[Sorcerer] MacGuffin Brainstorm

[Doyce]

Full-disclosure: the following is sort of a lame question; I acknowledge this and accept that I suck for not coming up with something better on my own.

THE SHORT VERSION:
The bad guy in my current Sorcerer game (game sessions detailed here, here, and here, with a fourth one going up RSN) is angling for control of a... thing.  A standard r-Map MacGuffin.  Something that should, somehow, represent an opportunity for knowledge/power/influence.  

I don't know what that THING is.  (Well, that's not entirely true -- I have an idea for it, but it lacks punch.)

Initially, I didn't detail the MacGuffin, assuming that something good would occur to me during play.  Well, that hasn't happened, the fourth session was tonight, and while it hasn't come up yet, it probably will very soon and I'm starting to feel that not knowing about the specific thing is hindering my understand of what the bad guy would be doing.

THE LONG VERSION:
I'm using an R-map loosely derived from Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. To sum up the in-game story so far:

Candace Lynn Voight (an adept sorcerer and one-time apprentice of two out of the three members of a powerful east coast coven), learned of the MacGuffin during her apprenticeship, but bided her time. She now has the opportunity to gain control off [the thing], as the coven itself has died off (Coven Member One is one PC's father, Coven Member Two is another PC's father.  Coven Member Three is Alonzo from the Test Run in the Sorcerer book).  The PC's are unknowingly in CLV's way, but she has no desire at all to face off against superior numbers, So she needs a distraction.

Enter poor, desperate Yvonne.

CLV contacts Yvonne and makes a deal with her that will help both of them out.  Yvonne agrees to the plan and (reluctantly) works with her 'stalker' Jerry Rubinek (a shady fringe porn filmmaker she's worked with on film projects in the past) to abduct two girls that Val (a PC) and Ken (another PC) know.  With a few clues dropped here and there, the PCs are pulled into a situation where they simultaneously question "what happened to the girls" and "Who dares to screw with me."  

Things went south.  Jerry was initially in it to 'get' Yvonne once and for all, but gets hooked on the power Yvonne represents and makes a play of his own by sacrificing one of the girls to summon a demon of his own.  Yvonne freaks out and decides to run to Alonzo and reveal all of it and beg for protection in return.

She runs, she finds out Alonzo's already dead, and that the House is Hungry... this leads to the training run.

Meanwhile, Jerry is getting his swerve on with a sacrificial summoning, the whole point of which is to pull the children/apprentices of the old Coven away from their normal routines and give CLV a clear playing field on which to make a run for The MacGuffin.  The only possible monkeywrench is Yvonne, who flees to the PCs after getting out of the house, trying to gain protection without telling them anything directly (deniability is an instinct with her).  At the same time, she is trying to indirectly lead them to CLV and/or Jerry (telling them as much of the True story as she can without implicating herself), so they can take care of both of her enemies before either one can take care of her.

---

Ugh, that's probably too much information.  Anyway, here's my brainstorming question: What's the MacGuffin?  

The premise of the game is 'are friends and family or knowledge and power more important', so I need the Thing to represent a tempting mass of knowledge and power and right now the stuff I'm coming up with is very tame and lame.  The sessions thus far have been very player-invested and I don't want to get to what's supposed to be a large temptation and get an "Enh" all around the room.

Thoughts?

[Lxndr]

I'm taking this from somewhere, but I forget where.  Actually, I think it might be Harry Potter.  Or Star Trek: Generations.

----

The MacGuffin is an object/thing that promises infinite power, promises whatever an individual most desires.  Everyone who looks at it knows that it will give them exactly what they want, and the stories have grown stronger and larger in each telling.  And more contradictory, of course, since each person to see and want the MacGuffin has their own ideas of what it does.

In reality, of course, the MacGuffin does nothing except make you believe that you have all-power.

----

Okay, now it's starting to sound stupid.  But I'm going to post it anyway - maybe it's better than I think, and even if it's not maybe it'll inspire you (or someone else posting on this thread) to come up with something.

[Doyce]

Okay, now it's starting to sound stupid.  But I'm going to post it anyway - maybe it's better than I think, and even if it's not maybe it'll inspire you (or someone else posting on this thread) to come up with something.

Considering that my current idea (using the term loosely) is that it's the old Coven's massive library... yeah, I'm really ready to consider all options and see if one of them can't pry my brain out of the rut it's in.

[Nev the Deranged]

Well, the MacGuffin in Interstellar Pig was a device that everyone in the universe was led to believe would protect their race (and ONLY their race) from the fast-approaching universal armageddon.

The actual object itself was an archival device that recorded all known information about whichever race possessed it until it grew more interested in one of the other races, at which point it would tell its current host that it had the hiccups.

One Piggy-hiccup being roughly equivalent to a 2000 megaton nuclear bomb. Naturally the current hosts would get rid of it asap.

What does this have to do with your needs? Maybe nothing, unless it gives you a cool idea. Maybe, as Lxndr suggests, the MacGuffin is merely an object that makes you want it by any means possible, while doing nothing for you in actuality besides making you a target of everyone else who wants it just as bad.

Maybe it's an Object demon with a Need to be passed from person to person and a Desire for Mayhem?

If it resides in a library, it could be a book... cliche, sure, but not necessarily bad. Maybe the pages of the book contain whatever the reader expects them to when they open it. Maybe it magically records the life of whomever possesses it, and it's been changing hands for a thousand years from one sorcerer to the next. Heck, maybe it magically records the life of whomever possesses it- five minutes ahead of the current time.

Maybe, like in the Sorcerer's Soul example game, its a document or scroll or whatever on a new ritual, or a more powerful version of a ritual... maybe it's real, maybe it's just a fake. Maybe, as in the example, it's a fake- but it works anyway. Who knows?

If you're using the Necromancy rules from & Sword at all, maybe it's a powerful Token of some kind, fueled by the blood of a dozen vestal virgins during the Inquisition by Torquemada himself.

Just some ideas... hope they at least spark something useful for you.

[Trevis Martin]

For pure meglomania perhaps it is some amulet or object that confers immortality.  Of all the things big bads are afraid of, death is usually a big one.

Trevis

[Doyce]

One of the things about the macguffin in the first place is, really, that it doesn't matter in the larger scheme of things -- I'm much more interested in the temptation of the thing and the decisions that come out of it -- the group is finally getting into a bit of a groove with testing their characters against their Humanity and the premise of the game, and at best I want to offer up the thing as a challenge.

In a way I'm almost looking at drifting a little Maltese Falcon over top the current R-Map -- everyone wants it, everyone things everyone else has it, and there's some question as to whether or not it's even the real thing.

[DannyK]

This reminds me of a Don DeLillo novel, Running Dog , where there's a great maguffin hunt (as a thriller writer with literary pretensions, DeLillo is a great guy to rip off for Sorcerer idea IMO), and the Maguffin is a roll of film.  It's a home movie that Hitler made in the Fuehrerbunker.  Nobody knows what's on it.

Finally the protagonist gets it, plays it on a vintage projector... and it's a silent film reel of Hitler imitating Charlie Chaplin.  Bizarrely humanizing, and nicely ironic -- this comes after hundreds of pages of people dicking each other over for the movie.

So, in that vein, I would suggest a two-part Maguffin: a book sounds like it would fit, maybe the experimental journal of one of the old sorcerers in the original coven, good for some bonus dice or even a Lore boost.  But stuck into the middle of it like a bookmark is something highly personal and human and embarassing -- for example, love letters. If it turns out that the father of one of the PC's is actually Alonzo, for example, it could be fun.  Or just something very embarassing to Yvonne.  

Anyway, that's my brainstorm for the week.

[Doyce]

Hmm.  I really really like the ideas that gave me.  It probably wouldn't be Yvonne, but one of the PC's mentors is working very hard to get this thing -- and she was an apprentice to (verifiably) two of the three male members of the coven.

Gotta be something I can do with that.

[Mike Holmes]

It's gotta be a little black book. One with everyone's secrets in it. Doesn't even have to be supernatural at all (though it could be an object demon).

Basically, have a dead NPC who was a schmooze, a member of the coven, who pretended to be everyone's friend. He accumulated notes on everybody who is anybody. When this was discovered, somebody offed him to get it, but it got lost in the shuffle. Now everybody needs it:

A) because their deepest darkest secrets are in it. Every skelleton they've ever stashed in a closet. And,

B) because anybody who has it knows everybody else's secrets and can blackmail them.

Knowledge is power, and this book has the facts. What would you give up to protect your secrets and know everybody else's?

Mike

[Zak Arntson]

I'm with Mike on something that contains everyone's secrets. But instead of a little black book, how about a brain. A black leather box, with a few straps and buckles, lined on the inside with velvet. Nestled in there is a little mason jar, sealed with wax, holding a shrivelled & pickled brain.

Getting access to the brain would bring about all the knowledge & power, with the addition of tormenting the brain itself (which is the brain of somebody tied into the family).