'm not even going to portray it as rape. I have a couple of mods, ACR for one, and another Wild Sex, a Chris Hatch hack that allows sims to woohood without having a love relationship. That's all. I don't even know, nor have I ever tried to discover how one would mimic a rape in the game. That's just gross. In my hood, the women will be held in one room, but it will be a largish room with a tv (no books because women aren't allowed to read in Gilead) and a chess board, a bath a fridge. Handmaids must be kept reasonably happy in order to conceive after all. I may even give them a computer so they can chat with the other handmaids.

Obviously I'm being silly and that's probably inappropriate seeing as how seriously you have taken this. I'm truly sorry that this has upset you.

Read the book years ago, and it made me uncomfortable. The film was unwatchable, the author really knows how to hit raw nerves. I think your fantastically creative in trying to recreate this "fictional" community. Things that stood out for me from the book, was the theme's, something that seemed so far away, and at the same time, so near and possible. Modern and old living together. Well at least that's how I remember it. (unfortunately book is too upsetting to try to read again). The author calls this "speculative fiction" (what might possibly happen), rather than Sci-Fi (whatever you can imagine happening). Would love to see how you could work this out within the sims.

When I think of the book, I just remember the constant feeling of not being able to speak out, not being able to show emotion, not being able to run away, and not going mad and breaking. How you gonna keep you sims from chat/chatting every five seconds and hugging and playing red hands? This will be so interesting if you can pull it off.

Basically a 'handmaid' is kept apart from the couple that she is serving. She is not considered a household member. During her temporary presence in a Commander's household she is mostly restricted to her room. She does go out to shop for food items - always in the company of another handmaid.

When basing gameplay on a book, movie or historical era it is not necessary to be exact. What I do is to modify things to fit in with how the Sims operates. This is what film makers to when translating a book into a movie.

I read The Handmaid's Tale when it was first published. This year I've been rereading books that I first read decades ago. I am just finishing up The Handmaid's Tale and had no idea that there had ever been a screen play based on the book - and only this past week was made aware of the Hulu series. It truly is a well crafted piece of speculative fiction. What the author did was to take real bits of social, environmental, religious and political history all stirred into together.

I find this thread especially interesting seeing how I've been setting up my own 'speculative fiction' sims community - not based on this book, but, using the 'handmaid' as an ingredient. Historically a barren wife would have her handmaid to "lie with" her husband for the purpose of conception. The hand maid would give birth held onto and lying between the legs of the wife..as if the wife were giving birth. The wife would then become the child's mother. Obviously this can not be done this way with Sims. However, one can imagine that this is what happens. Reminds me of how in this time where we now live there are women who are paid to 'carry" and give birth another woman's biological child. Something that when I was a young woman would have been the stuff of "speculative fiction"!

By the way, the Sim Blender comes in handy for helping a handmaid to conceive. No affection, no flirting, no romance and no romantic feelings.

Interesting. You make me wanna try stuff like this one day. (Whenever I get the chance to fix my stupid game again) :P

What's wrong with your game?

Thank you for sympathising. The book made me shudder. As I recall, much of the story was about the efforts of one 'handmaid' to escape. I don't know whether she made it, because I could not finish the book. It reminded me of how the Nazis treated people like objects.

Of course, your scenario will not be nearly so nasty. Your neighbourhood may turn out well in the end.

I've really been amazed at how seriously many people took the book. As I said, I just read it as scifi. But I have the blessing of having been an adult when I read it. People who read it in class seem to be more affected by it.

When I was in school we still read "The Red Badge of Courage". Now, that was a bad book. Really bad.

We had to read the book for school, it was on the exam list. Glad they forced us to, made me think a lot about several issues. I had to, got points for critical analysis. I like the author, bought the book, and also got a copy on my bookshelf, but won't read it again. Also read her "Blind Assassin", another strange uncomfortable book about women. Her style makes me uncomfortable, so does the subject matter, but she's definitely worth reading.

My game.. sigh... started with some bad cc that kept crashing, never did find it. Then I removed Becks animals by accident, think I also got some major mod conflicts all over the place. Anyway, neighbourhood's a goner, so will start again and rebuild better than ever. This time I'm gonna try the blank and fixed template... Just as soon as I get some spare time. No real life time, but tons of ideas, and a list of new cc and mods to try out. That's why your post appealed... maybe some different things that I haven't tried in the last 13years.

Yikes, sorry to hear that about your existing hood, Diovanlestat, but if I may, I'm excited for you about your coming new one. Good luck with getting it going.

Your post also reminded me that I've never commented on how I feel about "Handmaid's Tale," but I had a very similar experience to yours: had to read it for school, found it really emotionally tough to get through, always thought it worth keeping but yet never have managed to pick it up again. I don't know enough from just the one book to generalize about Atwood's style, so it's interesting to know you've found at least another of her books tough but rewarding reading. Thanks, I'll keep that in mind---in fact, I'll put it on my to-do list to look through her book listings online later.

Smorbie, I would love to know what comes of your hood. It's a really challenging but interesting idea, IMO.

I don't understand how to do this, because 1. I don't like switching households, I'd rather stick with one family and 2. how many people should be in the starter family as I'm going to skip to where I can use the handmaids(Ugh I feel sick just saying that...) btw I've never read or seen the movie nor book.. so I don't really know what it's about...

The Handmaid's Tale is considered a dystopian novel, it's written by a Canadian author. I bought the book when it first came out and enjoyed reading it. When the series was being advertised on Hulu, I re-read the book, which seemed a bit scary compared to years ago. I guess considering how the world is going nuts, it makes you think more about the subject. Anyway, a family in the book consisted of a husband and wife, cook, maid and chauffeur for the male head of household, these households are more like the politicians of their town which was actually started with the ideas of one woman and her husband, she seems to have say over some things but the other 'wives' are not included in any decision making. There were also separate households for male children and female children. I'm not sure what happened to teens. Any other people they deemed worthy of living went to a brothel, a work camp and possibly some horrid place. Also there were their 'army' types, guards. Also the house where the handmaids were kept and taught the rules.
You may want to have one household with a couple who are the ones more in control of what goes on, there seems to be a pecking order in these households too. It seems to depend on the role of each head of household and what their job is, there's no info that I've seen on what their actual 'jobs' consist of. I didn't see the movie, maybe I'll search on Amazon Prime or Hulu, the series seems interesting so far. (: