In our current game project we are running into the following problem: we’ve added fairly abstract mechanics to deal with ‘skill tests’ in our action RPG. The dev team is very happy with the mechanics as it allows us to express a wide variety of situations that are hard to represent otherwise.Especially because it allows us to communicate quite clearly what risks and rewards are possible outcomes of such situations. We can use it to do negotiations. Do random encounters. Environmental magic, and so on.
The investor is less happy. They fear this abstract layer is breaking immersion.
Personally I really believe that such a mechanical layer can actually increase immersion as in theory it augments the players perception in the world. But I also realize that the interface is non-transparent at first. New players have to learn a new metaphor. I think there is an interesting tension there. That might be worth exploring. I’d be very interested in finding out what ways would be best to introduce such mechanics, and resolve the tension as quickly and elegantly as possible.