Neonchameleon
Legend
Good stat blocks tell me how monsters think, how they behave, and how they organise. An orc and a goblin behave very differently beyond their size and their equipment just from the statblocks in 4e.
Comparing 2e and 4e goblin fluff/mechanics, 2e goblin fluff tells me how many goblins there are in a generic tribe. 4e goblins show me how they are expert ambushers and what the edge goblins have over most-non-goblins is at this.
And then there's the magic. Good statblocks reflect the casters. Goblin shamans hex and produce nasty clouds of pestilence. Ogre shamans are storm shamans, using elemental thunder and lightning. In neither case are the casters generic casters who happen to be ogres or goblins.
A well designed 4e statblock literally shows me how a monster of that type moves and how they fight when the rubber meets the road. And the monster entry with the multiple statblocks shows me how they organise naturally. On their best day, the 2e Monstrous Manual will tell me things like this. But the 4e one shows me and does it freely.
On the other hand reading the 4e statblocks so that you can see the picture they are painting of the monsters is a skill and there should be more designers' notes on how the statblocks work.
No. They are a form of inspiration you find lousy. Please do not confuse the two.
I find the Monstrous Manual to be second rate fluff that ranks behind e.g. the 3.5 Iron Kingdoms Monsternomicon in terms of inspiring plots. And in terms of inspiring throwaway scenes, I can pick three random monsters from any 4e monster manual from the MM3 onwards, throw in a piece of terrain or two, and if I have an immediate motivation (something 4e MMs are IMO better at providing than 2e) then it'll take me less than a minute to create a good scene. That's inspiring.
And I don't need the monster manual to offer me the main plot of the story. If I didn't have one I wouldn't be running the game.
I think the 2e MM can be improved on, but I don't think that any book in any subsequent edition has done that. But I have controversial opinions.
So do I. And being fair, I'll take the 2e MM over either the 1e or the 3e ones.
And fundamentally my belief that the 4e MMs are superior boil down to the fact that when I look at a humanoid monster in 2e I see a generic humanoid of a certain size. 4e I see a part of a team, moving and contributing in a certain way.
And when I look at a 2e dragon I see a bag of hit points with claws and wings, and that can pull down a cloud of darkness. When I look at the 4e Black Dragon below, I see something almost unstoppable that comes tearing in to the enemy from under the surface of a swamp and is inhumanly unstoppable. It turns the lights out on the enemy, setting them up for its own attacks, and reacts to some attacks, twisting out of the way and bashing the enemy to the floor. And its very blood is acidic and painful.
The entire 2e Monstrous Manual entry on black dragons is, to me, less inspiring than the single black dragon statblock presented above. For that matter, other than dragons eating eels and that dragons are just terrifying rather than having Dragonfear, I'm not sure what fluff other than the spells for higher level dragons (Corrupt Water, Plant Growth) there is in the 2e Monstrous Manual that isn't summarised in the statblock above or obvious from it (like Black Dragons liking to fly at night; they are black, they are lurkers, they have dark vision and they are trained in stealth - or Black Dragons liking to fight in water; they have the aquatic trait).
So what am I missing from the 2e Monstrous Manual that makes it so good?
