And, again, who says that D&D is about learning a lesson ? I thought it was just a game...
Nobody said it was about learning a lesson. But you can learn lessons while playing it. And games are probably the best tools we have to teach and learn. There's a whole billion market about it. So the
it's just a game thing doesn't hold.
Yeah, right, that's certainly what people are looking for when playing D&D, an experience akin to putting one's hand on the open stove. For fun, of course....
I don't know why you're pulling things in such directions. I never said it was like that. I said learning lessons don't require a teacher. I used the common example of the stove to image the fact that just going through experiences can teach you things. Just like trying something new in your game and having great success teaches about what works, etc.
Or, you know, you could discuss the game openly with your players, as part of session 0 and a debrief and have even greater effect on the behaviour without all the negative strings attached...
I do and always did. Are these things exclusive? The point is, behaviours that you let happen at your table will happen. And when I say behaviour, I don't mean like someone eating chips or being rude. I talk about design. You come at the table with some design intentions, you created a scenario to create a mood, or scare your players, or make them feel challenged, or reward them for some past doings. What design intentions you bring affect the behaviour they will have. Just like rewarding XP for gold promotes a certain behaviour.
And the point that was discussed, before being derailed, is that, in my opinion, the vast majority of decisions that cancels your players agency will, in the long run, dissuade any behaviour of being involved in the act of decision-making. We have discussions about this stuff all the time on this board. I've seen countless discussions about how the deadliness of encounters and how if your players know that if they do very bad decisions someone might die makes them more involved in the encounter because they take it seriously. It's not like I'm coming from the left field with the proposition I'm making...