Advanced Fantasy Genre Rules is what happens when you get too big for your britches and think you can design with the big-boys. It's basically the Greyhawk of B/X, a pointless expansion module that adds a bunch of unnecessary filler. Here's some highlights:
"New" Classes:
Acrobat: Stupid class that makes the Thief less special
Assassin: Stupid class that makes the Thief less special
Barbarian: Stupid class that makes the Fighter less special.
Bard: Stupid class that's in for purely nostalgia reasons (also makes Cleric less special).
Drow: Stupid class that makes the Cleric less special, plus bullshit monsters as playable races garbage.
Druid: Stupid class that's in for purely nostalgia reasons (also makes Cleric WAY less special, as they have better spell progression than clerics).
Duergar: Stupid class that makes the Dwarf less special, plus bullshit monsters as playable races garbage.
Gnome: Stupid class that makes the Elf and Dwarf less special, and somehow also makes the Illusionist less special and they are presented for the first time in this book...
Half-Elf: Stupid class that basically does the Cleric treatment to the Elf class (no beginning spells, false second level that's really the end of first level, max spell level 1 level less than Elves, and gives the ability to gain a few more character levels). This is the least shitty new class.
Half-Orc: Stupid class that makes the Fighter and Thief less special.
Illusionist: Stupid class that makes itself less special in comparison to the Magic-User. Probably the worst class in the book, as it's cucked by the Gnome as well.
Knight: Stupid class that makes the Fighter less special.
Paladin: Stupid class that makes the Cleric and Fighter less special.
Ranger: Stupid class that makes the Fighter and Thief less special.
Svirfneblin: Stupid class that basically has no point at all whatsoever, plus bullshit monsters as playable races garbage.
"Races"
So the last chapter with all the bullshit classes sorta tried to balance them with the existing classes in OSE. This chapter tosses that concept in the incinerator. Every option here is awful, and each and every one makes the game worse. I could maybe see adding the half-elf class to a game at some point (but not as a race, I'd call them spellblades or something). This section is 100% unbalanced garbage. AD&D1E had better balancing, which is saying A LOT.
Bloat is the theme for this entire book. Every addition looks needless, pointless, and stupid. From Multi-Classing which was never a good idea to Secondary Skills that never come up to Weapon Proficiency which actually only impedes Fighters and fighting classes, rather than doing anything beneficial for anyone. This book completely misses the point of B/X D&D entirely, and shows without a doubt that Necrotic Gnome are barely better than Goblinoid Games when it comes to actual game design.
