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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Matthias" data-source="post: 6067669" data-attributes="member: 3625">I've made my games more immersive in the following ways:1) Concealed and secret skill checks. Concealed checks are when the player knows his character is being tested, but may not immediately know the result (success or failure), the extent of the result, or the consequences of the result. I ask for the total bonus to apply, and then make the roll myself. Good examples are Appraise and Stealth skills and identifying monsters with Knowledge. Secret skill checks are made myself and without player notification. (It helps to inquire on bonuses on possible secret skill checks every time characters level up.) Secret skill checks allow characters to be tested without tipping off players that danger or opportunity is near. Good examples of these are Perception and Sense Motive.2) Make the different cultures in your world make enough of a difference that it changes the way the game is played. Simple ways to do this are to have different prestige classes for different regions, have the different PC races get along in some regions and not in others, make your main monster threats regional (beyond the normal environmental factors of hot/cold, forest/desert, etc). Let arcane magic be accepted and embraced in some areas, and feared or even shunned as 'unnatural' in others. (Clerics, druids, and other divine casters should get along fine in all but the most magiphobic places, while bards may or may not receive leniency. But wizards and sorcerers had better tread carefully.) You should make players aware of possible negative baggage that comes from otherwise normal choices about character creation - if someone wants to play a paladin in Ravenloft he should be advised of the possibility of unforeseen consequences over and above what a paladin player might expect to deal with in any given setting.3) Have NPCs that don't always do the wisest or most tolerable things from the perspective of the PCs/players. Especially with NPCs that accompany the party for any reason other than being a Leadership-assigned cohort or follower. The guide that runs away from any kind of trouble, the trapfinder who finds them the hard way, the brash aristocrat who tries to pick a fight the party probably has no chance of winning, and so on. NPCs who make bad choices, especially when it is consistent with their personality and values, makes them seem more like real characters rather than monsters which can talk.</blockquote>

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