Wrote a new blog today about how much setting should go in a rulebook. It's different for every game, but I feel a lot of games put too much lore in with the rules.
I know it's really hip to have your setting lean on your mechanics and vice versa, so neither works great without another, but I am more of a fan of rules that support tone and play patterns that reinforce genre more than specific settings. Probably mostly because I am not big on learning a lot about a setting before I feel good about running a game.
I also like to have lots of room to improv and make a setting my own. I know you can do that with any setting, but I just feel more confident doing that with less definition in the setting.
I could probably drop a little something more into my rulebook as a stinger to get people excited about what kind of fiction the game presents. I guess that could be interpreted as setting, or at least adjacent.
Curious about what other think about this topic.
https://infantofatocha.itch.io/chronomutants/devlog/572397/whats-a-paradox-war-anyway
I like the Avatar Legends RPG, and the lore included is great. But I hate how spread out the rules are and how much hunting around I find myself doing. They probably could have put all the rules in a concise, 20-30 pages or less. Then the other hundred or so after that could have the lore.
It's PbtA. Very easy to GM and to play. But it's still hard to convince people to try it, even people who like ATLA, because the rule book looks so long.
I feel like that game was really sold as a "shelf game" with being big and pretty and cool. I hope there is a good index at least.