What do I need to do? What is cool about this monster? What encounters and plotlines can I use it in? What does it do when adventurers aren't showing up to ruin it's day? How do I react to what the PC's do to it?
I don't know what I need it to do before I use it in a game. What I need at that moment I DO use it is for the game to tell me what it does. I don't need reassurance that I can do whatever I want. I need empowerment.
I'm not sure I'm following. It sounds like most of your encounters are random, so I'm not sure why it's important for the game to tell you how to use them, since you'll have to work to make it fit to the context of the game. Though I can see such information at least giving you ideas as to what would happen if the party comes across a manticore lair, say.
Sounds like you want the compendium. Which is an awesome and indispensable tool, but not something I'd want WotC to print out, slap between two hardcovers, scatter with some art and charge me $40 for. Books are no longer the best medium for a directory of things. You're going to need to Engage me to get me to bother with it.
True, but this hasn't really been an option until recently. And I do prefer to have more than just a stat block (or line). Usually the big selling point on physical MMs though is the art, since the visual impression of just what a monster looks like adds a lot to being an engaging, interesting monster.
The thing is, when you start doing things like detailing an orc warcamp, or a dragon lair, you also detail things like, say, the animals that live nearby, the traps that they use, the leaders that they have, the variants that occur, and you have something that any DM, new or old, can plunk down in front of her party tonight and use, without any major prep required.
And each individual bit can still be broken out and tossed into a compendium for those who want to prepare their own dragon lair.
Major difference being, with enough context, I no longer have to do it all myself. I export the boring work of detailing an orc camp out to the Monster Manual, and I can spend more time worrying about where I'd put that orc camp in my world.
It would be awesome to have such information at hand. The issue is in space. You simply can't do this for a lot of monsters without sacrificing a bunch. The orc camp may be cool for the orc-lover, but if gnolls got cut out of the manual due to space, that leaves the gnoll-lover out in the cold. So a balance has to be struck at some point.
I've grown used to 4E in that there are often different 'classes' of the same creature. These too could be affected by space considerations, and for myself, I'd rather 6 different orc classes, than 3 orc classes and a sample camp.
I also think the "quantity over quality" approach to MM's is distinctly unnecessary from a publishing standpoint. After just a few books, the market reaches a saturation point where moar monsters doesn't add much to the game. Statistically, if you use 5 different statblocks in every combat for 10 combats per level over 10 levels (roughly the amount of time people spend playing a campaign according to Mearls), you use only 500 unique stat blocks (with even distribution over those 10 levels no less). That's less than two monster manuals, let alone tricks like reskinning, modding, templating, and ability swapping.
To an extent, sure. But then as a publisher you're going to have to start guessing at to what creatures most of the public wants. And then you'll start getting a bored community, if all you have for first level characters are kobolds. It really should be quantity with quality, but do agree that often this is not the case.
It's not my job as a DM to sit alone in my bedroom and carefully hand-craft an entire night's adventure from a few statblocks and my own chutzpah.
It's my job as a DM to run an active D&D game, and that means filling in the blanks for me, or at least giving me something like MadLibs so I can fill them in on the spot with a random die roll or something.
DMing, to me, is about playing the game, not preparing to play the game.
I guess it's a difference in playstyle. I used to love coming up with dungeons and populating them with monsters, then bringing it out for the next game to see how it went. So, at least for me, I would very much disagree with your statement, as that really is part of the job as a DM. It's not necessarily hand-crafting an adventure, it could be reading up on a module, or going over some monsters that you're likely to use in your next sandbox.
I don't see how you can play a game without some amount of preparation. You can't play chess without sitting down and reading the rules, and setting up the board. I suppose you could have a totally open sandbox world with nothing planned and just wing it. But I would find it disjointing if I'm playing and the GM roles on a random table and then spends a few minutes reading up on the creature and thinking about how the encounter should be. I'd have all that done beforehand, so we could just play, as you mention.
From 2E MM (All credits where credit is due):
[awesome bear fluff]
I would certainly be agreeable to this level of 'fluff' for a MM entry. It's nice to have to get a feel for the creature. I do agree that 4E, at least early on, went too minimalist on information pertaining to each creature, and often in the wrong direction. Tactics are sort of handy, but I'll play a creature how I want to, not how the flow-chart tells me. And Lore is often useless or far too specific.
I wouldn't want sample lairs for each bear, though, and further extrapolations on the surrounding wilderness and wildlife found there, as that will like mean intead of getting Brown, Cave and Polar bears, I'd just get Brown and Cave bears.
I would approve of a Bearinomicon where multiple lairs could be presented, as well as new bears like the Black and Grizzly.
