Neni to uplne smesny, ale prijde mi to docela vtipny. Nazivo by to byla dobra story z hrani. (z redditu)
I had an elven wizard a few years back (around when 3e started) who had a nautical background. Son of an admiral and a fleet mage, grew up with salt in his veins, etc.
Anyways, while everyone was spending their loot on fancy gear (and in one case a little tavern) my mage bought shares in a merchant ship. The DM did rolls outside of game to determine how successful it was, and I eventually saved up and bought my own ship, which was much riskier but also more profitable. Funds raised by it provided me with a second and third merchant, then a pirate-hunting brig...
Nobody really knew or cared what my character did with his money...we played this campaign for like 3 years and it never came up...until the end.
We found out the big bad guy had assembled an army and kept it somewhat obfuscated from us. What appeared to be two sides gearing up to fight eachother turned out to be one massive force headed to crush Waterdeep, half by land and half by sea.
It was then that I produced 3 years of paperwork and started to assemble my fleet. Even the DM hasn't realized just how large it had grown...turns out pretty much half the shipping along the Sword Coast was owned by me, from traders to coastal patrol vessels... privateers, small mercenary fleets...heck I even owned a little band of Luskan pirates who were supposed to be gathering information for me.
So it turns out aage in control of a few hundred ships can really do a number on an invading army...and the final battle that was supposed to happen in Waterdeep actually occured far out to sea, where thousands of the bad guys troops met rather damp endings without ever seeing the coast.
DMs really need to keep track of where players apend money.