Message:The Law of Unintended Rules Changes:
(1) Random Generated Adventure
(2) First Rule - Finish in a week ... get new mission next week.
(3) Team focuses and knocks off boss. Treasure was mediocre.
(4) Next mission Team decides Boss not worth the trouble. Farm the "Gold".
(5) New Rule --- Kill boss or suffer penalty. Team focuses and kills boss.
(6) New Rule -- Add hurdles to get to boss. Realize that may be too tough.
(7) New Rule -- Give Alternate ways to get your Three Keys to get to Boss.
(8) Team ignores other areas to focus on the most rewarding loot .... though ... you can see that some are well trained as completionists so they "want" to gong the gong.
(9) New Rule ... Now you can come back in week 2.
Perhaps add enticements to the Boss to get players to focus on the Boss. More, better lootz (more reliable). This would get the players focused on the boss.
Don't require the boss to be killed or suffer penalty. If you don't kill him (her .... yikes!!!!), you lose the opportunity.
It appears you have 20 type of encounters to stick with the theme. Each has basically three elements. Sometimes 4.
The tables seem to be "Problem", "How Bad of a Problem", and "What is the result"? (Forgive, you were using different terms but my old brain translates.)
If there was an issue (and I'm not saying there is), it's that they were developed over time and some are more punishing than others.
I would recommend moving away from unique tables for each thing. The "How bad is the problem" table could be used for most areas. (Add a die mod if you need.) For purposes of testing, you could get the best feel from that. Plus less tables to chase. You can always go back to unique tables but to be honest, the players could not tell.
Yours,
IronConrad
01-Jul-2024