Intergenerational Sandwiches and Patreon... how do you handle it?

[Onefiftyone]

Ok, so I'm here to talk about the dreaded Incest Patch that plagues every Patreon release.

For the default characters, what do you call them in the base game? What are your best practices?

What do I mean? Let's say you're playing the role of a father main character who's 'dating' a girl's mom and you persuade her daughter into sleeping with you. We'll call her 'mom's boyfriend.' As an author now you've fucked yourself, because you can't have mom's boyfriend trick her and her daughter into sleeping with you, because even mom is considered a related position of power. Same thing with step-mom/step-daughter, and even guardian.

So how do you handle this situation? Does your character take on a job like 'tutor' or 'bodyguard'? Do mother and daughter become 'friends'? I'd love to know!

 

[anne O'nymous]

So how do you handle this situation?

Badly, they handle the situation really badly...


For the relation between the characters, the usual landlady and roommate works relatively well. There's this woman, or a couple, that have spare rooms and decided to rent them to some students. It's natural, realistic, and it give a reason for everyone to spare the same house while still not being related.
Or you can use a setting like the one in Halfway House. Just remove the introduction, and obviously keep everyone in the same ethnic group, and it can become a family with a patch.

But the problem is that 99% of the time, the author stop there, writing their story with in mind a family relation. What lead to lines as stupid as, by example, the landlady saying something like, "You know since the death of your landlord we don't have much money". Hey ! Firstly it's "my husband", not, "your landlord". Secondly it's your problem, not his. Thirdly, you have three tenants so, even with them being students, you've an income high enough to cover more than what they cost you.
Same when the landlady advice one of the roommate to find a job. Hey, if they don't have a job, they can't pay the rent, so it's not, "you should find a job", that she have to say, but more something like, "Remember that you have to pay me at the end of the month. You should really find a job... or another place to stay". What also imply stupid situation, since there's always one of the girl roommate, generally the totally unrelated elder roommate, that is lazy as fuck, and pass her days doing nothing. How the hell can she pay the rent ?
And obviously, there's also the whole background that is wrong. How the hell can they have shared memories older than two/three years ? They encountered each other for the first time when they became students. Even in the USA it don't make sense that they left the family house before they enter college.

Writing a game in order to have a none incest story for Patreon, and an incest story for those who know where to find the patch, need way more works than just changing the relation between the characters. And it's a part that is (almost) always forgot because the authors expect that everyone will use the said patch.

 

[Onefiftyone]

Writing a game in order to have a none incest story for Patreon, and an incest story for those who know where to find the patch, need way more works than just changing the relation between the characters. And it's a part that is (almost) always forgot because the authors expect that everyone will use the said patch.

This is pretty good info for me. It seems like reformatting part of the game with a grammar system might be the way to go.

I guess a more simplified system would be if you don't install the patch the story has different content, almost. Essentially:

"Regular dialogue."

    if IncestPatch = 1:
   
        jump Incest
       
    else:

        jump NOTINCEST
   
"Regular dialogue continues."

 

[recreation]

Badly, they handle the situation really badly...


For the relation between the characters, the usual landlady and roommate works relatively well. There's this woman, or a couple, that have spare rooms and decided to rent them to some students. It's natural, realistic, and it give a reason for everyone to spare the same house while still not being related.
Or you can use a setting like the one in Halfway House. Just remove the introduction, and obviously keep everyone in the same ethnic group, and it can become a family with a patch.

But the problem is that 99% of the time, the author stop there, writing their story with in mind a family relation. What lead to lines as stupid as, by example, the landlady saying something like, "You know since the death of your landlord we don't have much money". Hey ! Firstly it's "my husband", not, "your landlord". Secondly it's your problem, not his. Thirdly, you have three tenants so, even with them being students, you've an income high enough to cover more than what they cost you.
Same when the landlady advice one of the roommate to find a job. Hey, if they don't have a job, they can't pay the rent, so it's not, "you should find a job", that she have to say, but more something like, "Remember that you have to pay me at the end of the month. You should really find a job... or another place to stay". What also imply stupid situation, since there's always one of the girl roommate, generally the totally unrelated elder roommate, that is lazy as fuck, and pass her days doing nothing. How the hell can she pay the rent ?
And obviously, there's also the whole background that is wrong. How the hell can they have shared memories older than two/three years ? They encountered each other for the first time when they became students. Even in the USA it don't make sense that they left the family house before they enter college.

Writing a game in order to have a none incest story for Patreon, and an incest story for those who know where to find the patch, need way more works than just changing the relation between the characters. And it's a part that is (almost) always forgot because the authors expect that everyone will use the said patch.

"No, Tennant/Rommate, we can't do this, I'm your landlady/Rommate, this is so wrong!"

 

[Black Ram oss]

This is pretty good info for me. It seems like reformatting part of the game with a grammar system might be the way to go.

I guess a more simplified system would be if you don't install the patch the story has different content, almost. Essentially:

"Regular dialogue."

    if IncestPatch = 1:

        jump Incest

    else:

        jump NOTINCEST

"Regular dialogue continues."

Hi, I've also handled it in a similar way.
In particular: at the beginning of the game I asked:
what kind of relationship is there between you and the people you live with?
The choices are: hostess/roommate, ... and personalized.
in case you choose custom and enter mom or mother regardless of capital letters (for landlady), you activate a hidden incest pach. in this I can make the dialogues more realistic.
I hope this will help you.

but honestly I don't know if Patreon can notice this, in my opinion not. In case it is not so please tell me.

another idea is to keep a plain text file (.rpy) in which there is:

define IncestPatch = False

But the player must be aware of this.

 

[anne O'nymous]

This is pretty good info for me. It seems like reformatting part of the game with a grammar system might be the way to go.

There's many way to do it. Some of the modding methods presented on this thread works for this, and there's also this thread and this one.

I guess a more simplified system would be if you don't install the patch the story has different content, almost. Essentially:

It's as risked as directly making the incest version on Patreon. When it's a patch, everyone know that it's made by a fan and totally unrelated to the author of the game (right ?). But if the original code handle both version, whatever the way it do it, it will be obvious that you tried to bypass their ban.
It would still need that someone report your game as breaking the rules, but if it happen, you'll have a hard time dealing with Patreon. Some devs already had problems while just using a patch, so be assured that it will be difficult to deal with them when it's something so obvious.

"No, Tennant/Rommate, we can't do this, I'm your landlady/Rommate, this is so wrong!"

Of course it's wrong, you degenerate !
You missed my tribute, I'm sad

but honestly I don't know if Patreon can notice this, in my opinion not. In case it is not so please tell me.

They will not notice it by themselves but, like I said above, once you'll be reported for the banned content, you'll have no way to escape the hammer.

 

[79flavors]

I can't add anything on story writing, but I can point out a really common thing that bugs me in "lady lady" games.

People don't call land ladies "land lady" in real life. They are "Sandra", "Helen", "Susan", "Kira" or any other female name. So in such games, their names should be "Sandra" patched to "Mom", not "Land Lady" patched to "Mom".

To my mind, the hardest problem with incest patches is character motivation. If you intend for the "real" version of the game to be an incest game - the "patreon safe" version needs to create character motivations which mirror the Mom/Son, Brother/Sister, Dad/Daughter dynamics. My favorite example is "We can't have sex! You're my roommate!" - said no roommate ever. Childhood friend works better in my mind - but then you fall into the usual "Dad/Whole family died" trope to explain why you are living with your childhood friend's family.

If you're going to go with older man in stable relationship with older woman and new relationship with older woman's daughter... I'd probably stick with "ignorance is bliss". There's nothing you can do about the daughter knowing about the mom/MC, but as long as mom never finds out about daughter and MC... things shouldn't go down the plate throwing and divorce attorney route.

One novel solution I recently played was The Wish. There was a

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, which no longer exists. I've no clue if that is a result of the clearly incest game or whether the author simply closed it down once the game was complete.

The premise is that clearly adopted son moves into student accommodation with local lady while her husband is away working just after he has tasked a private eye to find out who his birth parents were. On his first night there, he makes a wish and a futa fairy appears and grants his wish - but he has to have sex with the woman of the house for the wish to become permanent. The next day he discovers that by some impossibly improbable coincidence - his new land lady is also his birth mother.

The workaround for that game and therefore the reason I think the author could make a reasoned argument to the likes of Patreon is that in the final scene of the game it is revealed that the student is actually in bed in a coma and the land lady is actually his doctor and all the previous events (like futa fairies, magic wishes and the hugely improbable fact that he's living with his mom) are actually just part of a dream. Therefore no actual incest occurred and therefore the game isn't breaking any terms and conditions. At least, that's how I would have argued it.

All of which is just my way of saying that it is really hard to create character motivations and backstory that fit both an incest and non-incest version of the game.

Personally, I'd probably be more tempted to just go straight to

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and avoid Patreon's fear of their own credit card processing companies dictating morality under the guise of T&C's. Especially as game discover-ability exists primarily beyond Patreon on sites like this one. (Also... if the depiction of incest in story format were actually illegal - explain to me how The Game of Thrones was ever released with not one, but two incestuous relationships. Not to mention films like Old Boy and

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. Oh and a whole porn and audiobook industry specializing in almost identical themes. Bahh).

 

[Black Ram oss]

It would still need that someone report your game as breaking the rules, but if it happen, you'll have a hard time dealing with Patreon

There's a saying in my country: "Who does his own business, lives for a hundred years".

They will not notice it by themselves but, like I said above, once you'll be reported for the banned content, you'll have no way to escape the hammer.

Give me a persolal advice: do I remove or leave this method for incest?
(the code is also published on git)

 

[79flavors]

Give me a persolal advice: do I remove or leave this method for incest?

Patreon will only act when someone else reports something to them.
But they have been known to get upset about the author creating a patch, even if that patch is never mentioned on Patreon.
I know at least one author who had to remove a patch file because he clearly created it, even though it was never mentioned on his Patreon page. Patreon's complaint to the author actually included a link to a post on these (F95) forums.

For me, the simple solution would be to publish the patch under a different name/username that could be in no way linked to your own ID. Create a second account on sites like F95 and use that to distribute the patch.

As far as we're aware, Patreon don't look at your source code. They could in theory, but anecdotal information says that they don't. As long as you as an author can say "that patch has nothing to do with me and my game is 100% distributed with 'safe' content" - that should be enough... until it isn't of course... because Patreon keep escalating their response and their Trust and Safety team answers are often less about the rules and more about convincing that individual that you are playing by their rules.

So unless Patreon tighten up on things again (or already have), I would say stick with patching your own game any way you like... just don't be seen to be doing it. Or do as the author I was talking about earlier... abandon Patreon completely for SubscribeStar and therefore abandon the need to patch the game at all. Just remember that if Patreon do ever contact you, it's not personal - cooperate in any way you can, or at least be seen to.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Give me a persolal advice: do I remove or leave this method for incest?

The advice, I already gave it, by telling what are the risks to put the "patch" directly into the code of the game. What can I add to this ? It's not my place, nor my role, to tell you what to do and/or how to do your game.

Patreon will only act when someone else reports something to them.

Which mean that Patreon still have games, some relatively recent, that are purely incest games, while in the meantime there's games hits for a little ambiguity. It all depend of the public the game will have, and how much it's known ; a almost unknown game with only fans can stay under Patreon radar for years, while a largely spread game with just one hater can have problems every time there's an update.

For me, the simple solution would be to publish the patch under a different name/username that could be in no way linked to your own ID. Create a second account on sites like F95 and use that to distribute the patch.

And never ever talk about the patch. Someone tag you in the game thread, asking something about the patch, just ignore him ; and I mean, really ignore him, don't even answer in PM. The only thing you can say about this patch is that you aren't its author, so you don't know, dot.

As far as we're aware, Patreon don't look at your source code. They could in theory, but anecdotal information says that they don't.

By themselves yes, they don't looks ; this said, if the report tell them to, I doubt they'll hesitate.
But most of the time looking at the code is useless. Since the incest mode is included in the original code, you just need to tell them how to activate it from the console, or where to find the one line file that will activate it. Why looking at the code, when you can see the result just playing the game natively ?

[...] their Trust and Safety team answers are often less about the rules and more about convincing that individual that you are playing by their rules.

One more reason to not tempt them with the patch directly in the original code.

 

[Onefiftyone]

Personally, I'd probably be more tempted to just go straight to

You must be registered to see the links

and avoid Patreon's fear of their own credit card processing companies dictating morality under the guise of T&C's.

Have you or do you know any creators that have found success with SubscribeStar? Do they drop the banhammer if you throw in non-con or incest?

And never ever talk about the patch. Someone tag you in the game thread, asking something about the patch, just ignore him; and I mean, really ignore him, don't even answer in PM. The only thing you can say about this patch is that you aren't its author, so you don't know, dot.

I really took this point to the gut. I think the wealth of knowledge you've shared here has been really helpful to me and I just wanted to say thank you for reaching out.

 

[Alma_Elma]

Have you or do you know any creators that have found success with SubscribeStar? Do they drop the banhammer if you throw in non-con or incest?


From what I know so far, SubscribeStar is more lax than patreon on what you can or cannot do, it's also why you can see some creator just go there if their story is about incest.
That's also why more and more dev stopped doing incest (thank god to be honest, it was going crazy, and there is still a lot coming out anyway), it's easier to just do another story all together that comply with patreon.

So on one side there's people going to SubscribeStar for more freedom.
On the other, people staying on patreon doing games that comply with the site policy.
And we have the people in beetween, doing tenant and landlord, but in such a bad way that if you don't install the incest patch, it just look silly (because it was never intended to be landlord in the first place.)

 

[anne O'nymous]

Have you or do you know any creators that have found success with SubscribeStar? Do they drop the banhammer if you throw in non-con or incest?

No, for both.
I have nothing against devs who swtich to subscribeStar, but honestly it's too shaddy for a place that will deal with your income. It doesn't mean that they can't be trusted, that I don't know, but when you start to looks closer, at their conditions by example (like the impossibility to withdraw your money, whatever how much you want to withdraw, if there isn't at least US$ 150) it feel like having to go in a dark back alley everytime you need to talk to your banker.
But among the devs active here, there's some that have a SubscribeStar account. Find one by looking at their game's thread and try to ask him in PM. It will be more useful than me on this subject.

I really took this point to the gut. I think the wealth of knowledge you've shared here has been really helpful to me and I just wanted to say thank you for reaching out.

You're welcome.

 

[Rafster]

I wonder how patreon would react if the relationship is with the step-mom, or better yet, ex-step mom (she just divorced out of your biological father). The patreon holy hammer would fall on this?

 

[anne O'nymous]

I wonder how patreon would react if the relationship is with the step-mom, or better yet, ex-step mom (she just divorced out of your biological father). The patreon holy hammer would fall on this?

They don't define incest by shared blood, but by the effective relationship between the characters. Therefore, a step-family, as well as a foster home, would be seen as "incest". Basically, seeing your friend's mom like a second mother, because you past many afternoon, and week-end, at their house, and sometimes gone on holidays with them, is right. But seeing her like your second mother, because you lived with them a part of your life (as in, "you don't regularly go back to your parents' house") would make it be "incest".
The landlady/tenant version works because, like I said previously, you're supposed to be at least 16/17yo when the relationship start, and you're not supposed to know them since more than one or two years. Plus, even when the landlady is caring, there's a supposed distance that's kept between you and her ; you pay her for the room, laundry, and meal, her being caring is just an extra due to the fact that you where lucky to find a nice person as landlady.

 

[Rafster]

They don't define incest by shared blood, but by the effective relationship between the characters. Therefore, a step-family, as well as a foster home, would be seen as "incest". Basically, seeing your friend's mom like a second mother, because you past many afternoon, and week-end, at their house, and sometimes gone on holidays with them, is right. But seeing her like your second mother, because you lived with them a part of your life (as in, "you don't regularly go back to your parents' house") would make it be "incest".
The landlady/tenant version works because, like I said previously, you're supposed to be at least 16/17yo when the relationship start, and you're not supposed to know them since more than one or two years. Plus, even when the landlady is caring, there's a supposed distance that's kept between you and her ; you pay her for the room, laundry, and meal, her being caring is just an extra due to the fact that you where lucky to find a nice person as landlady.

Thank you, now you gave me something to think. I guess I only have to do some little changes on my original script (I'm doing a gay HTML game, just replace mom with dad, and that's it). At least I'm still on a very early stage of development, so any changes wouldn't hurt. Originally, I had planned the landlord and the stepfather as two completely different characters with two separate roads, but I can make some changes expanding the landlord and replacing the stepfather with other character. I'll do my best to make it work.