Review of Old-School Essentials Classic Fantasy Referee's Screen

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Blurb from the publisher: 'The Essential Old-School Referee's Screen!

The front of the screen is graced by a fantastic, three-panel dungeon diorama painting by the legendary Peter Mullen!'

What you get: Your EUR 20 or equivalent will buy you the Old-School Essentials Deluxe Referee's Screen, Necrotic Gnome's dedicated screen for its OSR Old-School Essentials game line.

The screen only comes in a print version at this point in time. Thus, and in contrast to 95% of my reviews which examine both the physical and the pdf edition of RPG products, here we examine the physical product only.

Contents: The screen is landscape-oriented with a panel size of 21,5 x 27,7 cm; the screen is 21,5 x 83 cm when deployed. The players' side is a three-panel image depicting a chaotic fight deep within the bowels of the Earth, designed by no other than Peter Mullen. One can see mages, weird fungi, slimy tentacles, troll-like beings worshiping an idol, rivers of lava, halfling thieves, and many, many more. A small part of the imagery is the one used on the cover of the current Old-School Essentials Classic Fantasy Player's Rules Tome. I say 'current', because I understand that Necrotic Gnome's approach is to reprint its basic rulebooks with different covers when a print run sells out.

The GM's side uses three colours (green, black and white), and is full of entries broken down in eleven sections. The left-most panel hosts a column of Downtime, Dungeons, Wilderness and Encounters. As an example, Downtime includes entries in purchases, magical research, hiring retainers, hiring specialists or mercenaries, learning arcane spells from a mentor, and resting. Conversely, Encounters contains entries on encounter sequence, surprise, encounter distance, initiative, monster reactions, and the conclusion of an encounter. The middle panel is dedicated to Combat and Weapons. There are entries on initiative, morale and loyalty, movement in combat, attack rolls, damage, spell casting, and situational modifiers, and let's not forget the PC and monster attack matrix for those who find THAC0 confusing. Weapons is a column with a melee and a missile weapon combat table. The third panel contains the Saving Throw tables for Clerics, Dwarves and Halflings, Elves, Fighters and Monsters, Magic-users and thieves. It also has entries on Ability Checks, Movement, Class Abilities and Equipment.

The strong points: How many OSR screen are out there on the market? I do not hide my attraction to the Lamentations of the Flame Princess style of OSR, yet even that line hasn't published a screen. Well, here we are. No matter which brand of OSR you play, this is a very potent screen. I mean, it contains a distillation of the game's rules in only three panels.

To start with, it meticulously chose what information to put on the Referee's side. Everything, and I do mean everything, is what one would expect to happen in the heat of the session. There are no conceptually poor choices like character creation stuff, or how to award experience; these things happen before or after a session, not during one. At the same time it includes a Downtime entry, since many of these things can happen during a session. The info that has been chosen is stated as concisely as possible, retaining the feel of the line's base products. Most of the entries are text, not tables, it is however pure information and no fluff whatsoever. It is formulaic at times, yet let's be real: this is the OSR style of play we are talking about. I like the attention to detail and how stuff which appear obvious, which however can make a Referee mumble under pressure, has found its way in it. Yes, it is a huge generalization to say that specialists or mercenaries can only be found in taverns or on posting notices, yet this is a generalization that works. If your campaign works differently, adjust accordingly. The screen's layout is exceptional. Not a single square centimeter is wasted. The clever use of bold letters, different sized fonts, banners and colour (to denote sequences) make this screen one of the fastest you will ever familiarize yourself with.

There is one piece of art, yet it is as old school as they get. It's evocative, it's gorgeous, it's surreal: it's the 1970s all over again! The same goes for the production values. The screen is as sturdy and luxurious as they get nowadays. They definitely were not as sturdy when Dungeons & Dragons' B/X edition came out!

If you are reluctant to invest in this screen because you believe it might not be supported enough in the future, there is nothing to worry about. This is a fully compatible OSR product to start with; you can use it with a myriad other games without issues. Second, Necrotic Gnome is thriving, not only when it comes to rules-related products, but also its setting. Unless the Covid-19 pandemic keeps getting out of hand for many more months (something which does not look likely at this point in time), the Dolmenwood Campaign Book is still expected to hit kickstarter later in 2020. I am very excited about this.

The weak points: In case there was any ambiguity, all the information the screen presents has been encountered before in either the Old-School Essentials Black Box or the Rules Tome. In that sense, its price is by far the biggest stumbling point. It costs almost 60% the price of the Essential Rules Tome, and as much as a Player's Rules Tome, while containing only a fraction of the information. When compared to screens across the roleplaying spectrum, it underperforms by not including additional material like an adventure, extra rules, adventure-generating rules, setting material, a few dozen NPCs or monsters, or anything else for that matter. If you buy this, you do it for its excellent presentation, the Peter Mullen image, and the high production values; not for anything new.

The screen does not reference the relevant pages of the rulebooks its entries draw their information from. Even though Old-School Essentials has a valid excuse for it, the result is the same: the Referee cannot easily find a piece of information on the fly (e.g. if he is the visual type and knows that something else he is searching for can be found right next to one of these tables). What is the valid excuse, then? The line's rules are presented in two different formats, the Black Box and the Rules Tome. Thus, the Screen would have needed different reference entries for each format, something that would have cluttered it enormously. Even more so, and taking Necrotic Gnome's publishing approach into account (i.e. changing the covers of its Rules Tome, something that might potentially alter the page count), page references could have been even trickier. So, valid excuse, yet sub-optimal result.

The screen covers the basic classes, not however the ones that are found in the Advanced Fantasy Genre Rules. You can use the existing tables to the extent that are identical to the ones of the new classes (e.g. the Thief and the Assassin have the same saving throw tables), this is not however always the case (e.g. their skill chance of success diverges at times). You will have to invest in no more than a few minutes (and a couple of post-its) when your players want to choose outside the basic classes.

On a rules-related note of the nitpicking variety, the initiative rules are described in both Encounters and Combat. Holistically speaking, it is the right thing to do, since all info pertaining to a section should be found in that same section. When it comes to layout however, the two entries fell right next to one another. It feels quirky, even though it is not a mistake.

Conclusion: The Old-School Essentials Deluxe Referee's Screen is an expensive screen that does not present new information. It is also however a great-looking screen that uses the best possible layout to present tons of crunch relating to the live running of an OSR game in only three panels. Seen through that lens, and taking into account how the basic books of Old-School Essentials went for full conformity with its D&D source material, this is the only OSR screen you will ever need.

For more info on Old-School Essentials, visit the Necrotic Gnome website at https://necroticgnome.com.

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