I personally am in favour for not drawing an encounter unless you explore and find a black arrow, as long as you kill something during your hero phase.
That way, when there's interesting stuff happening on the board, you don't have to break up the fun by dealing with encounters. In the interim, they add some tension.
But as far as your idea goes, I quite like it. You could make the time limit more organic by having the first, say, 10 turns be encounter-free unless explore a tile with a black arrow, then the next 10 turns implement encounter rules as written in the manual, and from the 21st turn onwards you draw 2 encounters instead of one when prompted. That way long games still hurt the heroes, but don't outright end the game.
Incidentally, I've never counted how many turns a standard quest takes either. Can anyone weigh in on this matter?
That way, when there's interesting stuff happening on the board, you don't have to break up the fun by dealing with encounters. In the interim, they add some tension.
But as far as your idea goes, I quite like it. You could make the time limit more organic by having the first, say, 10 turns be encounter-free unless explore a tile with a black arrow, then the next 10 turns implement encounter rules as written in the manual, and from the 21st turn onwards you draw 2 encounters instead of one when prompted. That way long games still hurt the heroes, but don't outright end the game.
Incidentally, I've never counted how many turns a standard quest takes either. Can anyone weigh in on this matter?