For fake reverb - I like to clone the source I want to wet.
then - apply the reverb to that - and then bring that extra trackset into the mix.
Makes it a little easier to get the right blend or amount of effect/blend.
Kind of the same approach some use on a mixing live - bringing the effects back on their own fader, rather than the insert.
Nothing Reaper specific - but basic enough it should work.
yep, I agree in that it's easier to control it that way. Only word of caution is to see if your plugin incorporates any delay. I've caught a couple with a few samples, but enough that if I did a mix of the two tracks, I'd hear comb filtering (just a little bit, in the upper registers, but a spectrogram of each track and then the mix confirmed it). In Reaper, you can render to new tracks and mute and then see what sort of sample delay you need to compensate with on the original track, and that works, just little gotchas to keep in mind.