The dinos are all extinct

[Red Baron]

It is impossible to encounter dinosaurs in od&d.

Pages 18-19 of The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures provide tables for wilderness monster encounters. Each terrain type has a table with various categories of monsters: Men, Flyer, Giant, Lycanthropes, Swimmers, Animals, Undead, or Dragons. A second roll must then be made on the appropriate sub-table to determine the specific monster that has been encountered.

The "Animals" subtable is special, as there are a list of optional sub-tables that may be used to replace the normal "Animals" sub-table depending on the local terrain. In the mountains prehistoric mammals are found, in the desert Barsoomian creatures are found, and in the swamps there are dinosaurs.

Unfortunately, there is no chance of encountering animals in swamps; dinosaurs will never appear as a wilderness monster.

[derv]

Personally, I do not use the "optional" tables as a substitute for animals alone. I believe they are intended as a substitute for the types on the primary table.

So, if the campaign you are running does not contain undead, you could plug in the optional table for swamp.

Notice how on the Desert table for men you have the option to use Barsoom plugged right into the table. If you are not going to use this option, you would roll d6 instead. If you are using this option, you would probably want to also use the optional arid plains table too. As an option, you could use it to replace Animals or possibly another category, such as Dragons.

Again, the Dragon table could be considered a subtable for flyers where you would roll a d6 instead of a d12. If dragons are not found in your campaign, you would need to expunge them from the primary table and as an option for Flyer's.

Basically, you can plug the optional tables in wherever you like to break up the monotony, yet still keep the tables manageable.

[Zenopus]

Nice catch. I just checked the expanded tables in Eldritch Wizardry rectify this by including Animals in the list of Swamp encounters.

[Deleted]

Do people use these tables as written ?
I've always thought of the encounter tables as examples rather than something that must be used.