Tomas Harenstam of Free League makes games out of passion

But it's a surprising amount of work!

NOTE: The second part of this interview was published a couple of weeks after the first part. This was due to a technological misfire. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Tomas, thank you for taking the time to do this interview. I think a lot of people know you as the CEO of Fria Ligan or Free League Publishing, and the designer of the Year Zero Engine as well as chief author of many Free League games. What other hats do you wear at the company and how have your roles evolved there over the years?

Thank you! I’m one of the four original founders of Free League, and I have done pretty much everything there is to do in the company over the years. Except art! Mainly though, I’ve focused on game design and strategic plans for the company.

Very cool. I wanted to just start with the most salient item. This interview was largely triggered by a video that I recently put out where I opined that Free League might be in danger of 1) adopting too many pop culture IPs and 2) growing too fast. Can you address both of those concerns here?

Yes, thanks for that video, it triggered a great discussion in your comments field, as well as in our office! To answer your first question, I think it’s important to see where Free League is coming from. From our very beginning in 2011, we are game designers first, world builders second. We have always enjoyed playing around in other people’s worlds.

Our very first RPG Svavelvinter (“Brimstone Sleep”) was based on a fantasy novel series (which in turn was based on a campaign module for an early edition of Drakar och Demoner, but that’s another story), and our second RPG Spelet om Morwhayle (“The Game of Morwhayle”) was as well. So, technically, these were both licensed titles. Our third RPG was Mutant: Year Zero, also a license, and then followed Coriolis (then a license for us, originally created by the Symbaroum creators Team Järnringen, later sold by them to a third party, and, after the merger of Free League and Team Jarnringen in 2018, bought back), and Tales From the Loop (based on Simon Stålenhag’s world and art). Next up was Forbidden Lands (an original IP - but based on original art from Drakar och Demoner editions from the 1980s). Then came ALIEN, Vaesen (based on an art book by Johan Egerkrans), Twilight: 2000 (license) and Blade Runner RPG. Our next RPG release is Dragonbane - an original IP, but a translation of our new edition of Drakar och Demoner (an IP that we now fully own, but with old roots).

So, as you can probably tell from the above, doing licensed titles is not some recent and crass business move intended to grab more cash. Our games designed over the last decade - almost all “licensed” in one way or another - are works of passion. We make these games because we love these worlds, and playing in - and with - them. The original ALIEN and Blade Runner films are probably my personal favorite films of all time. Mutant was the first RPG I ever played, and Drakar och Demoner was the second.

We would never make a new licensed RPG without at least some of us in the core team having a deep passion for the source material. The upcoming The Walking Dead Universe RPG is no different - lead writer Nils Hintze and project manager Mattias Johnsson Haake are massive fans of the show. And I’m confident players will see this for themselves the moment they start reading the game.

I’ll admit we have a tendency to get super excited about new projects and start more of them a little faster than we perhaps should. That’s the drawback of being passionate about games!

As for your second question - to be honest, I’d say the problem is the opposite of growing too fast. Despite developing several new game lines over the years, we have intentionally kept the company small, with the core founding team still being fully hands on, writing, designing, and editing. We feel this is key to keep the products we release at the quality level we want, and make sure they are fully in line with Free League design principles.

Of course, the drawback of the combination of the above - a passion for starting new exciting game projects but at the same time staying hands on in the production - limits how quickly we can produce new expansions for the existing game lines. For a fan of a specific game line, I can certainly understand it’s frustrating to see us launching new games instead of making more supplements for their game. This is definitely a dilemma we are aware of, and working hard to overcome. At the very minimum, we want at least one major release for each game line per year. But going any other route - such as stopping making new games, or outsourcing the production of supplements more, would go against the very essence of what Free League has always been about.

The first expansion to The One Ring (2e) by Free League, which expands on the setting of Eriador, a region of Middle Earth.

Aha, so licensing is just an ingrained feature of Free League’s business model, and has been from Year Zero! Second major question I have for you: an overwhelming number of commenters on my hand-wringing video confirmed that they, too, had some customer support issues with orders from Free League’s website directly. Can you describe how issues like out-of-stock books being sold and no responses from customer service for weeks on end are being resolved now?

Sure. Yes, this has definitely been a major headache for us for some time. First, let me state unequivocally that we would never intentionally sell a game or supplement that is out of stock. That would go completely against our own interests.

What’s happening here is that we have three separate warehouses (in the US, UK and Germany) all shipping orders from our webshop. There is no automatic feedback to the webshop when a specific item runs out of stock, so we need to monitor this manually. We do that, but sometimes not quickly enough, with the result that more orders – especially for the most popular items – sometimes are placed before we manage to mark the item as out of stock. We are working on improving our system and hopefully avoiding this problem in the future.

As for the lack of responses from our support staff, this is really unfortunate when it happens. I will say however that Daniel and his team are working very hard to answer all queries as quickly as they can, and in the vast majority of cases, this is what happens. In the rare cases where a customer does not get a prompt reply, it is by accident, never intentional. We are working as hard as we can.

I’m sure the operation is getting pretty complex compared to when you first started. Do you feel that the company can scale up across the board if the popularity and sales of your games increases rapidly in the next couple of years?

Honestly, I’m not sure we want to scale up. As discussed earlier, we want to stay hands on and keep creating games that we love and want to play ourselves. Scaling up would mean we risk losing that. We want to keep growing, but in a controlled and organic way. This is definitely a challenge, but one we are willing to take on.

I think it’s incredible that you’re willing to admit that. The typical business mindset seems to be growth at any cost, or some variation of that. What are the specific chokepoints in your business where growth creates strain?

I’d say the biggest choke points right now are editors and project managers. There are many of these out in the world, and many great ones - but editing and managing roleplaying products, and on top of that having a deep understanding of how a Free League game is built, is a pretty rare combination.

Yeah, I can see that as being hard to find. Could you list in bullet or numbered format the steps that your company takes from the start of a game idea to its final delivery to customers? That journey is a black box to a lot of people and I imagine they might be surprised at the amount of work and coordination involved.

Oh wow, that would be a long list indeed! What I can do is copy the heading from our internal project plan document, which is divided into six stages:

STAGE 1: CONCEPT

• Pitch

• Budget

• Slot Project Into Production Plan

• Board Approval

STAGE 2: PRODUCTION

• Print Quote

• Milestone Schedule

• SKU List

• ISBN/EAN Codes

• Text Production

• Playtesting

• Editing

• Translation

• Proofing

• Maps

• Art

• Design Template

• Prototype

• Budget Check

STAGE 3: PRE-ORDER / KICKSTARTER

• Set launch and end date

• Set announcement date

• Create KS page, including:

  • Payment

  • Basics

  • Rewards

  • Story

  • Addons

  • Shipping costs

• Images

• Mockups

• Trailer

• Kickstarter page graphics

• Assets to PR manager

• Banner ads

• Submission to Kickstarter

• Announcement

• Launch

• Press release

• Newsletter

• Social Media

• Interviews

• KS comments+messages

• KS updates

• KS graphic updates

• Pledge Manager

• Create shipping list

• Pledge Manager setup

• Pledge Manager check

• Pledge Manager launch

• Pre-Order Launch

• Set Launch date

• Set Announcement date

• Product descriptions

• Mockups

• Images

• Dedicated Website

• Assets to PR manager

• Banner ads

• Products in Shopify

• DTPG discount URLs

• Set Launch Time

• Launch

• Press release

• Newsletter

• Social Media

• Interviews

STAGE 4: FINAL PRODUCTION

• Alpha PDF Layout

• Share Alpha PDF

• Check Alpha feedback

• Enter Alpha feedback

• Final Layout

• Full Product Layout

• Additional text edits

• Additional art edits

• Additional art

• Page references

• Special formatting

• Index

• Backer list

• Credits page

• Copyright text

• ISBN/EAN check

• Back cover text

• Layout proofing

• Final Print Files

• Printing

• Close Pledge Manager

• Decide print run(s)

• Files to printer

• Check proofs

• Approve print

• Check delivery date

• Printing/Production

• Pay invoices

• Distribution

• Updated SKU List

• Check ISBN/EAN

• Fulfillment Plan

• MSRPs and release dates

• Distributor Solicitation

• Shipping

• Import admin

• Delivery notification

• Budget Check

• Post-Mortem

STAGE 5: RELEASE

• Fulfillment

• Create Full PDFs

• Export order list

• Send PDFs

• Split order list

• Format order lists

• Send order lists

• Review Copies

• Fulfillment

• Webshop fulfillment

• Fulfillment support

• Community comments

• Release

• Set Launch date

• Products in Webshop

• Products in DrivethruRPG

• SKUs at distributor

• Close preorder offer

• Launch

• Set DTRPG products live

• Upload PDFs to Bits & Mortar

• Press release

• Newsletter

• Social Media

• Interviews

• Community comments

STAGE 6: POST-RELEASE

• Community reactions

• Interviews

• Stock levels

• Financial Follow-Up

This list is pretty much what I was expecting. Pretty insane. What are some of the biggest creative challenges when working with a major IP like Alien or Lord of the Rings that you don’t see when working on an original game?

The main challenge is creating a game that reflects the universe in a way that resonates with the audience and feels true to the source material. But that challenge is also part of the fun!

Could Free League ever see itself launching new games without Kickstarter? If so, what would that look like?

Oh sure, and we have done so in the past (before Kickstarter was a thing). We have some ideas for smaller games that we might definitely launch without crowdfunding. We’ll have to get back to you on details. :)

What will the company look like in 10 years if all goes as planned? How many employees, how many games, how many offices?

Oh, that’s very hard to say. Personally, I never thought like that, about anything. I always look for the next step, the next opportunity, the next thing that makes me excited, and I go for it. And once I find something that makes me happy, I stick with it (like roleplaying games!). Focusing on where I, or the company, should be in five or ten years, feels too constraining and sucks the fun out of things. For me.

That sounds very zen. It’s good to hear that you’ll only do this for as long as you’re passionate about it.

---

---

[[ This second portion of the interview was published a bit later and not part of the original mailing. ]]

---

---

Which Free League game have you personally played the most?

Overall, it's probably Mutant: Year Zero, as it’s the earliest game, but lately it’s probably ALIEN and Blade Runner as those are recent games that I have been the lead designer for. Right now though we’re playing The One Ring, playesting Tales From the Lone-lands, and having a blast!

What aspect or step in a game’s design process do you find yourself enjoying the most?

Hm, it’s always a lot of fun in the early stages, when everything is possible and the idea of the game is still a shiny vague beautiful thing on the horizon. But actually, an even better stage for me is when you’re further along and starting to make design decisions and these feed into new ideas, making the game even better than you imagined in the first place. That’s when you really feel you’ve struck gold!

Are there ever instances where something is lost in translation in a game going from Swedish to English or other languages?

Hopefully not that much, we work with really good translators and I think that both versions should give the same experience. But sure, in some cases things are hard to translate fully, especially in a game like Vaesen that is set in Scandinavia and is based on old Scandinavian folklore.

Do you have any good data on how many people are playing Free League games? If so, what are some of the most-played games right now?

Hm, I’m afraid we don’t really have any data of that, we cannot track player activity like video games can. So we just have a general feel of what seems to be played the most. It’s very hard to say for sure and it varies over time, so I’d hesitate to name one game.

At the time of this interview, The Walking Dead Universe is crowdfunding on Kickstarter. The launch day numbers and trajectory seem to be about average for a Free League core product. That is, about 5,000 backers and roughly $500k at the halfway point of the Kickstarter. How do you feel about that number of backers?

We’re happy about the Kickstarter and it went along with our expectations. We didn’t expect it to go quite as high as The One Ring or Blade Runner, as the market for licensed RPGs is much more crowded now, but the TWDURPG campaign was definitely a success and it will allow us to create the game we set out to do.

Zeroing in on the actual game The Walking Dead Universe for a minute, when I first saw the announcement for the project, my thoughts went to how Free League has already sort of made a couple of games that could be used for a zombie apocalypse: Mutant: Year Zero and Twilight: 2000. In MYZ, you could reskin some of the setting, drop the mutations, and homebrew some zombie virus mechanics. Same approach with T2K: tweak the time and place a bit, swap out radiation sickness for viral load. Nothing too difficult if you know your way around the Year Zero Engine. So my question is, could you enumerate the actual mechanics that make The Walking Dead Universe different and truly distinct from your two previous apocalypse games?

The Walking Dead Universe RPG is more focused on personal relationships than Mutant: Year Zero and Twilight: 2000. It’s more of an “indie” game I guess, and it's written by Nils Hintze (Tales From the Loop RPG, Vaesen), not me. It also handles combat, especially against walkers, in a different way, where they are more of a constant threat that ebbs and flows rather than individual enemies.

Can you provide a pronunciation guide to how to properly pronounce your name? And how much do you care on a scale of 1 to 10 that people pronounce it correctly?

Ha, that’s tricky. My first name is pronounced something like “Toomas” in Swedish, with the o as in “ooze”, but just pronouncing it like the normal “Thomas” in English is fine, it’s the same name after all! Härenstam is harder I guess - the letter “ä” is in between a and e, so like the a in “at”, not like in “are”.

I like the Swedish language. It’s cool. I’ve occasionally tried to say a word or two online, but I’m often met with vociferous pushback from Swedes. On the whole, they seem very protective of their language. Do you know what I’m talking about? If so, do you know where this almost jealous guardian-like mentality stems from?

Oh wow, I really don’t know! Since Sweden is a small country I think maybe Swedes are not used to others understanding the language, or trying to understand it or speak it. We are very used to speaking English in all communications with people from other countries. But it’s great that you had a go at it!

Has Fria Ligan been able to expand tabletop roleplaying as a hobby in Sweden much in the past eight or so years?

I’d like to think that we have made an impact on the hobby in Sweden since we started out in 2011. We were one of the first Swedish RPG publishers to use crowdfunding (in 2013) and I think we were the first since the 1990s to publish a game (Mutant: Year Zero) in English for the international market, so in some sense I’d like to think we spearheaded the growth of the Swedish RPG scene in the world. But we could certainly not have done any of that without the Swedish RPG pioneers that came before us, like Äventyrsspel / Target Games in the 1980s and 90s, and Järnringen in the 00s. Also, there was (and still is!) a very active indie scene in Sweden in the 00s, which is where we who later founded Free League first met.