POLL: Learning the Rules: Reading vs. Showing

i also think the "both" answer is best, and depends a lot on the rules themselves. starbuck made a relevent point:

…if the rules reward using historical tactics then I like them…if the rules reward players doing unhistorical actions then they seem flawed to me…

i think the same test can apply to the "read or learn" issue. if the rules reward historical tactics, then learning works: you simply have to ask/learn how a particular set of rules handles the execution of the player's desires*. if the rules are, shall we say…a bit "odd", then the game itself (rather than a simulation/recreation of the genre-commander's decision-making process) is the focus and knowing the rules well beforehand is a must.

*trapondur made a good point regarding this: the numbers/modifiers used in a ruleset need to be intuitive/easy to remember --i'm all for foregoing a measure of accuracy by using "twice as much" rather than having to refer to some table/calculator to find "two-and-a-quarter as much", but that's another poll/discussion…