Freelance RPG Crowdfunding Marketing Manager

ProFantasy Software Ltd, a leading producer of map-making software for table-top RPGs, based in the UK, is seeking an experienced marketing manager to oversee the crowdfunding campaign for the latest version of our flagship software, Campaign Cartographer.

Start Date: mid-April – mid-May 2024 (exact dates to be confirmed)

Location: Remote, anywhere

Payment: $30 an hour, with a post-crowdfunding bonus depending on the campaign’s success.

Hours: 15 hours a week (flexible) with more hours during the campaign

Purpose of job

• Gather data about our existing and potential customer base and market.
• Devise and implement a marketing strategy to maximize net revenue from our crowdfunding campaign across multiple platforms, both in the lead up to the campaign and when it is underway.
• Manage and implement advertising on social media within budgets agreed with management, analyze their effectiveness and adapt the campaign accordingly.
• Work with management on creating suitable backer levels and messaging for the campaign.
• Identify new marketing opportunities and analyze the efficacy of existing ones.
• Create marketing graphics and social media images and videos using our existing art resources, commission new ones and maintain and cultivate our email list with targeted emails.
• Enhance our existing ecommerce newsletter, promotion and content.
• Work with journalists and bloggers to promote the campaign.
• During the crowdfunding, proactively adapt the campaign to increase revenue and backer satisfaction.

Knowledge and Experience

• Experience of previous large, successful crowdfunding campaigns.
• Knowledge and experience in the TTRPG industry.
• Experience of writing for digital platforms (optimizing SEO), in particular websites and e-communications.
• Knowledge of creating content for digital purposes including graphic and audio-visual assets.
• Knowledge of digital marketing and key trends in crowdfunding.
• Significant marketing experience across all channels.
• Good writing style and ability to adopt different tones.

Attributes

• Able to work independently and without supervision.
• Able to manage time, effort and resources between short-term tactical opportunities versus medium/long-term strategic opportunities.
• Deadline-driven and adept at balancing competing priorities and managing complexity.
• Good eye for design and detail.
• Experience of using data to provide insights, using analytics to assess success or suggested changes.

Skills

• A good working knowledge of Google analytics.
• Familiarity with Meta advertising.
• Solid Excel skills.
• Knowledge of Backerkit.
• Familiarity with adding content to WordPress.
• This is a temporary freelance position, with the possibility of extension.

How to apply: Please email an expression of interest with your CV / resume as a PDF to Simon Rogers at profantasy@gmail.com by 12th April, including details of the crowdfunding campaigns in which you’ve been involved.

 Direct any enquiries prior to your application to the same email address.

Deadline: Interviews to take place. Role will commence at the end of April, exact dates to be confirmed.

There are many things that sets CC3+ apart from other graphics and mapping programs. One of these differences is the size of the mapping area. In most programs, when you start a new file, you specify a size, and you get a canvas exactly that size. If you try putting something halfway outside the edge, like a symbol or equivalent, the spillover is simply lost. In CC3+ however, this is completely different.

CC3+ doesn’t operate with a fixed sized canvas, for most practical considerations it is infinite. There’s nothing preventing you from placing a symbol entirely outside the map area if you so wish, simply because your map only occupies a small spot on that almost infinite canvas. But if the drawing area is of infinite space, how do we determine the actual size of the map? And why do our drawing tools seem to only draw within the map area?

To understand this, we need to look at the map border. When we talk about map borders in CC3+, there are actually two different things we may be talking about. We might be talking about that nice decorative frame around your map. This is known as the decorative map border, and it is just that, decorative. Some map styles have a very elaborate decorative map border, while others have a much more spartan one, sometimes even just a simple line. It doesn’t have any functionality, it is just there to give your map a visual frame. Then we have the technical map border. This is what actually defines your map’s size on the canvas, and all tools that have a restrict to map border option, like drawing tools and bitmap exports work with this one. Usually, it will overlap in location with the decorative map border, but it is the technical map border that provides the functionality.

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Do you have a favorite command in Campaign Cartographer that you use often? One that you wished hat a convenient keyboard shortcut to launch easily?

CC3+ may not have an easy-to use shortcut editor built in, but it still allow you to define shortcut keys for any command you want. All that is required is that the command is defined in the CC3+ menu, but even if it isn’t already defined there, it is easy enough to add it yourself. So if you’re like me and use the List command a lot, why not make it easy to access by adding Ctrl+L as a shortcut key for it?

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A few months ago, I started the Rails & Trains mini-series of articles. In the two prior installments (part 1 – part 2), we looked at how to make the tracks themselves, now it is time to round it out by looking at rail cars.

We’ll have a look at how to draw the insides of a rail car based on a real blueprint, giving us a nice scene for a handout or battle. I am going to base my drawing on a blueprint from the early 19-hundreds. I mainly picked these because it is difficult to find older blueprints online with proper dimensions, and because the trains of that time still had the same basic layouts as earlier trains, making it easy to adapt them to earlier times. Of course, my procedure here works fine with any blueprint, so if you’re mapping for a modern train, just grab the appropriate blueprint and possibly a different drawing style better suited for modern maps, such as SS3.

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The Cartographer’s Annual subscription for 2024 is now available, and you can subscribe at a reduced cost. If you are a current subscriber, be sure to check your email, as you should have received your re-subscription offer that way. Otherwise, visit the Annual 2024 web page for the early subscription discount.

We have the first three issues lined up, starting with a reimagined version of the Fantasy Realms style by Allyn Bowker from 2009. We add lots of symbols and combine the tools with textures by Mike Schley, resulting in a very different look, that is still excellent for displaying local to regional maps of any Fantasy setting.

Next in line is a new parchment overland style combining symbols by Robert Altbauer and new textures. And then in March Sue Daniel provides a great new style for city sewers. If you want some input into that, check out her style development thread on the ProFantasy forum.

As always, subscribing to the Annual will give you access to all twelve monthly issues as they are released, plus a bonus issue at the end of the year. If you want to see an example of all the great content you will receive, check out the Annual 2023.

Subscribe to the Cartographer’s Annual 2024 now.

(Download the FCW file)
Hello mappers! Welcome to this month’s All the Annuals, Scorching Sun. This overland set is fantastic. I love the color palette with this set. What’s also great about TJ’s fantastic style is that this annual works really well with another annual that came out at the end of 2016 – don’t worry, we’ll get there – giving you so many more symbol options and fills to play with.
For this map, I actually used a font I downloaded from one of the free sites online, as you can see by the middle eastern flair font in the png. Your map, should you download this one, will come with the standard font from the annual, but I wanted to show you in this particular font so you can see it’s super easy to add more font choices to your maps, if you choose.

About the author: Lorelei was my very first D&D character I created more years back than i’d like to remember. When I decided to venture into creating maps for my and others rpgs, I thought I owed it to her to name myself Lorelei Cartography, since it was her that led me to the wonderful world of tabletop gaming in the first place. Since then I have been honored to have worked with companies such as WizKids, Pelgrane Press, and ProFantasy.

Last month, I talked about the basics of macros, how a macro is basically just a series of commands executed in sequence. And for the majority of macros used in CC3+, it actually stops there. For example, one of the more common uses of macros are as part of drawing tools, where you draw a polygon with the tool, and then a macro built into the tool takes over and does it’s magic to the polygon, such as filling with with symbols (like trees for a forest), or automatically align the fill or other similar operations.

But of course, that the majority of macros used are rather simple doesn’t mean we doesn’t have more advanced functionality that is highly useful. For this month’s part, we’ll be talking about variables.

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If you are a novice CC3+ user, you may think that macros sounds way to complicated to even touch. But, the fact is that from the moment you start making a map, you have already been exposed to several macros. You might not have noticed, but CC3+ uses macros for quite a lot of things. Every time you start a new map or load an existing one, a macro is run to set up the environment appropriately for that type of map. A lot of the buttons on the toolbars and elements in the menus call macros, and many of the drawing tools have embedded macros that are being run when you draw something with them.

So, why don’t we take a brief look at the basics of macros?

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In the August issue of the Annual 2023 we return back to some (visually) simpler maps in black and white. Draw ruins, floorplans and dungeons with faux-inked lines and easy to use black and white symbols.

Related to and compatible with 2020’s Inked Dungeons, the Inked Ruins style allows you to build surface ruins and outdoor areas that can be easily printed and comfortably read even at relatively small output sizes.

The August issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page.

If you haven’t subscribed to the Cartographer’s Annual 2023 yet, you can do so here.

News

• The July issue of the Cartographer’s Annual is available, with an overland style by a new Annual contributor – Monkey Frog Studios.

Resources

• The latest free monthly symbols by Mike Schley give you symbols for military encampments like tents and fortified trenches.
• Watch or re-watch the recent live mapping videos from our playlist on YouTube.
• Check out the community’s Maps of the Month for June, possibly providing some inspiration for your own mapping projects.

Articles

• Remy dives into part 2 of his tutorial on how to draw tracks and rail lines, letting us swerve around in curves on our tracks.
• Christina Trani continues with her “All the Annuals” series going through all the Annual issues over the years. This time it is the “Temple of Bones” isometric dungeon style she is looking at.

Reminders

• CC3+’s current version is 3.98. Check in Help > About and if your version is older, run Update 28 for CC3+ available from your registration page.
• Fractal Terrains 3+ has been released and is available from among your FT3 downloads on your registration page.
• Join our community of map-makers on the Profantasy forum and/or the Facebook group.