So, I currently have myself in a bit of a conundrum.

I like playing University and currently, about a 25 percent of my teen playables and a few townies are now at University. My problem is that I like to play all playable sims in my neighborhood. I never neglect any household in my main hood.

Then I stumble over the fraternity and the sorority in University. Not only are the houses horrible, but I don't feel any real inclination to play these two houses. I barely managed to play through the fraternity. Now I'm playing the sorority and I have absolutely no care to finish.

What do you all (for those who play University) do with your sororities/fraternities?

I can't stand them. I usually sell absolutely every last scrap of furniture in the house, so the Sims will have a reasonable amount of money each, then move them all out, put them in a 'storage dorm' along with the bin students (i.e. a dorm I don't actually play, but it allows other students to interact with them and phone them), then play them in individually when I have a vacancy in a regular dorm.

Nothing. I have played Greek houses before but always mixed. These days I use custom made universities.

I made my own sorority and fraternity houses. Ashley, Castor and the other guy (one of the Reuben brothers) moved into my Sims' frat house. Kevin Beare, my favorite of the group, dropped out of college and married Stella Terrano after she graduated university. The sorority gals were invited to visit my Sims' sorority house, but none of them were invited to move in. Instead, my sorority house became a coed house. And the games' sorority gals were mostly ignored.

No university in my current hood.

I never got a chance to play the premade ones (except briefly in Black Mesa, where one of my second-gen Sims joined one) but in Springwater I set one up in Academie Le Tour with a bunch of my own Sims. It was a little chaotic.



I recreated them in Oakbrook, but haven't gotten to play them yet. I kind of hope it's just as crazy. It was fun.

In my old hood, I used them all the time. I had 2 frats (rich networking male sims and slacker party male sims), and the Tri-Var sorority. Tri-Var become somewhat of an institution. Only the most popular (as in lots of friends, not popular aspiration) female sims got to join, as well as the legacies. I expanded the house and usually had 6-8 girls living in it. They threw daily parties. At one point, I started having portraits painted of all the Tri-Vars who lived in the house as a record of who was there through the generations. I think I still have pictures on my external; I'll have to look. It was a lot of fun.

I keep thinking I'll start that again in my current hood, but I'm much more selective about who I send to university now. I'll only have 15 people at university at any given time. A Greek house with only 4 people is boring, and so is having three-quarters of the students all in one fraternity together. I did make the Lam Plaza Dorm at Academie Le Tour an all female, all playable dorm as kind of a unofficial sorority, though.

Never touched them. I should try them sometime. I use empty hoods, so there are no premade ones, but I've never made one either. I guess it's just not a part of University life to me.

I use the Greeks all the time. They accumulate quite a bit of money and can easily afford to update their architecture as often as I feel like it. First thing to do, at Tri-Fruhm or Tri-Var, is to edit the upstairs so that the girls have access to double beds, too - though I haven't yet succeeded in making all the rooms big enough for them, as is true of both fraternities. Hmph.

Anyway, it's way too late for me to go into detail about all I do with the Greeks, but they are great for connecting sims, stocking up on pizza for future food emergencies, parties, household visiting, and reducing the number of households I play per subhood. Tune in tomorrow for more details.

I use dorms - 6 room ones, I have 9 of them, the same dorm, different paint - and all 6 sims in each dorm are playable, and there are currently 36 playable students.

I don't use the Greek houses, those are not found here and I did not enjoy playing them either.

Hmmm. Now you guys have me thinking.

Maybe just one coed frat/sorority. I can shove them all in one house and deal with the insanity later.

My Greek houses had so much pizza! They would bring home 1-2 every day. The only meal I had to cook was breakfast. I do miss them bringing home random stuff all the time. "Oh, on my way back from class, I picked up this loveseat." Thanks?

Found the pics. I still remember all their names. Once the dining room was full, I filled the upstairs hall. There were probably 40 portraits. Sadly I didn't get pics of that before hood got borked.

I used all of the playable to make an hood to play them in, got them all hooked up with the most bolts and went to town with the hood.
That was a long time ago and I just leave them alone now.

most of my university playing has been in AnyGameStarter.
main game; so far only in temporary neighborhoods. not yet in the pre-made neighborhoods.

have not done much playing in the Greek Houses; most playing has been in the private housing.

I only play Peni's, like Land Grant - o wait was that Peni? Her FACES! I had all the Sorority girls try for a "face lift" - but only if it "fails". That way when they start having babies I can be surprised at what they look like! One of them flunked out, pregnant by a Professor. I like that hood better than Quadington with it's zombies. Land Grant is 1st univ I've played in long time, they bore me.

I haven't played any yet! I only installed University this year, and started playing uni by playing Peni's LGU attached to Baldrair Bluffs, a new custom main 'hood 3 days sailing further up the great Simourris River. I started by playing a couple of students I'd made myself and moved into dorms. (I think dorms are best for new students who don't know anyone.) Then I played the Nerdists in the Compound Dorm, and was just starting on the Printer Sisters before moving on to the Greek Houses, when Jo started up her Community Spirit contest, and I got completely hooked on that. Since the contest finished I've been tidying up loose ends (and having a bit of fun) in the main 'hood of Baldrair Bluffs. I'm now just ready to go back ad play the Printer Sisters and the Greek Houses. I'm hoping the anticipated post from Peni will give me some inspiration!

Andrew Jones, my original teen Sim in Veronaville is quite excited about the idea of Greek Houses and toga parties, but they are completely new to me and I don't really know what to make of them. I don't think we have anything like them on the UK. I think Andrew wants me to play the ones at LGU, so that I learn something about them before he goes. I think they may be a little like the Studentenverbindungen and Burschenschaften I came across in Germany, but I didn't know any Germans who were in such a thing, and the ones I did speak to about the Verbindungen thought they were old-fashioned and reactionary, though they had been progressive back in 1848!

@AndrewGloria - Greek houses are actually fraternities and sororities. They're pretty common in the US. Maxis called them Greek houses for....some reason.

@AndrewGloria Sororities and fraternities in the states are like exclusive clubs. I'm not sure if this is the best equivalent, but think of a dining club, but they see each other even more often and live in the same large residence often during college/university years.

Well it depends on the college/university really. Some like Harvard and such do have off campus residences for their frats/sororities. Some may even just have a floor of a dorm just for them like mine did. They really are a dying breed though now with all the bad press these days sadly.

"Bad press"? Do they have orgies or something? I foresee a sudden interest in university amongst my Romance and Pleasure teens.

Yes, Grammapat, LGU is mine.

I've explained at length about Greek houses before in a thread somewhere around here - possibly the one Andrew made when he was considering whether he should or should not add University - so I'll be brief at this time. The Greek House concept is, as far as I know, uniquely American and has, like all American institutions, a very messy history and continuum of meanings. At base, however, a Greek House is founded by a group of friends at college for their mutual economic, academic, and social support. They live communally near campus in a building owned by the Greek Association, and are supposed to treat each other as family - whatever that may come to mean. They are traditionally male- or female-only houses, because when they were invented men and women did not attend school at the same campuses, and because the concept of having single male and female students living together and possibly (gasp!) having premarital sex has only become acceptable in my lifetime. If you want co-ed houses, all you have to do is pledge people regardless of gender.

Different fraternities, especially the big-name ones that go national rather than not spreading beyond their founding institution, have different subcultures. Phi Beta Kappa, for example, is an elite fraternity - you have to get the right grades and know the right people to get in. Others may be known as "the jock sisterhood," "the party frat," "the artsy-fartsy sorority," or whatever. Membership is by invitation only, which over time creates in-campus elites drawing on similar backgrounds; you know your campus is finally properly integrated when you start seeing brown faces in the old Greek houses, and white ones in the ones founded in the 60s by brown students who couldn't break the class/race barrier. Pledging and initiation rituals grew up for the same reasons they always do - they were fun to think up, provided structure and tradition, and increased group bonds within the organization.

Maxis Greeks, like a lot of Maxis coding, take and run with the stereotypes about Greeks, hence the pizza and scrounged furniture and tech. Frat parties are famously wild and often themed, with guests expected to show up in a more or less appropriate homemade costume put together with clothes and props readily to hand. The "toga party" was popularized by the film Animal House, with John Belushi and at some point became iconic. It's just a party where people dress up in sheets and try to party like a Roman, usually interpreted as drinking and kanoodling a lot. It is this sort of rep that leads Pleasure and Popularity sims to have the most chance to roll wants to join a Greek.

Pledging provides a period of vetting during which the existing members can decide if a particular frat is someone they want to be brothers with. The oldest, most elitist frats have a bad rep for hazing, in which the granted authority of upperclassmen to create and administer pledge and initiation rituals exceeds reasonable legal bounds and becomes sadistic or downright criminal, and Maxis has of course written that out - the worst things a brother/sister can influence a pledge to do are cheat (do my assignment, term paper, whatever) and flirt with an inappropriate person. In fact the only difference between the pledge influence menu and the normal one is the influence point cost, which is always 0 during the pledge period. And playables can skip the pledge period altogether by inviting the house over and schmoozing them.

So like everything else in Sims2, Greeks are what the player decides to make them.

My first Greek Houses were the ones at SSU, which automatically lost their lily-white straight monied membership when Eppie Curian (Pleasure) and Greg Aerious (Popularity) of Drama Acres pledged. Eppie's first act was to remodel an upstairs room, forever after known as "Eppie's Room," to be big enough for a double bed, and invite her then-girlfriend Leslie Gay over to woohoo in it. Greg invited his boyfriend to pledge and put a double bed in what became known, till the house's unfortunate destruction by falling satellite, as Greg-and-Ben's Room.

Over the years I've played a lot of Drama in both houses and have established traditions, the first of which is that Urele-Oresha-Cham and Tri-Var are sister/brother houses to each other and maintain close ties. Incoming pledges male and female get makeovers (even the playables) in the Sorority Chair. New members throw celebratory togas, and friends and family of members also get parties to introduce them to campus. The Senior Member is in charge of finances and sets policy, which usually means that they redecorate to suit themselves and buy or rearrange furniture to reflect their own interests. Sometimes this means that the Senior Member blows stuff off and nearly bankrupts the place; sometimes it means that parties are replaced by study sessions. Cooking, cleaning, and repair are shared by all members, with students who need points in the relevant skill given priority on the job roster, so that there's a reasonable chance of them passing their classes even if they never roll wants to skill. Art students paint still lives, portraits, and custom paintings to decorate the house, and photobooth photos are also house property, so that after a few semesters the place started having a very lived-in feel. Date/outing rewards and items brought back "from campus" are the property of the person who receives them, though pizza is usually shared and furniture that the house actually needs might be donated. It doesn't take long for a continuously-running house to build up grant money, though, and upgrade their furnishings, layout, and grounds. Tri-Var has a back patio with a hot tub, a hobby shed, a barbeque area, and a fountain, while landscaping includes a small vegetable garden, an apple tree, and plenty of shrubs and flowers, planted by a nature hobbyist and not always properly tended by the members. Urele-Oresha-Cham, however, got buggy and I squashed it in a shower of satellites along with other buildings I was sick of on campus. The brothers are now literally camping next to the gaping hole that used to be their frat house, and have managed to build a shower block and throw some really good parties. They even managed to rescue some of the old pictures.

Rules and traditions are similar at LFT. Tri-Fruhm went co-ed when Almeric Davis (the gay one) respected Aldric (the straight one)'s wish to have the frat be His Thing, unshared by his brother. Almeric didn't see why this should deprive him of his long-anticipated Greek life, and the girls didn't, either. That's a special case, though. Tank Grunt and his boyfriend David Ottomas moved into the frat together, and both houses threw Pride Parties.

I keep thinking I need to come up with pledge initiation traditions, like pledges must wear beanies or cross-dress or something, but I keep never quite doing it. I always have so much going on in a Greek, with everybody having different class hours, different needs and wants, different and sometimes conflicting priorities, that I tend to forget plans while I'm playing them, and just roll with what goes on. I definitely need to do something like that at LGU. Andy Bellum is exactly the kind of guy to come up with stupid initiation rituals that he thinks are hilarious.

When I have a dormie I want to move in, the Greeks are a convenient mechanism to do so. If I have playables I want to be friends, the Greeks are a better facilitator than the dorms, because they live family style without a bunch of dormies in the way, and because they are set up better for entertaining. Even sims who wouldn't ever pledge, themselves, may be friends or relatives with a brother/sister and be included in parties, outings, or just hanging out (invite household).Lots of Drama and new friendships/romances happen at the Greeks, where they can Call to Meal, afford amenities like hot tubs and karaoke machines or pool tables that are beyond the budget and space resources of sims in residences, and someone is always available to distract enemies, introduce potential lovers, influence people to interact, and throw out the cow mascot. (I don't ban the cow. The cow has its uses and in any case is a normal game hazard. I'd feel I was cheating if I got rid of them; and I'd also miss some of my best stories.) The Greeks are also a convenient source of dates for my Pleasure and Romance sims, whether they pledge or not. I don't put double beds in dorm rooms (it wouldn't have been allowed at the college I attended) and dating the Greeks guarantees dorm dwellers a shot at ditching that pesky virginity in private.

Of course, so do residences; but I find that residences are expensive to get into initially. I like using residences, if only because sims are forced to learn to cook in them, but the affordable ones are so tiny! I prefer big households, and with the high turnover of University students and my lack of emphasis on working for scholarships in high school, without the Greeks I'd have a hard time affording them. It's true that there's a couple of non-Greek residences that have been continuous since the beginning and have accumulated lots of clothes, furniture, and deco; but one will comfortably accommodate a maximum of four people and is running out of room, and I can't see letting students remodel a house they don't own; also, it's sometimes a strain figuring out why a student who needs to go there, would The other has a membership restricted to certain families and those who get engaged to them, so that sometimes it's bursting at the seams and other times one student is rattling around in it. The Greeks have control over their own infrastructure, plenty of room, and logical reasons both for keeping as full a house as possible and for all the people in that house to try to get along and know each other intimately, which is a huge part of my gameplay.

I like big, well-integrated households, and my rotations sprawl so much that I need ways to restrict the number I have. Very few of my sims spend their entire college careers in the dorms. It's only fun for most of them for a limited time. The limit on size of parties, the dormies wandering off when you're trying to schmooze them, the inability to escape that dormie who's decided one of the playables is a punching bag, the monotonous meals, the stereo that is never off for five minutes together and which that one dormie keeps switching to the station that makes your teeth ache, and my double-bed restriction? Naw, that has a limited shelf life for me. The Greeks are a cost-effective alternative combining the benefits of dorm life with those of residential life, and cuts out most of the drawbacks of both.

They also pay dividends down the line. People who were in the Greeks together tend to be friends for life. They put together social groups and call on them for good times and bad. Heather was so low-energy she always needed help during her pregnancies, and the girls would come over to clean, fix things, and help out with the kids. Out of money for food? Good thing you put those pizzas into inventory while they were piping hot six years ago! Spouse kicked you out in a game with No $20K handout? You can crash on your frat brother's couch. Meanwhile, your other frat brother who married her sorority sister invites you, his wife invites your wife, both use Couples Counseling on you, feed you, and pull you into a hot tub to discuss things rationally. In a profession that needs lots of friends for promotion? No problemo - you're Tri-Var and have friends out the wazoo in all walks of life.

So when I put together the Greeks at LGU, I gave them large houses provided by the national organizations of both houses and gave them starter memberships of two each. Lots of room for parties and improvement over the years, plenty of space for skilling objects and things brought from campus, plenty of bathroom space, unfortunate decor that can be upgraded over time, and the members are one Popularity and one Romance in each, so as to provide plenty of incentive to make those social contacts that are at the heart of simulated Greek life.

I considered starting them both on bare plats of land; but anybody can start a House that way if they want to, and University doesn't have any camping objects.

ETA: They're called Greeks because it's easier to say than "Fraternities and sororities" over and over. The term refers to the custom of identifying different houses with different combinations of Greek letters, which dates back to the very earliest days of American Universities, when Latin was required and Greek was an elite subject. The first ones wanted to give themselves airs, you see, and now everybody does it because That's What You Do.

Anyone seen the movie, Animal House? It might give you ideas about ways to set up a fraternity in your game ... and reasons to thoroughly vet the Greek organizations your children consider joining. :-)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077975/

You really can't prepare better for playing Maxis Greeks than watching Animal House and Legally Blonde. Animal House showcases the stereotypes of Greek life (all of which, like most stereotypes, have their basis in reality - it's what makes them so dangerous), and Legally Blonde showcases the ideals of it. Too bad Elle doesn't live in a sorority house after she gets into Harvard Law; but in the opening scenes you can see that the girls provide a safe, supportive environment to their members, and the plot has Elle loyally standing by a Sister by Common Membership and triumphing on her behalf.

That makes sense. I thought it was something to do with them not being strictly single-gender -- would you call a coed one a fraternity or a sorority?

I am not familiar with one. If you do the old Google and scan the results, though, you'll find that the term most often used seems to be "co-ed fraternity" (since the default gender of humanity, in English, is male so brother is a generic term, sigh). Service fraternities - organizations specifically formed as living associations for college students dedicated to active volunteering in community service activities - in the US have to be co-ed as such organizations are forbidden to discriminate on the basis of race, sex, gender identity, etc., and often the term "co-ed fraternity" is considered to be synonymous with "service fraternity."

In a real-world American college, with the high incidence of sexual assault on campus, sororities have plenty of incentive to restrict their ranks to those identifying as female. In Sims, this is not a concern unless the player has consciously decided that it should be a concern, so the gender-neutral term Greek is handy.

In my current hood, I got rid of them. They're moved into normal dorms. I've considered making Greek houses again, but just am not that interested.

When I did play them, outside of the Maxis houses, I went co-ed. It was just easier for me that way.