McGuffin ?

[Klaus]

Another prime McGuffin is the briefcase from Ronin. No one mentions what's in it, no one opens it, yet it's the goal of all characters.

 

[ssampier]

an example to make sure I understand

In the old 2nd edition module Temple, Tower, and Tomb you were sent on a quest to find three magical items. The items were fairly powerful, but were never really used in the module.

Is that a McGuffin?

 

[shilsen]

In the old 2nd edition module Temple, Tower, and Tomb you were sent on a quest to find three magical items. The items were fairly powerful, but were never really used in the module.

Is that a McGuffin?

I haven't read the module, so I could be wrong, but that sure sounds like it.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Or the moveable corpse in The Trouble With Harry or Weekend at Bernie's, where getting rid of the Maguffin is the key.

For that matter, you could argue that The One Ring is a Maguffin of the first water... everyone is after it, but if you have it you don't want to use it... especially if you do.

The Auld Grump, and Maguffin's aquatic cousin, the red herring.

 

[lotuseater]

Or the moveable corpse in The Trouble With Harry or Weekend at Bernie's, where getting rid of the Maguffin is the key.

For that matter, you could argue that The One Ring is a Maguffin of the first water... everyone is after it, but if you have it you don't want to use it... especially if you do.

The Auld Grump, and Maguffin's aquatic cousin, the red herring.

I don't think any of these are mcguffin's(though i haven't seen the trouble with harry, so i can't speak on that one definitively). they are all crucial to the plot, and are knowable quantities, so to speak. to be a true mcguffin, it isn't enough to just be the initiator of the plot. there is always some mystery surrounding the true mcguffin which never gets resolved, and although it is usually what sets the plot in motion, it is in the end incidental to the story as a whole.

an example would be that a group of adventurers are hired to apprehend some villains who have stolen some valuable, but unidentified object. they end up chasing these thiefs the whole campaign, finally catch them and bring them to justice, but without ever actually learning the nature of the stolen object.

doc

 

[Mark]

...to be a true mcguffin, it isn't enough to just be the initiator of the plot. there is always some mystery surrounding the true mcguffin which never gets resolved, and although it is usually what sets the plot in motion, it is in the end incidental to the story as a whole.

Like that movie where the guy, on his deathbed, gasps out, "...flex-i-ble flyeeeeerrrrrrrrr..." and then dies and no one knows what he means, and we see his whole life story, and he turns out to be a greast leader of industry, and at the end we, as audience members, find out that as a kid he wanted to grow up as a trapeze artist?

That was aaaawesome!

 

[Yig]

Or like Rosebud in Citizen Kane.