First question, has anyone ever successfully ran a museum heist?

Second question, how is the security system built?

Thoughts on ways to secure a building without damaging any of the artwork? Would the security be more about containment than subdual or outright hostility, gates and heightened sensors to alert guards etc.

I know that all sorts of everyday things can cause costly damage to fragile pieces of artwork...would a gas such as Neurostun damage artwork?

All of this is obviously for a major museum, like the Smithsonian or the Met...I'm not thinking on the small scale local Natural History Museum...

Something out of the Thomas Crowne Affair (the one with Pierce Brosnan) comes to mind.

Haven't seen it, but will look into it.

Don't overlook curses, aka anchored and masked spells, as traps and pitfalls about priceless goods (some not even the museums' making).

Another important factor is that the infiltrator has the advantage of holding all the artwork and such hostage, though that also increases the insurance to security costs (meaning the insurance companies have more a hand in choosing the measures of protection).

Restoration can fix much of the surface damage caused by things like Neruostun, especially when you include nanites in the process, so I expect the security of some to include it. Not to mention that magic can protect such works from damage (nature spirits using Guard for example).

One of the advantages of using long hallways and exhibit rooms is damage control and containment - something art galleries lack. Electrified floors, quick close security doors and armor window plates, sonic weapons (SotA64), and melee capable drones. Nanite taggnets on the exhibits can help track the thieves later (sometimes it is better to let them escape than to ruin the works).

A 2060 museum might have armored walls that drop down in front of paintings when an alarm is tripped to protect the art and allow the guards to use gunfire. Also, sculptures could drop down on hydrolics into secret compartments in the floor. Maybe these measures are SOP when they lock up at night - requiring a decker to hack in and reverse the measures in order to access the goods.

The museums (art museums) in my games make use of Neuro Stun gas, mages using only mana spells, etc. The key is to minimise damage to the priceless artworks.

Most of the security measures revolve around detection, preventing the thieves from entering in the first place. Making the artifacts difficult to get to through brute force methods like barriers around the artifacts may prompt thieves to use even more brute force and increase the risk of damaging the pieces.

evon somthing a symple ar carfuly elected firing arcs could be usfull. i am thinking a sealing mounted gun implacment with firing arcs selected that mean it cant hit the walls and rounds selected for a lack of ricushey (explosiv rounds?

Edward

Woah, I'm not so sure about automated machine guns and LETHAL security measures! Corps can get away with killing perps cause they can hide it from the public, but Museums can't just go around killing everyone that tries to steal something...

I would tend to avoid any missile weapons. Too much of a chance of a ricochet. That would include stun rounds, unless we're in a main vestibule that has nothing of value.

Museums will likely have a TON of surveillance stuff. Pressure pads, lasers, heat sensors, cameras, mics, the works. Remember, even when people are allowed in there, they want to watch what people are up to, but don't want to kill or arrest them for crossing the velvet rope. (Don't forget, even with hair spray, it is *VERY* difficult to see lasers. And there are no magical glasses that will let you see all the lasers in the room.)

I'd expect guards and drones at all hours. Probably more drones than guards. Small stuff, maybe those things on rails on the cieling. There will likely be multiple security centers for quick dispatch throughout the building, and a Lone Star division very close at hand.

The entrances will all have some wicked checkpoints. Chem sniffer, MAD, cyberware detector, the works.

The exhibits you're going to have to separate into categories:
Small/Medium/Large
Valuable/Super Valuable/Super Duper Valuable

Small things will almost always be behind glass. How thick the glass is depends on the value. Expect things to be on pressure sensors, etc. linked to alarms.

Larger things are more likely to be vandalized than stolen, so they'll have measures to prevent you from getting close, but not so much from moving it.

Super-duper valuable stuff you may not actually even see. When the Smithsonian was showing the crown jewels, they had a little view slot you'd look through in the side of a wall. I cannot say if what I was seeing was actually there, or if it was in the bowels of the building and I was looking down an intricate set of mirrors. Smart museums will go with the latter.

Don't be afraid of shutting down certain rooms. As long as the sensors can determine if people are in there or not, it's not a fire hazard.

Also, don't be afraid to swap the real thing with an excellent fake. With some of the adepts out there, I'm sure it'd be pretty easy to make a fake which is almost indistuingishable from the original, and it's not like the people know.

I've been itching to run an adventure in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Glassjaw-- don't read the spoiler

Ranger Joe--You just made my morning... thanks for the idea.

Museums have security?

Good ones do.

I liked the over-the-top trap in Hudson Hawk.

I've thought about this a lot, since I'm trying to write a run where the PCs have to liberate a painting from the Louvre. The way I look at it, places like the Smithsonian and the Louvre are cultural landmarks, the kind of places that corporations and governments would pour money in to protect. Wouldn't be much of a bottom line for, say, S-K to donate security to the Louvre, but it would make for great PR.

As to security measures: I haven't seen anyone mention good old gas yet. The musuems could have placed protective films over the works to prevent them from being damaged (or glass cases: in today's Louvre, the Mona Lisa is already wrapped in a wall-mounted glass case). I don't if any of the books have rules for gas delivery systems, but it doesn't seem like a bad security measure. It certainly seems to pose less risk at damaging the art than wall-mounted autocannons. And besides: how many runners think to pack a gas mask when they're breaking into a freakin' museum?

Let's not forget the occult: anchored spells on certain works of art, watcher spirits patrolling the halls, and security mages casting Barrier spells around certain key works of art. Perhaps certain objects have Background Counts. Hell, I've always imagined places like the Holocaust Museum and the Vietnam Memorial must have terrible B.C.s considering all the emotion that's been invested into them.

Heres a good one, anchored glue spells to glue people to the floor if it detects the artwork is being moved.

Glue? Devious and nasty. Kudos, good sir.

Another thought: probably wouldn't cost the museum a lot to put tracking signals on their work. An art restorer could probably implant a high-powered bug into the frame of a painting and most runners wouldn't notice it. Its also quite likely that SR museums do what many modern museums do: when the risk of theft is high, keep the original in storage and display a very, very clever forgery. PC team bursts in, nabs "The Great Masturbator" and sells it to an art fence, who later figures its a forgery and goes for some sweet getback. Or worse: forged work is passed on to a wealthy collector who doesn't appreciate paying millions for a faux-Dali/Warhol/Whatever.

If anything, the worst part of robbing a museum would be getting rid of the object. Unless a specific Johnson wants the piece, it would be a severe pain in the hoop trying to get rid of the thing. Selling stolen electronics and paydata is one thing; try selling the original "Starry Night" and not attract any unwanted attention (not bloody likely).

To bring up a really touchy subject....Have a powerful mage with a very high force improved invisibility spell cast it on the security wall in front of all your displays and quicken it. Now you have a transparent wall with all the benefits of an armored glass window. That way you can have a sealed environment for the preservation of the priceless arts and artifacts and use damaging and lethal methods in the gallery without threat to the inventory.

Improved Invisibility and Trid Phantasam with high grade masking, and a security mage who is in some way out of the picutre (bribed, druged, mind controlled, possessed, etc). Depending on how you play it out, the Hope Diamond might never have left the museum...