Most Important Oldschool element? Plus Dolphin Secrets

 When i stopped playing d&d after as the second edition brown and green series in early 90s. I found the art and design less interesting and some of the writing bombing and by ppl not much older than me. I mostly played TSR marvel superheroes and Runequest3 as a mostly non gloranthan fantasy or history campaign. I was also getting into real history from gaming in 80s and was reading lots of the classics like Heroditus. I found TSR doing lots of history theme stuff I guess I liked but after a while of every setting plundering and mashing history, I got a bit tired of it and felt i could just read history books. 

So 12 years ago i got back into d&d and started this while i was sick lots and from requests. So I just wrote my own retroclone of cyclopedia + ad&d85 + some 3rd ed stuff I liked. The no1 thing that got me wanting to play old d&d the most vs RQ was the size of the statblocks in adventures. It took ages to stat up stuff in RQ with hot locations and strike ranks and some maths after rolling stats and even using average and recycling Monster Colloseum and published books. A game I played in the GM had a stack of paper bigger than a phonebook on statblocks (bigger than a real of standard paper). We had to do lots of prep. So old d&d got me back for the basic stat blocks. I can play most old-style games even Dungeoncrawl classics and all kinds of clone games from these simple statblocks.

Mostly they are ok to translate on the fly ad hoc. I find it harder for translating into later D&D which players often have more HP and damage output from lots of abilities. I sometimes when players over 10th Lv often use d&d5 and pathfinder and some OPEN GAME LICENSE splatbooks for more powerful versions of monsters. I find some of these products have huge blocks. I like the more concentrated animals and human enemy statblocks in many cases for being direct and compact. 

I recently bought a monster Comp book I'm gonna take ages to read as its like 4 inches thick. It has some great detail not unlike my own monster format with example scenario ideas. The Mutant Epoch RPG has a mutation table specific to many species. Stormbringer made it clear magic monsters of chaos are less often a consistent species. Any creature could be mutated but it also recommended making unique monsters more often. I like the idea of half all monsters being unique or variants and a surprise.

So what makes this simple stat block so good?

AC
HD
Mov
Att

From these, you play most creatures in a published product. Lots of the AD&D monster info I seldom used. The second ed was good in some ways but the longer monster descriptions added more lore instead of the tiny ones in Basic d&d or the 1st Monster Manual. This can be good sometimes but can also make it feel harder to have your own monster lore when everything about Mindflayers and Beholders is mapped out. Lots of this lore has been changed and will change again. I quite like Wikipedia descriptions, especially for goblinoids and faerie folk. 

I especially like BECMI uses asterisks on monster stat blocks to indicate how many magic plusses + are required to hit them. Some *** after HD to indicate power of extra abilities and are considered more difficult is a simple challenge rating system. I like special abilities bullet-pointed or listed. The AD&D monster cards were better laid out than the monster manual for statblocks, Having all the powers of a fire devil in a list instead of a block of test is more usable. Obviously more powerful weird monsters need own larger statblocks. Animals can easily be put on a table - invertebrates, birds, ungulates, plants, dinosaurs, marine animals (fish & whales no separate page for dolphins please with text from a children's encyclopedia and no cool fantasy lore). 

I did like the stat blocks in Gamma World 2nd ed that let you roll monster stats and had good basic info and format and size too. Ive used in my weird D&D games fine. Stats for creatures can get awkward in a system that is made to describe humanoids to assign horses strength. Or maybe quadrupeds get better encumbrance? Barrowmaze and works in that series have pretty good statblocks and art and I believe that are doing a monster manual or a PDF at least. I think the folder system of 2nd ed was a failure and made some monsters lumped together so you couldn't find them alphabetically and some grouped together well. Some stuff was pure fluff to fit on pages for the format.  One great flaw of the AD&D monster manual 2 and FF was to include a few naff monsters but not barrier peaks androids and robots. Where would we be now? It would have changed the game so much if weird science fantasy was built in at that time more. I like 2nd ed tried to consider species info and not just their millitary heirachy for wargames. But this lore had problems and narrowed campaign scope and originality more.

Other attributes I like are Morale which I also use for discipline to see if goons and mooks obey orders or guard properly. Or make sure they don't abuse prisoners or all run away looking for treasure or booze. Generally, I improvise this from how confident I want an enemy to be. Some things walking home might not be committed but if it thinks you are menacing its child it might be fearless or berserk. Undead are mostly fearless but possibly smarter ones might fear sunlight, the onset of dawn or even clerical powers that could threaten their mission. In the case of the many monsters id make higher HD subtypes and higher morale. You can always have a charismatic boss with a command radius to rally those with failed morale. 

So I have used a simple stat block myself for fancy monsters including variant abilities and scenario seeds like those below. I am considering some extra info about habitat, prey and companion species. I chose Dolphins because everyone knows I hate monster books with a whole page on dolphins and crap non dank lore.

The dice for optional abilities can be rolled through or chosen. Usually one per 3HD or some other limit helps. I give elites and bosses extra skills and HD 

The lore dumps can have untrue beliefs and should sound like fabulous medieval bestiaries not children's encyclopedias or 1970s animal fact cards collected in weekly parts. Thus the fiendishly nice dolphins here. I guess id like to do these statblocks for my game monster splatbook if i did one. What do ppl think of my Elfmaids & Octopi monster descriptions?
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Dolphin
Neutral Good Intelligent Marine Mammal

AC+5 HD 1-3 d8 Mov 1 Swim 36 Att Unarmed butt or tail slap or body slam d6 (2d4 if 3HD)
Perform a charge in a straight line for 6 Mov +1 hit and double damage
Up close in combat can use its body or tail. On land, AC is +3 Mov is 1
Can perform 6m acrobatic leaps, teamwork and has underwater sonar

Eat fish. Known as the Good Fish for aiding sailors, guiding ships and helping fisherfolk.
Some are ridden by sea elves and marine spirits and faerie folk. Hostile to sharks and various other marine predators due to ancient enmities from long ago. Dolphins have a hereditary nobility who are vassals of the lord of the ocean. Many lands prohibit harming them if they are friendly. In other lands, people hunt them to eat. Other people go fishing with dolphins who work and get a share too. Most fishfolk think dolphins are not proper fish as they breathe air and have nipples like a human. Fishlore says dolphins are disgusting mammal newcomers like whales to the sea and they all once walked on land and had hair thus they feel kindred to hideous walking worms that are humans. Most are blue, grey or white but some exotic ones in many rainbow colours especially magical ones.
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1in4 Nuetral alignment and indifferent to non-dolphin affairs and wary of strangers and humans
1in4 Evil alignment for drowning sailors, ruining nets and chasing away fish, is a cultist and possibly serves hell or a sea demon. Some called devil dolphins or demon dolphins
1in4 +1 HD +1 AC veteran dolphin
1in4 human intellect and understands local sailor and coastal languages

1in4 Allies of humans or some marine humanoids who protect and avenge them

1in6 can lay hands by touch 2hp per HD a day they can use to heal by touch as a spell
1in6 can cast curse once per week on enemies or a clan can cast a more powerful ancient curse once a month on a ship, crew or bloodline
1in6 sonic attack 2d6 damage 2 range circle, dolphins are immune, one use per HD per day
1in6 allied with local sea elves or fairies who ride them and play with them as friends
1in6 is really a reptilian Ichthyosaurs or fish lizard and may bite as an unarmed attack and are kindly and helpful to lizard folk and humanoid reptilian peoples otherwise nuetral

1in8 gain an extra attack (bonus attack cant also be a charge attack)
1in8 extra fast Swim 48
1in8 telepathic with other dolphins

1in8 huge dolphin has +1HD +1 AC and any human size beast hit must save or knocked 3m prone 
1in8 speak undersea common and learn other languages of sea or land

1in10 telekinesis with 3d6 STR and 10 range per HD
1in10 telepathy at will by sight but once per day send long-range message to the same plane
1in10 ESP at will can read minds mostly used to understand others better
1in10 horn or antlers or tusk causes extra d4 damage on base unarmed damage
1in10 faerie dolphins are from undersea faerieland and can teleport 1km twice a day. Sense magical seas that overlap with the mortal world and portals, more colourful and human intelligence. Understand marine elvish and faerie languages

1in12 armoured +2AC with a +2 damage saw fin that is used to damage boats better
1in12 magicians have a spell per HD per day
1in12 ridden by a d3 marine pixies from the undersea fairy kingdom
1in12 if at least 6 gather can once per week summon an 8HD water elemental

1in20 shapeshifts into human form for an hour per HD per day or is a changeling dolphin spirit folk but doesn't like to be seen changing by humans, very pretty
1in20 can locate ancestral portals to a plane of elemental water to explore or adventure
1in20 can fly in the air as in water
1in20 magician has d4+2 level in a spell casting class

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d12 Dolphin Adventures
1 A friendly dolphin has alerted locals to a shipwreck in progress and gathers help while sharks and wreckers try to finish off survivors
2 A wicked dolphin has driven off a friendly dolphin and needs to be gotten rid of so the good one comes back
3 Locals warn a shapeshifting dolphin has been surfacing as a human and making indecent and lecherous offers and promises
4 Sea elves offer to let you ride their dolphins to help recover a magic pearl from an octopus cave
5 Wicked marine murder hobos trying to kill friendly dolphins with clubs for meat
6 Pink dolphins with crystals in their foreheads have been seen battling vampire stingrays underwater
7 Dolphins chase a strange naked man from the sea who wants help recovering a treasure from the dolphins
8 A sea nymph in a chariot pulled by six dolphins has been kidnapping fisherfolk
9 A shipwreck on a reef is surrounded by sharks but if you could befriend a pod of dolphins they might help you reach it in return for fish
10 Local dolphins are under attack from an evil mutant chaos dolphin with tentacles that shoots bone darts from its nose
11 A wicked dolphin vampire has been murdering people around the sea and waterways and most recently was seen adopting a human form
12 Locals have seen a naked youth riding a dolphin and are curious if it is some feral child raised by fish or some magical creature luring mortals to their peril
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Let me know if this isn't the best RPG fantasy dolphin statblock ever