Help! What on earth is my McGuffin?

[Berandor]

Mark, that idea is great.

Another idea is just put a seemingly mundane object into the box, and wait for your players to guess what it is. Then take their coolest idea and run with it. They'll do your work, and be happy they found out the items nature without your help.

 

[demiurge1138]

The box contains the Apotheosis Device, a metal headband that causes fiends to advance to higher levels of power (a vrock could become a balor, for instance), and can bestow fiendish grafts onto mortals. The demon-worshippers hope to use it to turn weak summoned demons into powerful ones, and to give themselves freakish new abilities on the side.

There. Flavorful and useful to the cultists.

Demiurge out.

 

[blargney the second]

I *love* ENWorld!

I think I'll combine a few of those absolutely wonderful ideas. The box is an enemy-detection mirror that only works once for a given person. Inside the box there is a coded/cryptic letter addressed to the dwarf, as well as a seemingly mundane, if extremely rare, seashell - it's actually a key.

The PCs delivered a demon chrysalis gem (from Belly of the Beast) to the necromancer from that module.

Thank you very much, everybody!
-blarg

 

[blargney the second]

I'll try to fit some of those other great McGuffins in sometime soon!
-blarg

 

[Arkham]

The Maltese Falcon...

 

[DragonLancer]

Reminds me of the film Ronin. The plot seems to revolve around recovering a case that is important to several different groups, but at the end of the film contents of the case turn out to be irrelevant and you never find out what was in the case.

 

[Mystery Man]

1) What's in the box?

Does it really matter what's in the box? Isnt that the purpose of a McGuffin? It shouldn't need to explain anything, it's purpose should be to distract the players and entice them to figure out its meaning. You don't ever have to tell them if you don't want to.

Reminds me of the film Ronin. The plot seems to revolve around recovering a case that is important to several different groups, but at the end of the film contents of the case turn out to be irrelevant and you never find out what was in the case.

Another very good example would be Pulp Fiction and the contents Marcellas Wallace's brief case. You're never shown what it is but a huge deal is made out of it.

Speculation is that Wallace sold his soul to the devil and bought it back. The combo was 666, it glowed, it was beautiful etc. The three guys in the beginning were the devils helpers, when the kid comes out of the bathroom and all the bullets miss God was helping Vincent and Jules hence the "divine intervention" thing. Pretty interesting theory though we'll never know. That's why it's such a good mcguffin.

 

[CountPopeula]

The beauty of the MacGuffin in Pulp Fiction is that the whole sould thing and all the clues... were the product of the viewer's imagination. Tarantino has answered questions about the case honestly, he never gave any thought to what was in the briefcase, just that it was something everyone wanted and it could advance the plot.

The way I see it, it loses something if you know what's in the case. The MacGuffin, if named, shouldn't ever being anything truely important to the plot, or anything useful in resolving any problems. That's a widget.

If you've ever seen Psycho, think about the importance of the stolen fourty grand. Most people don't even know there's a stolen fourty grand in the movie, but it's practically the central aspect of the first two acts.

But when it's served it's purpose, in this case leading the film to the Bates Motel, it's discarded from the plot completely. To go to another Tarantino film, and another theory about what's in Jules' briefcase, the stolen diamonds in Resevoir Dogs. Once everyone is at the safe house, the diamonds are irrelevant.

Look at it this way... A MacGuffin is a tool for hunting wildcats in the Scottish Highlands. Since there are no wildcats in the Scottish Highlands, a MacGuffin isn't anything terribly useful, though it may be rare and valueable. Once it's useful to the characters, it becomes a different sort of plot device entirely.

 

[blargney the second]

My bad. I guess I used the wrong word. Sorry about that. Won't happen again. *wink*

I'm still awfully glad for the help figuring out what the item was!
-blarg

 

[Gez]

Nothing.

The box is empty.

It was all a trick. What the box was supposed to contain was carried with much less advertizing by a wizard who designed this trick so as to keep trouble out of his hair for the delivery.