Right. But the bigger adventure has a commercial advantage, because it only requires buy-in once, and then you're in it for the ride.That's a lot of ifs and maybes. The number of people who've been disappointed by starting an epic AP only to not finish it likely far exceeds the total number of people who've ever played in an episodic module format. That's partially the point of Matt's video. Newer players are completely unaware that episodic module play is even an option because the epic AP is the default they came into the hobby with.
Not really. You can have very detailed and very specific modules just like you have very specific and very detailed epic APs. The only difference between them is the length. It's the difference between a short story and a novel. An episode of a show vs a several seasons-long arc.
For example, Strength of Thousands is a Pathfinder AP where you start playing students at the Magaambiya, the pre-eminent magic school of Golarion. I don't think I would have any problem selling my players on a "magic school" campaign, and the school has some very specific traditions that play important parts in the adventure.
But try creating a 5th level adventure where PCs are doing magic school student stuff? Yeah, that's not gonna fly. At least not off the FLGS shelves.
They can be. But dungeons are naturally self-contained. That's part of their selling point, that they focus play on a smallish well-defined area where there are limited options. Do I go right or left? Are there any clues about where these paths lead that can help me make a decision? And things like that. But a town or an overland area is open-ended. Players have much greater options for doing things, which means that as an adventure writer I must either spend a lot more time and effort on things that might not show up, or leave more for the DM to do themselves.Towns, castles, forests, etc can all be self-contained. It's not only dungeons.
But making something more specific usually makes it more interesting. And it's usually made more so by tying it closer to the game world. For example, "fishing town" sounds pretty dull to me. But "fishing town on the shores of Lake Galifar, where you have agents of the neighboring nations the Eldeen Reaches and Aundair infiltrating things, and where there's a lot of bad blood between the followers of the Sovereign Host and those of the Silver Flame" sounds a lot more interesting. But the latter only really fits in a particular place in a particular setting, and is therefore less commercially viable despite likely being more artistically interesting.And yes, generic is a benefit. Because it increases your potential customers. If you make a generic town, castle, forest, dungeon, etc can be dropped anywhere in any setting. But that doesn't prevent specificity. Almost every setting will have logging towns. Almost every setting will have mining towns. Etc.
I'm not saying modules are bad. I'm saying that it's really, really hard to make money off them. To the point where most publishers had sworn them off entirely because there's no money in modules, until Paizo showed how adventure paths could work. And that in turn lead us to the current situation where the adventure market, such as it is, is completely dominated by Epics.Yes, capitalism is always the problem. But I think you're overstating just how difficult, no good, and terrible modules are.