I want rpg book to be complete and self supported. Rules are IMO less important than setting, so I expect rpg books to contain less rules than than lore.

I don't want to use calculus to estimate damage, and realistically a big table of bonuses/maluses for an action is useless in real life as the GM has to set up a difficulty without breaking the game flow. But I want to know about that lady who rules her noble clan by poisoning her opponent, that cult of Eunuch monks who can see the future and the new religions who spread and is about to kick out the new God. These are the elements I need to create story.

Rules are an element to make the setting alive, and sometimes a whole part of that setting, for example D&D alignment and mage who forget their spell are a huge setting choice

I sort of agree, I have never played in a premade setting except for a 2-shot for city of mist and I've never GMd one at all, and I often spend a lot of time reading rulerooks for ideas for my own RPGs.

I've been trying to write my own collaborative storytelling game recently rewards players for taking on a storyteller role but doesn't stop players who would prefer to remain as one character for the session, and when I read Ben Robbins' blog post about Remember Tomorrow, I thought I could use a part of this and bought the pdf. I'm trying to build a royal court political thriller type system and I know that this was cyberpunk by default, but 3/4 of the page count is really guidance on how to make a specific tone of cyberpunk lore, with the rules interwoven between them.

I feel that if your system is novel and applicable to many tones and genres, it should be seperated from that genre any related setting in the rulebook, and similarly if you're rules and genre are wrapped up, it's a good idea to seperate setting slightly, which we commonly seen in fantasy RPGs.

I feel they should be in the same book, but unless your rules are absolutely dependent on your genre or your the two absolutely dependent on your settings, it's wise to seperate them to make your book more easily usable by those wanting to work your ideas into their own.

Personally I always prefer when the rules of a system can stand alone and don't make too many assumptions about the setting. One of the biggest adjustments I had to make when migrating my group from D&D 5e to Pathfinder 2e is that Pathfinder makes far more assumptions about setting compared to D&D.

In Pathfinder there are certain classes and game mechanics which are very tightly coupled to the setting of Golarion, particularly for the Cleric and the Champion. I personally am not a big fan of "loose Pantheon" and "interventionist gods" in my fantasy and spent a lot of time on my own custom setting for D&D which I've been porting into Pathfinder.

It's surprising given how much better PF is in other ways that it tries to force its (IMO kinda dumb) setting on the game. Like Pathfinder Champions and Clerics literally say that you have to worship an individual god, not a Pantheon, and that your god directly gives you powers. Whereas D&D Clerics and Paladins just say that you need to dedicate yourself to an idea, and that the religion may or may not be involved. IMO this is much better as a setting-agnostic system.

I think part of the reason D&D wins out here despite the fact that Pathfinder is the (again IMO) better-designed system overall is that D&D has a legacy of multiple settings being used for its adventures, whereas my understanding is that PF has always used the same setting. So when WOTC was creating 5e they built in a certain degree of setting-agnosticism from the ground up.

Please don't self-promote the same link across multiple communities at once. 🫤 Feels super spammy.