I guess you can't win in the flight simulator or game quandry.The noobies want a jump in and "fly" aircraft,the FMS trained want an FMS installed,and the hard core simmers want authenticity and the dummies don't know their a** from their elbow,and you still have to try and sell into this market. .
Ron

I learned Radio Nav on FS2004 in the "lessons" sections. Very clear and easy to understand lessons on radio nav there.
I spend the majority of my time doing VOR-VOR and NDB Navigation. Much more entertaining than imputing data into a FMS and pushing a couple buttons.

I sometime cheat (like today), by using the GPS nav. It's really easy, and I used it when doing a test of the 737-200F in FSX in Windows 8.1.
The autopilot was fine and GPS allowed me to increase the Sim Rate on a 1500nm flight!

Yeah. I did.
I still had a lot of Captain Sim products to install (including offline activations), which can take some time. I don't like installing when FSX is in use either. Then. I had to do some more tests. I have finished installing/activating them all, but I still have a lot to test. My worst problem is that I hate not finishing a flight, and with the 737-200F, I decided on a long (near maximum range) flight, so time compression became an order of the day.

Also. The flight across Australia, would require some dead reckoning over central Australia. There are very few navigation aids in the Red Centre, so there a lot of dead spaces there! I don't know if it's like that in real life, but it sure is in FSX.

You need two bits of information for the basic radio nav. First is the frequency for the navaid, usually a VOR. Then you need the course to that navaid in your flight plan. So enter that the frequency in your nav radio's frequency window, and needles should come alive, and Distance Measuring Equipment (DME) will show numbers -- the distance you are away.

If you happen to be on the right course, great! Just switch your autopilot to VOR and watch the wonder of it all. If your needle is significantly broken (you'll know what I mean) you should use HDG to try to split the difference between your direction and travel, and your desired course. Your reward will be the broken needle slowly starting to move to close the gap. Just before the needle is whole, use your heading to line up with everything coming together beautifully. Then switch over to VOR and you're good, until the next VOR.

I always use HDG to get lined up perfectly before asking the AP to fly by VOR. I will often use HDG to sort of manually follow the course by VOR, especially if it is snaking back and forth, "seeking."

HDG will come in handy when you reach the VOR, because when you get real close, the VOR isn't very useful to navigate by, and when you pass over it, it will flip all the way around to the opposite direction! So what you'll want to do is 10 nm out or switch over to HDG to again, but leave it on the course for now. At 5 nm switch over to the new VOR's frequency and course -- all the while flying your original course by HDG. Taking into account your airplane is going to have to have some room to turn toward the new VOR's course, set HDG on your new course. With a lot of luck, you will execute this perfectly, and be right on your unbroken arrow on your new course. More likely, you'll have to mess around a bit to get back settled on your new course.

The most common mistake, or perhaps I should say, the hardest thing to avoid, is over-flying your VOR. So try to give yourself plenty of room.

And that's really all there is to it. This is just the way I learned to do it, way back when LAGO was around.

You also have a couple of ADF tuners. The difference is these don't have fancy radials that let you track specific courses, like VORs. Your needle will just point to them. They're still useful, like following a fixed light in the dark. You may not know exactly where you are, but you know where the light is.

You have an RMI below your big impressive gear with knobs and what-not. That's just a little dial with two needles, and 0 to 359 degrees around the edge. The two knobs let you set each side to either VOR or ADF. The easiest thing you can do with them is to set them to point toward an ADF so you know where you are in relation to it. Actually, the easiest is to fly straight toward it, in which case it will point straight up.

Using your RMI and a chart, you can easily pin-point your position  because it gives you another datum. If you're flying a course using a VOR, you know what direction you're going, but not where you are along that radial, right? (Let's imagine there's no DME for a moment.) If there is another VOR off to the side, you can pick a degree number on your RMI, say 090 (pretend you're flying north and the VOR is off to your left.) When the VOR tuned into your RMI is at 090, you're due east. That gives you two points of reference. On your chart, you could use a ruler and draw a dot exactly where you are.

That's really more than you need to know to navigate the 737. But even modern airplanes use the same techniques to make sure they're where they're supposed to be before setting out across the trackless ocean. They will use these kind of tricks to double-check their location and avoid GNEs (Gross Navigational Effors).