I’m trying to keep the actual “rooms” from becoming too formulaic, it’s the episodic part that’s got me a little worried. I want my players to control the story but they’re being sent on away missions so I’m worried they feel like they’re just checking boxes:
- get to know the locals
- find the reason they’re there
- gather info
- find/kill the X but, oh no/yay, here comes Y
- repercussions for finding/killing (or not) the X
- possibly stay and party with the ewoks for a while
- head home
Of course, the missions they go on are not happening in a vacuum and affect other missions and the overall story and they choose the missions.
That sounds to me like the standard rinse-and-repeat for most D&D-style TTRPGs. Are your players complaining?