I've recently come into possession of several 3rd Edition books, a Pathfinder Core Rulebook, a set of core 4E books, and already have a nice collection of varied roleplaying game books. I've been mulling over some thoughts I've already had, and have come to some realizations about those thoughts, in particular relation to official D&D games.
If it isn't already apparent to you, every kind of book is useful in D&D. Particularly in old school D&D there is a great emphasis placed on knowledge, fluff, and flavor text. OD&D and AD&D particular have numerous references on reading literature for inspiration, and going to the local library to find out about areas of interest. In games that have no rules systems for out of combat activity, real world knowledge can be used to fill in the gaps, and actually roleplay what will happen. Of course this also means that any RPG material can be used with D&D to help fill in gaps, especially in older editions where rules subsystems are encouraged, you can wholesale import rules from other games.
With that caveat out of the way, what is common in every edition of D&D in particular? Hit Points and Armor Class. In fact that is what really makes D&D, D&D; the d20 attack roll. This means that every edition's monsters in particular, are generally usable across the board with minimal tweaking. This is especially true for converting newer monsters to TSR era D&D. Any hit point value can be easily converted to a hit dice value; use whatever editions combat tables for monsters to determine attack roll value; and finally "flip" and possibly reduce armor class.
Before I start hearing contentions about how "mathematically" there is a huge difference between editions, I want to point out that there actually isn't. If you stop seeing every kobold as a "kobold", and start seeing them as different kinds of kobolds, or different monsters altogether, with similarities, you are now free to use every editions book. In fact, maybe you like 3E's kobold better than AD&D's, that's great, you now have a better version of a monster you want to include. So instead of thinking about how monsters that are found in all versions of the game, as being different, consider them as more monsters to use. Maybe change the description, or include them as leaders or super-variants.
What's of great interest to me, as a DM, is 3rd Edition/d20 monsters. I have a copy of Call of Cthulhu d20, and it hit me like a brick: I want to toss some Cthulhu monsters at my players! I love the cosmic horror aspect, and there's already several Cthulhu monsters in D&D. I was going to convert some from Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu, but it's d100 and would be a bit of work. Now I can just use the monsters from my d20 book. Another brainstorm I had was using the Star Wars d20 books. There's a Rancor action figure in my FLGS and I joked about sending it after my players, when I realized, "Oh wait, I can!".
With the d20 system its extremely easy to convert monsters to old school D&D. There's a few conversions guides online, but I'll go over some of what I've been doing to quickly use 3.5 monsters in my game. There's no attempt to scale their difficulty or make them easier to fight, because the player's will be rewarded with ample XP, and as a DM I can determine what's reasonable for them to fight.
First off lets look at Armor Class. If you're using something like Basic Fantasy, Swords & Wizardry, or Castles & Crusades, simply us the Armor Class as is. If you're really bothered about ridiculously high AC, cap it at 30 like it was in older games. BFRPG has a lovely conversion document that scales armor classes above 25 (IIRC). If you're using AD&D of some sort, simply subtract the AC from 20, and once again you can limit it to -10, and even scale AC over -5, or 0.
Combat stats are extremely easy, because you can just look up their attack values in the edition you're using. Use the combat tables or formulas appropriate to your chosen edition.
Feats and special abilities are going to be more difficult, but can either be largely ignored, or you can look up how they work. Every edition has had special monster abilities, like swallowing whole or ability drain. You can either take the time to convert the rules/modify them, or do the real old school method and adjudicate the abilities based off flavor text.
Finally the most important aspect is Hit Points and Hit Dice. I found out that the number in parenthesis for 3.5 monster books, is actually the maximum hit points for old school monsters of the same type. So you can either divide that number by 8 and come up with their d8 hit dice value; or you can simply roll up the hit dice as only d8, either ignoring or including the extra hit points. Determining the number of Hit Dice is extremely important, because this is used for rewarding experience points, and for determine relative level (and therefore difficulty) of the monster. Personally I'm using (and loving) the 2E Ravenloft appendix for determining monster experience value. This table, and most old school XP tables, includes ways of adding monster abilities to their level, to get a general idea of a monster's level.
To me the above is relatively simple, and I've been applying the methods, with great success in my games. This has encouraged me to look at all sorts of d20 books for inspiration, and resources for Arcane Adventures. There are the Star Wars d20 books if you want some exotic alien-like monsters; there is Swords & Sorcery books, very genre appropriate (especially the Tome of Horrors series for old school games); Pathfinder has some wonderful Bestiaries, and the revisited series that's great for themed adventures.
I haven't had a good chance to look over the 4E monster manual, but a player has already agreed to help me convert some monsters from it that he wants to face. I can't imagine it would be much different than what I've discussed above. Once again divide hit point values by 5 or 8 (depending on whats' appropriate), adjudicate special abilities, Flip/Reduce/ or use armor class as is, and determine XP value.
There are obviously more useful books than just the monster books, but to discuss them all in detail like above would take a whole book (Arcane Adventures...). My wife has been browsing Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium, and I've looked at it with her. It's filled with wonderful magic items, that have great fluff, and whose mechanical aspects can either be ignored, or easily converted to be appropriate for old school gaming. I already use several Dungeon Master Guides for random tables, and general advice for my campaigns. My player's love using various editions Player's Handbooks for character fluff, special abilities that I let them gain through role playing for example, and other information.
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