In The Sims 4 Royalty & Legacy, scandals are an interesting built-in gameplay mechanic that adds drama to your Sims’ social life. They start as little rumours or secrets that can escalate into full scandals if you choose to believe them or they get exposed in other ways.
Sims can keep a secret to themselves and hope it’s forgotten, but once someone finds out, it can turn into a full-blown scandal.
Once a scandal breaks, it can affect relationships, reputation, Dynasty Prestige, and even your Sim’s career progress.
How to Trigger Scandals
You can trigger scandals by snooping through trash, witnessing unusual or phony behaviour, witnessing a Sim doing something embarrassing in public, buying secrets, or simply believing rumour pop-ups about other Sims.
Using the Enchanted Mirror in Bellacorde can help you uncover lots of secrets.
You can also just straight-up ask your neighbors if they’re hiding any secrets, or if they’ve heard any juicy ones floating around.
You can uncover all kinds of scandals from Sims you know, but only if you share a mutual acquaintance.
You can also hop on your computer and reach out to the Information Broker. For 2,000 Simoleons, you can buy juicy secrets about any Sim you know.
Where Secret and Scandal Notes Are Kept
All the secret and scandal information is tracked in your notebook, where you can decide how to handle it.
There are four tabs available: My Secrets, My Scandals, Other Sims’ Secrets, and Other Sims’ Scandals. You can check how much time is left until a secret or scandal dies down, how severe it is, and what impact it has.
You can even profit from secrets and scandals by writing tell-all books or videos if you have the right expansion packs.
Here’s a rundown of possible scandals in The Sims 4
- Abandoned at the Altar: left their partner on the wedding day
- Ballroom Blunder: a noble agrees to dance with a commoner
- Bad Dog, No Biscuits: used Werewolf powers to scare other Sims
- Bring Me My Brown Pants: bladder failure incident
- Clowning Around: romance with the Tragic Clown
- Daddy Winter: romanced Father Winter during the holidays
- Defaced the Monument: vandalized the Monument in Bellacorde
- Forbidden Friends: friendship with someone from a rival dynasty
- Forged Family Tree: falsifying family connections
- Grim Lover: a romantic relationship with the Grim Reaper
- Gone Baby Gone: had a child taken away by Social Services
- Ignoble Duel Loss: lost a duel against a Commoner
- Indecent Employer: hooked up with hired staff
- Kissing Frogs: kissing too many royal frogs can hurt your reputation
- Nasty Little Letters: forging break up letters
- Plasma Thief: drinking another Sim’s blood without consent
- Robbing the Neighborhood: stealing from the rich to give to the poor
- Secret Child: a child kept under wraps
- Secret Lover: a hidden romance
- Star-Crossed Lovers: dating someone from a rival dynasty
- Sticky Fingered Filcher: stealing goods up to a certain value
- Suspicious Circumstances: a partner dies within three days of marriage
- To Do Voodoo: used a Voodoo doll on other Sims
- The Shadow Broker: secretly spreading scandalous information
- Unfair Fairy: draining another Sim’s Emotional Energy without permission
- WooHoo in Public: caught getting frisky in public
The Plasma Thief scandal requires The Sims 4: Vampires Game Pack, the Unfair Fairy scandal requires The Sims 4: Enchanted by Nature Expansion Pack, and the Bad Dog, No Biscuits scandal requires the Werewolf game pack.
How to Profit From Scandals
Once you’ve uncovered a Sim’s secret, you can try to extort them for money. Confront the Sim and make it clear you know their secret, then ask for whatever you want to get from them.
If you’re friends with the Sim, you can also simply promise to keep their secret, which can strengthen your relationship.
However, some Sims would rather deal with the fallout than be blackmailed. Also, some secrets won’t shake things up much.
If you’re climbing the ranks in the Noble Career, scandals can be a handy tool. For example, you can use scandals to get rivals to step down and steal their crown.
When you know a scandal involving a noble Sim, you can use it to extort them for things like:
- Abdication
- Breaking an alliance or calling a truce with rivals
- Favors for yourself as a commoner or for another royal
- Relationship approval and blessings
If the scandal involves a Sim who’s part of a dynasty, you can extort for:
- Headship: you can become the dynasty head
- Heirship: you can become the next in line for the dynasty head
- Declaring an outcast: you can force the dynasty head to choose a family member to be cast out
How to Deal With Scandals
What if you’re the main character in a scandal?
You can manage scandals in various ways: deny, apologise, handle them publicly with press conferences (if you’re a noble), or even weaponise them to extort other Sims.
You can also sweep scandals under the rug in a few ways. If you really want the cleanest outcome, your best bet is to remove all of the witnesses altogether.
You know what that means: getting rid of all the witnesses. There are plenty of ways you can achieve that.
You can also beg the other person to keep quiet, or pay off the Information Broker.
If you want to play it smart, you can always uncover a fresh scandal of your own. Odds are it’ll grab more attention, and the one with your name on it will quietly fade into the background.
Here are some examples of major scandals you can focus on to shift the attention from the scandal you’re involved in:
- Robbing the Rich: Sim is caught stealing from the wealthy
- Losing a Child: having a toddler, infant, or newborn taken by Child Services
- Forged Family Tree: using the Family Tree Tapestry to falsify family connections
- Unfair Affair Pregnancy: becoming pregnant while the Unfair Affair secret or scandal is active
When a scandal hits, your social life takes a hit, so get ready for it. Other Sims will avoid being seen talking to you until the drama dies down.
The Scandal Moodlet Takes an Awful Lot of Time to Clear
Scandal moodlets are quite persistent. They’re not always counting down or clearing properly, even after they’re resolved. Some players find it annoying enough that they’ve had to toggle scandals off in the pack settings to stop the icons from lingering forever.
How to Disable Scandals
You can disable scandals entirely in the Game Options. If you disable this option, scandals cannot be exposed.
Enjoy the drama!