First of all, thanks for the review. I’ll try to answer to all your issues.
It doesn’t surprise me you have to read my game twice before obtaining full (or at least a good) comprehension. All the games I reviewed for this contest required more than a single reading, not to mention the other well crafted and finished role-playing games (of author) I read. The matter is quite simple: every document with a minimum depth requires more than one reading.
I take note of your suggestion of using only the Major Arcana. In the past I thought of games with only needed Major Arcana or poker cards. In this case I opted for both, because I wanted a system for the sharing of Guides’ authority (and Protagonist creation through the Celtic Cross method) and another system which contemporarily could work with the Conflict resolution (and be linked to the Elements). The use of an entire deck of Tarots seemed to me as the right choice.
I included a Glossary because it represented a solid help to the understanding of the game (and, indeed, also to its writing!). I didn’t include a table of contents even if it would have required little effort to me (I used the heading management in Word, so the inclusion of a table of contents would have been only a matter of a click) because I thought that for a 12-page draft it would have been exaggerated. Surely I’ll include it if this project will be developed in the future (as I hope).
When I wrote this game I didn’t intend it for a one-shot play; I’d rather intended it for a 3-4–session play (in the same manner of “My Life with Master”, “Don’t Rest Your Head”, “The Mountain Witch” etc.). I think that for my game a one-shot session will be crippling even in 3 Players.
About the “high requisites” of my game, taking everything into account the only “strange” thing you need are the 22 Major Arcana (which you can freely download from the link I put in the text note). Everyone has poker cards at home and, if you play role-playing game (and even if not), d6 are ‘habitués’ in your games. The glass beads are nice, but on the Protagonist sheet I made circles, so everyone can note Path scores with pencils. Index cards aren’t a requisite at all (i.e. in Italy index cards are impossible to find…), in fact – as you noted – you can take scrap paper and split it in four.
Finally, you say the truth arguing that more hints (and examples) to the players would be welcomed. I tried to be clear as I could in the “Players’ Tasks” paragraph. It was a real challenge to me to stay within the 3,000-word limit… Surely, in a future revision, I’ll include them.
I hope I was able to answer to your perplexities.