I know this is a tad off-topic but is anyone playing with the "meaningful stories" and "have some personality please" mods? If so, should I look into getting them or are they not as good as they're hyped up to be?
Okay, take my word with a grain of salt, because I haven't been able to thoroughly test both mods with and without in recent Sim play, especially Personality Please, but I can say meaningful stories have and shows immediate result as soon as you put it in your game:
Let's start with Meaningful Stories, as I know the (almost) full impact it has on my game play, granted, it's been a while since I've played an unmodded Sims 4 (2015 was the last time I've been vanilla), so maybe things changed? However, first let me explain why I've added Meaningful Stories into my game, before I tell you what it actually does:
Because my sim's emotions were all over the place, thanks to moodlets being thrown at me from the simplest things, like sitting in a chair, or eating breakfast.
I truly only see two emotions, basically one skill building forced emotion, and one "work too much" negative emotion (E.g. Uncomfortable/Tense), all the others I, as the player, would have to make an effort in going "Hmm, do I want my sim angry today? Guess I'll click obvious things to make my sim angry so I can know what that's like".
With Meaningful stories, the default emotion is "Fine" (the colors are reversed, green for Fine, gray for Happy, though, so don't get confused), like normal humans, and things that used to send Sims into Happy emotions, are now considered "Fine" signal boosters, unless you pile it high (it'll eventually bleed into Happy, making your efforts seem more fulfilling), and Environmental Aura is completely disabled, so no Flirty sims because they see a bucket of ice with Sim Chardonnay in it (Another thing that sounds good on paper, but doesn't make for smart game play in reality).
You don't actually have to work as hard as roburky says to get a "Happy" moodlet, but you will find yourself playing a diverse morning, before your sim finally go "Hey, I'm starting to feel happy about the day!", so, next emotion out of Fine is usually "Happy", if you've played your game right, and hadn't ran into an eventful variable to make it something else (Constantly making out, death, peeing pants and then hitting on their neighbor's spouse in public, etc.); all the other positive emotions, you would have to put in a bit of effort to become, but it doesn't feel like grinding for it, having a simple interaction with another sim can sort of "catch you unawares" so that it doesn't feel like you kept hitting the joke tab the reason your sim has become playful, as for the negative Uncomfortable/Tense emotion (the default "hey, pay attention to your needs"), you'd have to have done nothing the entire day, but that one thing that gave you that moodlet, to fall into that mood (so no more uncomfortable emotion at your own wedding, after being promoted, and finding a new friend in your spouse's family, because you ate that "stale sammach" from that cheep fridge you could hardly afford).
Meaningful Stories does make the Emotional System feel like what we were promised when Sims 4 teased it on launch, and it also adds a sort of "Memory" system, where, remember that child dying scenario? Weeks, even life stages later, your Elderly Sims can be sad about that child they lost when they were a young adult; It's not that detailed, but I've play tested families who have never been sad, but only once from a death, and then never again, and they would get a "memory sadness moodlet" (sorry, forgot the naming), and it could only have been from that one sad thing they did. I definitely recommend getting Meaningful Stories if you want to feel like your sims are somewhat human, and not robots with numbers and buttons as emotions that you are 100% in control of (Ya know, the thing that kills the challenge in games).
Next, for Personality Please, I first have to admit that I haven't tested this out, or seen (that I know of) immediate results, I personally seen the results in the Sims "Conversation Trees" (The tabs you click on when talking to other sims), certain thing like "Propose" doesn't pop up, just because Random Walkby got the hots for your Sim that told a single dirty joke; also, now my sims' in-laws won't flirt with my sims, just because they got done kissing their spouse, and my sim came to ask them how was the party (though, thanks for the saucey drama, Creepy Uncle Frank). The tricky thing with Personality Please is that you can't have MCC's woohoo moduals, as they conflict, but to be completely honest with you, thanks to MCC woohooer (combined with WickedWhims), my town had become one big orgy of infidelity and promiscuity, I lost that realism of sims respecting theirs and others relationship, and though I've found a happy medium with WickedWhims (no more, hot but, random orgies during Thanksgiving), MCC Woohoo continued to have random proposals and sexual advances between sims in committed relationships, and that hardly even knew each other. Even without MCC, I still faced the infidelity/promiscuity problem, and Personality Please has gotten rid of it completely for me (I do see the occasional cheating, but that's realism and I'm satisfied with it). I'm sure Personality Please does a lot more for my game, that I appreciate but hadn't notice, but I found it to be a necessity for me, when one time I struggled an entire sim day, when random walkbys would interrupt conversations with my sims to hit on them, and my sim's partner would get upset at my Sim as if they were the one cheating (which, sometimes they were, if I didn't micromanage them like a hawk).
I don't play without Personality Please, since I've gotten it way back when (I only had MCC Woohooer for the Risky, and she provides that, plus I hardly even Woohoo anymore with WickedWhims [I literally do it just to make it "official", especially if certain mods memorize woohoo times], especially since Risky is involved in there too, so it's not much of a loss not to download), so I have no idea if the Sims 4 has edit this fruitless/random interactions out, thus I'll also recommend anyone to have Personality Please in their game. Also, a lot of PolarBearSims' mods are really innovative and fun, for that life sim experience, so check out a lot of her content if you're looking for that splatter of realism you didn't know you were missing (I do admit I went to Zer0 for my vampires, though).
Sorry if I made you read a lot, I know you asked a simple question and I gave you a college text book answer, I hope this helps in forming your decision, if for some reason you can only have one, or you find yourself skeptical, I do recommend Meaningful Stories being all and more what it's hyped up to be, and press that you absolutely download that one and give it a shot!