[dark acacia]

Yes, I think it's possible that a person could be immersed in a text game without enforced role play and without immortal guidance or intervention. I've even seen it done in one game's newbie tutorial, but that game kind of dropped the ball.

A while back on TMS I posted a suggestion somewhere when someone asked for advice on their game's newbie tutorial, and my suggestion was to disguise the newbie tutorial as some kind of mini-crisis, and the new player would have to survive through the crisis using the things he'd learn on the fly--opening the door, picking up a sword, attacking a monster with the sword, and so forth. This game I mentioned did something like that, although it was a cyberpunk setting and did a lot to set the atmosphere and the tone. Where the game dropped the ball was that once you survived the tutorial, you basically had to do grunt work in a factory to make money for the better gear you'd need.

Alter Aeon does a good job of providing some level of immersion with the quest system, I think. I don't remember if it's the one with the campaign quests, though.