-Puzzle-based gameplay
When presenting players with a puzzle, the difficult part is how much to describe. My technique is to give the bare-bones description (the room, anyone inside of it, noticeable objects, etc), then illustrate more as the players look around. It gives a needed amount of life to the environment, without dredging the literary muck-pits for every detail possible.
-Musical ambiance
One thing I've been meaning to do for a while now is play music during RPG sessions. Mostly soundtracks from video games (Unreal and Fallout are some of my favorites), but I'll probably add occasional pieces from the "epic" musical movement.
Video game OSTs are very nice because they're designed to be background music. Almost always non-lyrical, and never too distracting. I've also noticed that, somehow, the game always syncs up with the tune playing, sometimes to hilarious effect.
Of course, the big issue is going to be whose music is playing. I imagine it will be very little time at all until another member of the group wants to put his tunes through- thus creating a small power struggle. In the end, there will be balance. Hopefully with as little kicking and screaming as possible.
-Anything should be engaging
Too many games are combat-focused. There's a myriad of rules for fighting, but only a few for, say, haggling. One thing I'm trying to do with the EE is keep virtually every action under the same mechanic. I considered going as far as having a repertoire of techniques for working devices. Problem is, that's a LOT of paper per character sheet.
So, the answer may be to work backwards. If the combat is too complicated, I may just scale it back for more of a universal experience, instead of combat and everything else.
I'm still thinking about an Elvis Impersonator campaign.
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