This review covers Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy, published by Necrotic Gnome as a third-party retroclone built in the OSR tradition rather than an attempt to modernize or compete with 5e. Because of that lineage, comparisons here lean primarily on AD&D and Basic D&D rather than the two 5e reviews in this series. The game comes as two companion hardcovers, the Player’s Tome and the Referee’s Tome, both required for a complete game: the Player’s Tome alone is enough to join a game run by someone else, but the Referee’s Tome is required to run one.
History of Old-School Essentials
Old-School Essentials was designed by Gavin Norman and first published by Necrotic Gnome in 2019 as Classic Fantasy, a faithful restatement of the 1981 Moldvay/Cook Basic and Expert D&D rules. Advanced Fantasy followed as an expansion, adding character options and systems inspired by 1979 AD&D. The Player’s Tome and Referee’s Tome were first printed in November 2020, following a successful Kickstarter campaign.
Necrotic Gnome hasn’t released official sales figures, but demand has been strong. A 2021 restock of Advanced Fantasy stock reportedly sold out within days of going live, prompting a second print run.
As of this review, Necrotic Gnome has announced a 2026 update that will consolidate the separate Classic Fantasy and Advanced Fantasy lines into two definitive volumes, a Player’s Book and a Referee’s Book, planned for mid to late 2026. That update hadn’t released at the time of this review, so the Advanced Fantasy Player’s Tome and Referee’s Tome remain the current purchasable version, sold in print through Exalted Funeral and as PDF through DriveThruRPG, though physical stock has periodically sold out between print runs (further hinting at growing demand and popularity).
Playing the Game
Armor class is descending by default, the same convention used in AD&D and Basic D&D, paired with a THAC0-based attack system. Ascending armor class is offered as an optional rule for groups who prefer it.
Initiative is side-based, one d6 roll per side, matching Basic D&D exactly. There’s no individual initiative option in the core rules, unlike AD&D’s optional detailed system.
Player character death happens at 0 hit points by default, the same harsh standard as Basic D&D, with no negative hit point buffer built into the core rules the way AD&D offers as an option.
There’s no advantage or disadvantage mechanic. Bonuses and penalties are handled case by case, the same general approach used in both AD&D and Basic D&D.
Experience uses separate tables per class, the same structure found in both AD&D and Basic D&D.
OSE Player Characters
Advanced Fantasy supports two methods of character creation side by side. The default method follows Basic D&D’s race-as-class approach, where dwarf, elf, gnome, halfling, half-elf, half-orc, drow, duergar, and svirfneblin each function as their own class. An alternate method separates race and class entirely, closer to AD&D, letting a demi-human character choose freely from the available classes, with maximum level limits by race and class combination working much the way AD&D handles it.
Thirteen true classes are available:
- Acrobat
- Assassin
- Barbarian
- Bard
- Cleric
- Druid
- Fighter
- Illusionist
- Knight
- Magic-user
- Paladin
- Ranger
- Thief
Nine demi-human races round out the option list:
- Dwarf
- Elf
- Gnome
- Halfling
- Half-elf
- Half-orc
- Drow
- Duergar
- Svirfneblin
As in both AD&D and Basic, only humans face no restriction and can take any of the thirteen classes freely.
Human classes cap out at 14th level in the core rules, with an optional extension allowing advancement to 36th level. Demi-human race-classes cap out lower and don’t benefit from that extension unless a referee specifically allows it.
Demi-humans can multiclass across up to three classes at once, dividing experience among them, with no restriction on which classes can be combined, a simplification compared to AD&D’s specific approved combinations.
The Player’s Tome contains over 200 spells across the cleric, druid, illusionist, and magic-user lists, more than either AD&D’s roughly 150 or Basic D&D’s 44. Advanced Fantasy’s spell lists run the character’s full playable level range rather than being capped to the first few levels the way Moldvay’s Basic booklet was.
Character creation time is slightly faster than AD&D, in large part due to the more concise and logically organized presentation in OSE’s Player’s Tome. It provides two available creation methods and the multiclassing option, taking a first-time player roughly 30-40 minutes to generate a first-level character.
On the character sheet complexity scale, this sits at a 3. The presentation is cleaner than AD&D thanks to consolidated tables and better cross-referencing, but the number of race and class combinations, saving throw categories, and optional systems keeps it well above Basic D&D’s 2.
Advanced Fantasy Readability and Playability
Both tomes are known in the OSR community for clean, modern layout, addressing a specific, often-cited complaint about the original 1981 Basic/Expert rules: that building something as simple as an elf character required flipping between four different pages of the original booklet just to gather the basic rules for that character. Old-School Essentials was designed from the ground up to fix that kind of organizational sprawl, with useful tables, cross-references, and indexing throughout both tomes.
Neither the Player’s or Referee’s tome includes a narrative example-of-play walkthrough in the style of Moldvay’s Basic Set. Instead, both rely on clear reference formatting and worked rules examples rather than a story-driven sample session.
No free legal PDF of either tome is available. Necrotic Gnome does host a free official System Reference Document online, covering core B/X-derived rules such as combat, spellcasting, and character advancement, though it reflects the core Classic Fantasy ruleset rather than the full Advanced Fantasy race and class expansions.
Summary
Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy sits mechanically between Basic D&D and AD&D. It’s built on B/X’s cleaner underlying chassis but imports AD&D’s larger race and class roster, its demi-human level limits, and its two-book player and referee split, rather than Basic D&D’s single all-in-one booklet.
For a group that wants AD&D’s breadth of character options in a logically structured format but without AD&D’s discursive and long-winded writing style, this is a strong fit. The two available character creation methods also let a table choose how much of AD&D’s added complexity it actually wants, race-as-class for something closer to Basic D&D’s simplicity, or separate race and class for something closer to AD&D’s depth.
As an entry point, this is more organized than either 1970s or 1980s-era book it draws from, but the sheer number of race and class combinations and optional systems still asks more of a new player than Basic D&D’s tight four-class scope.
