@ieta_cassiopeia - is it Pescado's autonomy controller thingy? I use it quite a bit to control autonomy on an object-to-object basis, though usually for lot visitors who seem a little too eager to do the laundry all the time.

In general, though, I prefer mods that nerf autonomous actions rather than completely disabling them - for instance, twojeff's Play and Social Sanity Fixes.

@xBlackHeartx Everyone have a "Different Style" of playing their Sims game, if playing with Free Will turn off is your choice and it make you happy and work for you than that ok for you.
But there are some big disadvantages of Not having "Free Will Turn On". For example the Sims are very smart they can think for themselves ( lol sometime ) and do for themselves without the players directing them.

You also can miss out on animations the Sims can do ( If you have Free will off ) and some of the animations can be rare to see, sometime you may or may not see that animations again. So having Free Will On can be rewarding.
I look at Free Will this way, ask yourself the question would you like your own Free Will turn off in real life ? If your answer is NO than those little Sims Pixels want to be FREE.

Which is a good example of what I was taking about. You as the player help set the scene for what your sims do/how well they take care of themselves. A new player would unthinkably place the bike and get surprised, the reaction to that would vary.
A seasoned player would purposely either leave it out or place it knowing the outcome. So now if you hoped to have living sims you wouldn't place the bike. I've played the challenge twice and I've only lost 2 sims. That was to an outside tree fire. Last time I decided I had planned out the lot and items far too well since nobody died! Which is the flip side of being a seasoned player.

Turning free will off is essentially murder in my game. I get distracted controlling one sim and the next thing I know their spouse is peeing themselves and starving while their kids are hanging out by the street because I forgot they got home from school a few hours ago. Plus, it's kind of boring. There's essentially no "game" with free will off, just motive maintenance.

The only time I play with free will off, is if I have something specific for them to do, like a family photo.

What, you think I'm a control freak!? I am insult. I always let them do whatever they want. Not. Actually, now that you mention it, I am going now to find a big family I don't care about and not tell the little ingrates what they should do. Without my careful and loving help I am sure they all suffer horrible and die. I will document their static deaths.

10% of the time I just sit back, relax, and watch chaos unfold.
the other 90% I dedicate to building, looking at my lots, and never playing in Live mode.

wow I need to rethink my simming habits.

Why, if you're having fun?
There's only one wrong way to play sims - the way in which you don't have fun!

Yep! I think they're hilarious when arguing for position in the bathroom, or to use the shower!

Actually, I don't use many behavioral mods in my game. The only ones I use is "Stay off my computer/tv/piano/etc." mod,
and that DANG blasted "Stuff Face" action that I can NOT stand! FINALLY found the mod to eliminate that travesty. THANK you, @joandsarah77!

I couldn't imagine playing with free will off! Too much to miss!

LOL, I had a toddler do that with the custom piano and I actually left it to see just how long it would take for him to get off it. He got off the piano, cried about his tiredness, then got straight back on at least ten times before someone else in the household inserted a pick up toddler in his queue. Every time he got off it was like the piano just sucked him back on. XD

Once, a very long time ago, I turned free will off by mistake when setting up the game during installation.

Then during playing, I wondered why they weren't doing anything but standing there. Discovered my mistake.

I turned it back on, and left it there.

I haven't regretted it yet. The pause button works when I need a picture or a pose.

Something that I need to try consistently at some point is the traditional Big Brother like situation of "let's put six sims in a big house with free will on and see what happens, every week one of them gets eliminated", possibly with elimination games involving ridiculous costumes and tasks to complete.
But yes, I feel like free will is part of the game, in an hypotetic gameplay scenario I'd control directly only my "protagonist" and leave everyone else the free will (much like real life I'd say) except for extreme cases.

Speaking of those exercise bikes, I never really witnessed anyone get magnetized towards them. Then again I hardly have them placed in homes unless there's enough room. On the other hand those treadmills are very popular, at least in community lots. The AI-controlled Sims will use those nonstop until they're too dirty or too exhausted, then they'll just collapse on the machine before leaving. I've seen some Sims wisely stop early, giving them time to replenish their needs (although they don't brew their own coffee). These are the kind of Sims I am less worried about, as they know how to take care of themselves easily.

Pretty much always. Before I found the "lessfeedbaby" mod, I would turn freewill off when there was a baby in the house, just to stop the endless feeding of an infant who didn't need it, but then that meant toddlers couldn't play with the toys of their choice, plus I would forget Sims who'd just got home from work or school until they started yelling at me or I got threatening messages from the Social Worker. On one occasion, freewill was off when I went to answer the door; I didn't get back until a good half-hour later, by which time one adult was dead and the other within a millimeter of death, the toddler and baby had disappeared, and the only happy one was the cat (pets always have freewill, so it could ask to be fed, and Sims can respond to pet requests even with freewill off).

Now the only time I turn it off is when I'm trying to get one Sim to propose to another, so they don't wander off halfway through what is supposed to be a romantic moment. Sometimes I have to remove an object such as a chess table or exercise bike, because Sims become fixated to the point of collapse, but for the most part if a Sim doesn't have anything in their Wants box that I feel is worth my attention, I just let them choose their activities. At university, I'll often put several single Sims in one dorm and play it not only with freewill on, but also on triple speed, only intervening a couple of times a day to make sure they study if they want to (because there are many things they can't study autonomously). It's resulted in some good marriage choices by my little pixel friends, with no effort on my part required.

There's a fix for the exercise bike problem, y'all.
Plus you don't have to use the thing if you don't want to.

I need the free will on. I honestly am not even sure *how* to turn it off - assuming of course that I'd ever want to. And I don't. Most of my style of play is to drop in mods that control autonomous behaviours that are annoying and prevent smart socialising. I also add in mods like ACR and triplets and quads... and then I set up the household and watch magic happen.

As long as it makes sense, I love it. And for me, makes sense is "can I rationalize this?" so yeah. Witches who get pregnant for their best friend's boyfriend and werewolves sharing an apartment. I can and do rationalize all of that. And it's hella entertaining. It's the little things though, like watching one toddler out of a set of quads consistently chose the logic toy and thinking 'maybe that means she's gifted, so she's now the smart one in the group and her life will head towards education', or watching two sims refuse to roll wants for anyone but each other. Seeing one of my cannon sims Johnnie fall in love with a townie all by himself. I love that. I never would have thought to put them together, and I wasn't even playing Johnnie's house at the time. He just showed up on a lot and started wooing Steven and I was like, omg. This is HIS choice. There's something really special in seeing them all grow as characters, and I play the same set of sims every time, but every time is different. They make different choices, surprising things happen. It's wonderful.

Free will off would be a bit like those dress up doll games that were popular when I was a kid in the early 2000s.

I've heard of it, but never turned it off. It would seem weird to me if my Sims didn't run around getting into trouble all the time, lol.

Although, i am writing a massive story right now and sometimes when i am trying to pose them it gets difficult, but for me that's part of the fun of the game.

Once when i was playing a large family I wanted to have them all pose for a family photo in a pretty garden--I've got every age from infant to elder--can you imagine how hard it was to get all of them standing nicely together? With one holding a baby? But it was fun--the challenge of figuring out how to manage stuff like that is what i like about the game.

I used to always play with it off, then I started turning it on sometimes especially if I had a large household unless they had a baby or toddler. I'm going to start fresh soon though and am going to try to always have it on though they'll still end up usually doing things I direct them to do, especially with smaller households. The bigger ones though free will on can be a requirement or they'll just end up standing around sometimes because there ends up being too many to micromanage lol

first times playing, free will was frequently on.

recent times playing, most of the time free will has been off.

Link, s'il vous plait?

I picked up on it because the OP mentioned it, plus it's a really good example of how a person who plays with free will off won't learn about how objects like that work. I didn't know there was a fix so I will second the wanting of a link.

You've got at least two choices for modding the exercise bike.

Exercise bike game correction
or
No auto exercise bike

There might be more but those are the ones I'm aware of. Enjoy your sims no longer being killed by their bikes! :D

I can't help but think of one of the insane asylum challenges I saw on Youtube, and the first inmate to kick the bucket used the exercise bike nonstop. Since the Youtuber wasn't allowed to check that Sim's motives, it was clearly inevitable.

Thank you rielynn71 I will take my chances with the MTS mod since I would like sims to use it autonomously, just not to death. <_<

Nopke made one too: http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=599843