Heh heh... well here is most likely the thing that is the playstyle block between both sides of the equation.
I don't believe players can or should "learn" anything about the game while playing because since the DM controls everything and the game is always different... there is nothing TO learn. Everything in the world of D&D can and will be different. Consistency is not constant. At least not in any game I participate in.
D&D is not a tactical board game. There aren't set moves that all players and creatures will always do that you can strategically plan around. The way the events and encounters play out is always changing based on story and DM fiat, and no player can take anything for granted (except in the cases of playing with a DM who does everything exactly the same every time.)
I mean look at the most basic thing players have "learned" over the past 40 years: Trolls can't regenerate if they are burned with fire.
What's more universal than that in D&D? The ultimate "learned tactic"? And yet... what do we hear DMs constantly talk about in all the arguments about "using meta knowledge" in games? How to include trolls in the the game who DO regenerate even after being hit with fire. Because DMs have seen that this standard tactic is BORING and pointless, and thus they want to do something different to keep players on their toes. Even if the players have dealt with fire-vulnerable trolls before and have "learned the tactics" of dealing with trolls... a lot of DMs will still be perfectly fine with the idea of throwing out a fire-resistant one on an occasion just so the players don't get complacent and because it makes for an interesting story of how these fire-resistant trolls exist when all the others are vulnerable? THAT'S what is interesting, not "learning the tactic" in the first place.
All manner of DMs do stuff like that. Take a supposed "truth" of the game and change it. To keep the players guessing. In a world of magic, there is nothing you can necessarily believe is a truth in reality, because magic changes reality. I don't believe players should "learn" anything, because in a game like D&D, you can't take anything for granted and shouldn't take anything for granted.
And I firmly believe this to be the case. If the players have "learned" something tactically advantageous based upon consistent trial and error... like for instance tapping the ground ahead of them with a 10' pole to find all the pit traps... then I will most definitely on occasion play with that expectation and their "tactically sound" choice. Because to do otherwise is to truly turn D&D into nothing but a board game where players can just check off their list of "standard tactics" as they play, confident that they can "win"... while the DM just sits there like a robot saying "Yes" and "No" with no impact or influence on the game. And to me that is the death of the game at my table. I might as well just be running a game of HeroQuest. And I will NEVER play D&D that way.
Nothing you are using here is learning the
game. It is learning the very specific details of particular monsters or traps.
Learning the game means learning to manage risk, to identify effective vs ineffective combinations, to create useful plans, and to acquire the information you need in order to do these things. That's the
game. You are conflating learning what any given specific
opponent or
obstacle is or does with learning how the game itself (the framework within which the opponent/obstacle appears) works. It would be like saying that, because learning how Lionel Messi plays
fútbol tells you nothing about how any other player plays the sport,
you cannot learn how to play football. Of course you can! There are so many skills and intuitions you can develop through practice and reflection that will help make you a better player of that sport (or any sport!), and you acquire those skills and intuitions by both study and actual play. The former lets you learn from the actions of others and develop your reasoning, the latter lets you test your choices (and thus actually correct for misunderstandings or false beliefs) and develop your intuitions.
Just because you can't generalize "knowing" that the stereotypical D&D troll has a weakness to fire, or that certain kinds of traps can be found using 10' poles, does NOT mean that you cannot learn to play D&D better overall by...y'know,
playing it.
Surely you expect your players to make smarter, more effective, more productive decisions over time as they gain experience with play? Because if you do—if you expect that a total fresh-faced newbie will make more, and more severely, unwise choices than a seasoned veteran—then you expect your players to learn to play. I find it more than a little unbelievable that your intent is to ensure that your players are always equally likely to make a bad choice after ten years of play as they were after ten minutes!
I believe the connection would be:
Don't roll when you don't need to so that you don't feel the need to fudge if the roll is bad. --> Don't fudge because they players need to know you are being honest with them so they can "learn" from what happens.
Seems pretty self-explanatory.
That's...you just repeated what was said. I still don't see the connection. Those are two totally separate ideas. The former is purely a matter of DM choices, without
any reference to player awareness or even participation; it could happen for "solitaire" play (just the DM running something for herself.) The latter is
specifically about the players; it cannot,
even in principle, be about something other than players who are distinct from the DM. It couldn't apply to a "solitaire" game.
So...you've repeated the two ideas. What connects them? I still don't see it. Maybe a better way of saying this is, the former is, "this is a method that forestalls any need for fudging," without saying anything about why one should do it. The latter is, "this is a reason why you should not fudge." The former is a method, process, or action; the latter is a reason, explanation, or purpose. The two are wholly distinct things. There are
other reasons one might choose not to which have nothing strictly to do with what I described (like, as others have said, having a policy against intentionally making your players believe something that is false
about what kind of game they're playing, as opposed to characters within the world trying to deceive the PCs for their own benefit: non-diegetic vs. diegetic deception.) And there are other methods to avoid fudging, such as building in safeguards you can reference, openly stating to your players that you are going to ignore a roll, or using systems which don't employ the same kinds of randomness/unexpected result generation (perhaps cards, those are a popular alternative for stat generation, for example.)
How are you getting this
ought (you ought not deceive your players about how the game itself actually works) from this
is (this method is a way to avoid fudging)?
) opinion on that matter.
