From the introduction: Thousand Arrows is a game in which the players at the table (literal or virtual) tell a story together about samurai action, drama, and tragedy. The story you tell resembles the plot of a Kurosawa Akira film or Yoshikawa Eiji novel, but it lives in the conversation you have at the table. The game’s underlying system comes from Meguey Baker and D Vincent Baker’s Apocalypse World, and the many games it inspired. ...Most Thousand Arrows characters are powerful, influential leaders who command considerable political, material, and human resources. Many of them are knights, hailing from the class of military nobility. Even characters with less exalted backgrounds—for example farmers, monks, criminals, or drifters—tend to be peasant revolt ringleaders, abbots or prophets, pirate monarchs, or feared warrior-pilgrims. These characters typically have audacious, lofty goals, such as conquering a country and ruling it with an iron fist, leading legions of the faithful to enlightenment, or finding true love amidst an age of violence and tragedy. ...This game is historical fiction, which means that as soon as the game begins, the story is yours, not history’s. Historical inspiration provides a starting point, but as soon as you’re playing, don’t try to recreate history. Remake it in your image instead. The game setting also has some fantasy and supernatural elements, representing the religious phenomena and strange beings that many sixteenth-century Japanese people believed were real. That said, the game naturally tends toward certain genres: historical fiction and fantasy, war narrative, over-the-top emotional drama, and grand tragedy. That’s a lot of heavy stuff to deal with, so hopefully it’s funny as well.