Michael Suileabhain-Wilson

In an early game run back around 1975, we came across the remains of a burnt ship on the dungeon's second level, in a long gallery. We started exploring it, and the gamemaster told us to stop - there was nothing to be found. But it was a SHIP. On the SECOND LEVEL. With no obvious means of getting there. So we kept messing with it. We were there so long, that we had something like 4 random encounters with wandering monsters (which you may recall happened about once an hour). Finally the gamemaster cracked, and told us the story. We weren't the first group to explore this dungeon. In his previous group, the players had a windfall of many thousands of gold pieces (he'd since learned not to be so generous) and they sought ways of spending it. One player opened up the Men, Might, and Magic booklet and saw the price list, which I've reproduced below. You'll notice the most expensive item is the Large Galley, in the lower left corner, at 30,000 gp. Well, the player bought a large galley, and stuck it in his backpack. He SAID he thought "large galley" meant it was a stove but if you see that it is right with the other ships, I think he was diddling the GM. Anyway the GM found out when they were in the long gallery hall on the second floor of the dungeon and they had quite a clash. The player's argument was that it was now established that he'd carried the ship this far, while the GM's argument was that it was idiotic. Finally the GM, true to his code, said, "Well I guess you got it this far, but no further." So the party put the large galley there in the hallway and (for some reason) set fire to it. And that's what my party encountered. While I have used encumbrance in plenty of my games, I have never had an argument like these guys did. Super impressive.