MacGuffin

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In the fabled hall of Plot Devices the MacGuffin, or McGuffin, is the central device, on the stone pedestal surrounded by traps. This is such an object or, perhaps, person which motivates people in a story to go hunt for it and/or move it around; but in of itself is largely irrelevant to said story. The classic example is the Maltese Falcon from the 1930 book The Maltese Falcon, a statue of a bird which a bunch of people want to acquire leading to mystery and intrigue but is just a fancy ornament.

Wikipedia claims it can also refer to an event, but this is less common.

The word looks like old slang "guff"; as to the "Mac", who knows. This was all before the McDonalds burger chain got really big, but its influence may well explain the frequent spelling "McGuffin", because the device is ... pretty cheap. The Ark of the Covenant is a frequent plot device but it clearly has an agenda of its own, as you can see at the end of Raiders. Same with the eponymous "Jewel Of The Nile", or for that matter The Ring. To keep your plot-element from boring the players, we recommend showing the party some advance hint as to why it's important, rather than lazily expositing it like the first half of X11: Saga of the Shadow Lord did.

Alfred Hitchcock never claimed he came up with the term himself but he used the device in The 39 Steps (1935).