Within musashis words we can see something of socratic method; that knowledge comes from within. Socrates sought truth and didnt think there was alot of it. Here Musashi begins with a truth and for him, questioning the known will lead us on a path of revelation.
The bucket maker steadies a cedar stave and draws his plane along its edge, a thin curl of pale wood falling among the shavings at his feet. Each narrow board must fit its neighbours closely enough to hold water; assembled around a fitted wooden bottom, they form an oke, an open-topped bucket. He taps woven bamboo hoops down around the body, tightening their grip until the joints close.
"The woman bent beneath it, though she believed the weight was her own tiredness.
The bones of an adventure here at 10000things, are a series of discrete scenes, or nodes . A meeting at the well, an argument before a magistrate, a search through an abandoned shrine.
We have to experience free will; we do not have to be free to do it. Characters enter a scene already shaped by designs and circumstances their players have not entirely chosen. The GM can bring those forces to bear, making an obligation felt or a possibility suddenly compelling. That scene is a node within the story.
In a game, we begin with what the text tells us. Here is a villain, here is a merchant, here is somebody standing beside the road who may or may not help. But when we go looking for what else that person has, we need to give them a life from which their actions make sense. Everybody can beat out, however tenuously, their own "hero’s" journey through the tale. They can tell you what they have suffered, what they have earned, and why the thing they are doing is justified. This is called moral agency. Let them inhabit it completely. The players have their reasons for being here, but they are not the only people whose reasons count.
We are playing a collaborative storytelling game. Much of the play lies in understanding another person’s position, and deciding what we are prepared to do about it. If we abandon every uncertainty to the dice, we spend our time reinterpreting whatever they produce, trying to make a tale out of it afterwards. “The dice are telling the story tonight” can mean the GM has handed some of his responsibilities to a few pieces of metal rolling around a table. Chance has its place, but we still have to decide what deserves to be left to chance.
A lord’s command requires provisions. A merchant’s promise requires trust. A purse of gold requires someone with grain to sell. Across Japan’s warrior households, temples, villages and markets, finance connected need with surplus—and helped determine who could make things happen.
A temple bell carries across the fields. Travellers leave offerings beside the road, and mountain ascetics climb towards places the villagers seldom visit. Religion belongs to the province’s daily life: remembering the dead, asking protection, keeping festivals and tending relationships with powers beyond the household.