Is this merely a plot device, or did you have something else in mind?

Usually such an element is related as a plot device in the game.

In fact, it's pretty much this show's standard plot device.

This action has been used as a plot device in war stories.

The basic plot device was the kind of thing everyone has seen a dozen times on television.

He is such a sorry plot device that no more will be said of him.

Yet he probably wouldn't have used this plot device six months earlier.

"It was a plot device rather than something we were trying to make a huge issue of."

However, it is remarkable because of several new plot devices used by the author.

However, in some cases the works themselves serve as an important plot device.