What is the actual goal of this document?
Who is the intended audience?
It seems like you are writing a guide for all people, and it is thus bloated to greater than 5000 words.
Which is impressive considering it only takes about 800 words to explain the game.
If you want this to be usable to complete beginners, you are going to need this to be far more accessible.
Here are some examples of bloat, with the assumption that you are writing a targeted guide for a new player:
Action cards: These cards usually have white borders, though a few have an extra type (or two, or three) that gives them an additional or alternate color.
everything underlined is unnecessary to a new player, and is just going to distract and cause confusing. we are trying to get the new players into the game, which you do by getting them playing, not by explaining the entire history of changes and additions to the game.
Once you have logged in, you will be presented with the above screen. The buttons along the top of the screen will take you to several different menus:...
It's a brand new player! explain only what they need in order to get them into their first game.
You may sometimes see an Event or Landmark in the game...
this is not something anyone needs to learn before their first game
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Assuming you are tying to get a player, who has zero guidance, and zero dominion experience into a game of dominion online, I'd suggest the following structure:
Table of contents:* Intro
* Rules
* How to get into your first game online
Intro:
(2-3 sentences about the nature of the game)
Rules:
(cherry pick the words from the base rulebook plus pictures; modify words as necessary for the online experience. don't add strategy or confusion or anything they don't need to know for their first game, you don't need to explain all the corner cases at this point. for instance, there is no need to include stuff about unwrapping the cards.)
How to get into your first game:
(figure out the exact minimum number of clicks required to jump into match, and then guide them down that path, making intelligent choices for them along the way. don't give them options at this point)
