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  "path": "/a-response-to-rascal-82bf7f71d26d?source=rss-567e1925a7fd------2",
  "publishedAt": "2026-02-07T13:46:43.000Z",
  "site": "https://possumcreek.medium.com",
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  "textContent": "Hi, Jay here.\n\nOver the past several weeks, questions have circulated online following an article from Rascal News about _Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast _and its publication history. I had originally planned not to comment publicly. However it’s clear there’s a lot of people online who are frustrated, hurt, and confused about how events were presented, and have been asking for my side of the story.\n\nI saw many people come away from the Rascal article believing there is a payment dispute between Possum Creek and some of the freelancers we have worked with, or that I personally am withholding money from freelancers. This is not the case. **Possum Creek has paid everyone we’ve worked with everything they’re owed**. There was no breach in contract. The rights of our artists and writers were not transferred. This is a dispute around a future reprint, _not_ any current royalty payments.\n\nTo discuss what happened, I’ll go through the series of events regarding the Yazeba’s freelancers, subsequent negotiations, the article covering these events, and the following online discourse. My goals are to correct misinformation and provide clarity around payment, offers, and my perspective.\n\nIn early 2021, Mazey Veselak and I were more than halfway done with the writing of Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast. We decided to invite two other writers to join the project. They were contracted to write 20K words each. Ultimately, they contributed around 10K words each, working on certain specific locked guests, interstitial fiction, and mid-to-late chapters.\n\nBoth freelancers received an initial $3K payment. When Yazeba’s B&B crowdfunded in May 2022, these writers were to receive 15% of the crowdfunder’s profits each, which was increased in a verbal contract to a $20K bonus. This payment was issued when Possum Creek received the funds from the crowdfunder.\n\nThese writers were also contracted for 5% royalties on the MSRP of further physical copies of Yazeba’s B&B sold. A portion of the royalty payments totaling $1,047 were delayed due to our ongoing issues with the fulfillment company Brandfox (which Rascal helpfully covered in a separate article beneath the paywall). The writers were informed of the delay, and the royalties were ultimately paid.\n\nThe vast majority of copies of Yazeba’s did not make it out of Brandfox’s warehouse, therefore we had no further sales, and expect to have no further sales, of that version of Yazeba’s. If we miraculously got any back from Brandfox, we’d pay full royalties on whatever we could still sell. Due to the conflict with Brandfox, we had no access to our inventory. This was disastrous for us and nearly led to the collapse of the company in 2024. We began conversations with Steve Jackson Games to reprint Yazeba’s B&B.\n\nSteve Jackson Games elected not to reprint Yazeba’s as-is under Possum Creek’s previous royalties model. They wished to begin negotiating with the contributors for Yazeba’s to provide a flat payment in exchange for the rights to their writing. I reached out to both writers informing them of this.\n\nIn January, both writers requested $200,000 each. This is an unheard of sum in TTRPGs. At this point, daunted by the size of the figures, I stepped back and requested SJG’s lawyer take charge of the conversation.\n\nSJG counter-offered both writers a choice between $5,000 each, or 1% royalties on future copies of Yazeba’s.\n\nBoth writers instead requested $25,000 each, then increased their request to $60,000 each in early August.\n\nSJG elected not to pay $120,000 for the rights to ~20k words.\n\nAlongside this, three of the artists who were involved on Yazeba’s reached out with concerns about rights. SJG made an offer of 10% each of their initial payments to these artists in exchange for full rights to their work. They made a higher counter-offer (requesting 300% of their initial payments), which SJG declined.\n\nThe writers and artists brought this issue to Rascal in July.\n\nOn October 21st, Rascal informed me of the upcoming article and sent me questions. I provided a two-paragraph response.\n\nMy perspective, which is still the same as it was when I responded to Rascal, is that this is a contract dispute about selling rights to a third party for reprinting, and the writers and artists have every right to choose not to sell the rights to their contributions for reprinting. As is the case in creative publishing, reasonable people can disagree about how best to structure future rights when circumstances change. We will not be using their writing or art in future Yazeba’s projects under SJG, but I still have a lot of respect for these creatives, and I wish them all the best.\n\nRascal informed me the article was coming out on November 17th. It did not. On December 22nd, the writers reached out and requested $10,000 each for unsolicited sensitivity consulting and a $150/hour “consultation fee” to ensure the removal of their contributions from Yazeba’s B&B. On January 15th, they informed us they were no longer working with their lawyer.\n\nOn January 19th, Rascal published the article.\n\nWhile the article reflects the perspectives of the former collaborators, it largely ignores the legal and contractual framework and fails to contextualize the precise numbers. Many readers walked away with an unclear understanding of the events that occurred, or made assumptions based on the initial few paragraphs. In a later podcast episode, the Rascal team discussed their shortcomings with the article and their failures to objectively investigate or frame the freelancers’ claims.\n\nSince the article’s release, a small number of passionate internet trolls (disconnected from Rascal or the freelancers) have been making wild and unsubstantiated claims about me on Bluesky. This is a technique called a gish gallop and it’s been deployed in social media environments for more than a decade, relying on an enormous storm of unverifiable attacks on my character. Each claim is flimsy (exaggerated, distorted, or simply false) but together they create the illusion of legitimacy through sheer quantity. It’s a humiliating and exhausting experience. Due to the mental toll this harassment has taken on me, I’ve elected to step away from certain conventions for the next few months and focus on my own health.\n\nI’m tremendously grateful for the large number of friends and acquaintances who have reached out to privately check in on me. I am grateful for the people and spaces who engaged with the original article with nuance and reflection. I am grateful to the people who came to me with genuine questions about the details of what happened.\n\nI’m hopeful for the future of Yazeba’s B&B. I’m still proud of the work the whole team did for that game and I look forward to finding a new form for it, even as it can’t be the same. I hope this can help clarify some of the issues that occurred around its production, and that it can provide another perspective on the events of the last year.",
  "title": "A Response To Rascal",
  "updatedAt": "2026-02-07T13:46:43.628Z"
}