Hmm. Gamedev friends:

I'm working on a game now, but the game mechanics are kinda loosey-goosey and involve a lot of having the player know and understand how to actually apply them to the "mechanical" parts of their games.

I feel like when it comes to video games, everyone these days expects games to just very quickly teach them everything they need, but what about games that require more knowledge to have a more "complete"/"correct" experience, more along the lines of what learning a tabletop game is like? What are some techniques people have applied to reining in complexity and helping with learning the rules, when the rules aren't necessarily enforced by the game?