So a character in the game I run got shot up real bad, and is going to need some money to pay for the medical bill and cyber limbs. I am planning to have the street doc that is patching him up offer to knock a few thousand off the bill in exchange for one of the player's kidneys. I was wondering, in the age of cloned organs, how much money is a second hand kidney worth?

Cloned organs are expensive, as they take awhile to grow and there's a fairly high demand.

As for a used kidney, depends on how used it is. So, how many drugs is the character addicted to?

So I'd say his costs around 3k. Unless he's type O, of course, then 4k.

Organs which aren't Type O have all sorts of rejection issues. Also, they tend to be Damaged Goods when coming from unhealthy people. Cloning Type-O isn't all that expensive.

Although Tamanous is a cute bogeyman, when you start to think about it, there really isn't a very good business case for organlegging anymore.

Cloning, as per Augmentation, is still half again as expensive as chopping off someone else's part.

which means the donor will get at most 1k, and more likely 500 - retail won't bring in much cash, you'd better go wholesale (or more acurately whole body). Though from the donor's side it less interesting

Depends on how grim you want to portray the thing, of course, but if an organ costs 6k to the final buyer, I'd say that it's initially sold for around 2/3 of that. Each man between makes some 10% usually.

The standard sale price of looted gear (for PCs) is about 30%, so that'd be 1800 for a Type O kidney. Maybe half for a non-Type O? They're less useful (not everyone can take them), and Type O is the standard, so fewer doctors are trained to use non-O.

On the one hand, it makes Tamanous implausible. On the other hand it makes organ-harvesting less lucrative for the PCs.

Odds are our Tamanous does not stop with just 1 organ he probably goes for the whole body. We also are making assumptions that the cloning process does not use some basic tissue from people to make the organs. I am sure there is plenty of uses for bodies in the 2072 medical field that isn't mentioned in the ads or where people turn a blind eye.

And let's not forget cheep cyber replacement and corner drugstore dialysis. I think a used kidney is pretty much useless by 2070 except in some very specific situations. For example: if you really want to throw your player a bone, have the street doc check his blood and discover that he has a rare minor antigen that happens to match that of a local magician or rich dude that thinks a living unrelated tx is better for his Feng Shui. That or a persnickety ghoul that just prefers the taste of that particular tissue type (a wonderful idea from a recent thread around here somewhere).

I'm not so sure cyborg organs suitable for permanent implantation exist in shadowrun. I haven't seen rules for them in any of the books.

As for the plausibility of tamanous: They steal cyberware and bioware in addition to organs. My guess is that the second hand aug' market is where they make most of their money.

Taking into account the the prices listed in the book, as well the feedback of previous posters, I'm thinking about offering him 2000 and going as high as 3000 with a very good negotiation roll.

My thinking is that they probably don't dwell on them in the books because in the grand scheme of SR cyber/biotechnology replacing your run-of-the-mill kidney is pretty mundane. They also don't mention livers or pancreas or retinas or any of the things we routinely transplant nowadays. Although for retina's there is an obvious cyber replacement, which argues for the case that the development of most non-restricted cyber was driven by the need for replacement parts. Also, (if we really want to speculate) with SR level tech you wouldnt even need kidneys- an injection of some specialized dialysis nanites would do just as well.

If you think it makes a good story or fit with the feel of your game, by all means pay the dude for his kidney, but I'm of the opinion that mundane organs aren't worth much in 207x.

If more people knew about the general success rate of having a randomly selected organ work in a randomly selected person (next to nothing), the horrendous ammount of time and difficulty it takes to know all the required data about both receiver and donater to improve those odds (hours, days, in a medical facility), the chance to find an actual match in those sets of data (pretty damned small), the odds od the operation having a succesful aftermath given that match (still a far cry from 100%), and the logistics involved in getting that organ to its intended recipient in time for chances of success to not degrade fast, organlegging wouldn't be a profitable trade even today. Let alone with availability of cloned type O organs.

Even in the ideal situation of well matched recipients, being operated on in neighbouring operating theaters, and not having more than a minute or so between removal and insertion of the organ, chances of success aren't 100%.

It's probably being kept up as an "Industry" due to the fact that cheap cloned replacements are just now coming on the market as affordable for the properly equipped hospital. While Shadow Clinics are just now getting earlier generation cloning equipment and such, and some Type O materials to clone from, which would take longer and have a larger failure rate than at the proper clinics.

It's something only the higher-end of the SINless can afford. While "Recycled" parts are still cheap and plentiful. And Shadowrun Medicine has dealt with the issues of rejection for the most part as long as the blood-type matches and medication is taken on time. At least, that's how I read how things are from Butch's statements about the issue when she talks about harvesting people that die on her table like it was just another day, and KANE is upset about it. (IIRC, that is.).

Think about the rejection rate for what cybernetics would be, and you'd also be aghast.

What about the Advanced Medtech chapter in Augmentation? There are prices there for Type O and cloned organs, eyes and limbs.

Yeah Mardrax isn't totally off base but the picture be paints is a little more grim than reality. Living unrelated transplants between mismatched donors are increasingly common with modern immunosuppressive drugs. They aren't ideal obviously, but the kidney's 5 year survival is comparable to a living related kidney and better than a cadaveric kidney. There is a higher rate of acute rejection (as you might imagine) but that is treatable.

But meh. The SOTA curve Canray describes is totally feasible. Like I said if it fits the game world you are trying to create, then organ legging is a great plot device.

Actually, according to Augmentation cloning makes you money...

A full whimp costs 25k, arms/legs cost 21k each and organs 6k. So if you need a kidney, borrow 25,000 at 12% interest to buy a full body. Then sell the limps for 28k to pay back the money, grab the required kidney, and sell all other organs for 2k profit each.

In other words, take the costs in Augmentation with a grain of salt

. Sure, but my point is that they probably developed less sophisticated cyber replacements first that are now obsolete and thus cheeper (i.e.- more accessible to the SINless). Again, just because they don't mention them doesn't mean they don't exist.

One point to consider about selling some poor schmuck a 'borrowed' kidney : each customer may very become a forever (or at least for life) customer for your immunospressors. Sort of like selling a razor or an inkjet printer today : the real money is in the consumables that go along with the item...

Had a ganger who used to get 500 per Body... made a decent living at it as a second line of work to augment his normal income.

Also important to consider before selling your own: permanent astral link.

After being implanted? I'd say it'd stop being a link to you and start being a link to the guy who had it implanted after a while.

This is true, of course. It could be a poor man's option. Put less money in than for a vat-grown organ plus operation, pay out the nose for immunodepressants, have a wrecked immune system for the foreseeable future, and hope you don't have to shell out the "initial fee" again in a few years.

For anyone with an actual SIN though, let alone a DocWagon or similar contract, I don't see it ever being elected over vatjobs. Chance of being more expensive in the long run is just too high, while all corps think of is long-term bottom lines.

On that same note, how much net-profit can an organisation like Tamanous make selling and distributing "donor" organs? That's what should dictate a price.
How many doctors who cater to the SINless will choose to get more thoroughly acquainted with these organisations? How much money to they have to shell out for them? How about their clients? How justified is their hope of their situation improving when they get implanted an organ that's been not only dead for who knows how long, but also most likely not immediately removed from the body post-mortem and given optimal care?
How does that weigh up to the costs of treatment for whatever they're suffering? Are they even able to afford those for longer than a few weeks? How about a cyber-alternative?

"Whatever the market will bear" is always the key answer, along with "what does the GM think about giving you more money?"

Again, Type-O Vat-grown organs at a cheap rate is still a fairly new thing in Shadowrun. They used to be quite expensive to make, and second-hand organs were much more profitable.

We're seeing the end of the market right now, just like bootleg hooch can still get you some cash, but not as much as it did during Prohibition.

Eh, like Ascalphus said, I think the overriding reason for organlegging still being around is that some devs and GMs like the squick factor of having factions that are willing to geek the odd squatter in order to score spare parts and ghoul chow. Personally, I would probably just operate by the KISS principle and skip such numbers oriented questions and instead stick a player with the Buggy 'Ware or High Maintenance Implant quality due to having some corners cut in the implantation/repair process. Those flaws tend to be pretty manageable, as far as flaws go, and the latter has some great flavor to it if the player really embraces it. More than anything, keeping numbers fuzzy helps keep Tamanous plausible (because the profit isn't suspiciously low) without also providing incentive to the players to get into the biz themselves due to the profit being high.

If I can offer an alternative for a Kidney, perhaps they'll take collateral that you're sure to absolutely, positively come back for.

"There, I've done what you asked, can you PLEASE give me my testicles back?"

I like the way you think.

I'm not so much trying to make sure the Doc gets payed, as I am trying to throw the character a bone without seeming soft or unrealistic (the doc is another character's contact, and only loyalty 3, so he's not going to patch the shot up character for free). The player is also new to Shadowrun, and role playing in general, so I don't want to screw him too badly.

Cribbed it from Transmetropolitan. But thank you.

Given the amount of surgery you can have done during a coffe break, immunosuppressants from pure handwavium seem to be readily available

And body parts really should be more expensive, to create an actual gap between cyberlimbs and organic replacements. That still does not automatically turn organ robbing into a profitable job compared to shadowruns, because Tamanous remains your only way to find a matching recipient - their monopoly, their price.

The body parts used to be more expensive. Time marches on...

So what will happen to Tamanous, you think? Will it get by selling ghoul-chow for the most part? Seeing prizes for their other wares deflate? With intelligent ghouls being more and more accepted, might they even get a (semi-)legit offshoot?

That's why cyberlimbs are looked down upon as cheap solutions, biologic replacements are available to those with the money. But with the prices given in Augmentation, there's no real social gap between bio and metal.

I think the devs like Tamanous too much as a bogeyman. Can't have a dystopia without some sort of squicky soylent green operation in the background. So they'll probably stay around for a while.

However, they'll probably get deprecated in a while. Shadowrun's had bogeymen in the past too that are now rather... weird. I mean, Toxic Mages? That is so early nineties. Insect spirits? they sound so.. dated.. AIs? Used to be scary, now they're much smaller-time. Somehow people even like them.

I'm not really sure what the new "Threats" are. Devil trees?

Sentient Drop Bears.

Canon? TMs still, for a large part. Some players seem to agree. Perhaps Horizon through their endorsement, and being creepily goody two-shoes?

Just because mundane organs have depreciated in value, doesn't mean Tamanous can't turn a profit selling stolen cyberware and bioware.

Plus, I don't think it's an accident that one of the few books that mentions Tamanous repeatedly is Feral Cities. By all rights, it appears that the corps have the time, resources and sophistication required to crank out enough vat organs and reliable 'ware to corner any market they choose to corner. Apparently, plenty of markets aren't really worth their time, however. So while Tamanous may not make much nuyen in a feral city they could still end up with a decent amount of local influence. I mean, imagine you're a street doc in Bogota and you and a few burly pals are some of the only guys around with some 'ware and medical expertise, two things which are unusually rare and valuable in your environment. Not only that, but when people can't pay up for the work they had done on time, you round them up, take their 'ware and feed 'em to your pals at the local ghoul den. Again, it's not a great way to make money, per se, but you'd still be some of the scariest guys in town, and that counts for something when you're getting by in a z-zone.

Plus if you like a "Big Brother Is Watching" feel to your game, you could also say that all those shiny new parts come with some electronic strings attached. Used parts might be the quickest and easiest way to replace or upgrade in a pinch without attracting undue attention from the authorities.

A vat-grown type-O organ is cheap but stealing one's organ is free. So I guess Tamanous can still be profitable.

They can easily get organs for next to nothing from a place where the supply is high (feral cities, the barrens) and sell it at the right price for their customers. Organs in poor condition can be sold cheaper than type-O organs for poor people and organs in good condition (and good quality) can be sold just under the price of the type-O equivalent (or even above if it's especially good).

Or maybe type-O organs aren't really vat-grown as they want you to believe.

Blood type isn't by far the only factor to determine fitness of an organ for implant. Type O isn't everything. You need cultivated organs for maximum chance of effectiveness.

Also, the price of acquiring the organs wouldn't be what would put a damper on a bottom line. It would be the logistics involved in moving the organ from "donor" to recipient.
And no, even the most horrible lowlife will not spend even a hundred nuyen on buying an organ that's 99% sure to make him worse off than his own, plus fees for having it implanted. Because that's right about the chance of failure you're looking at, if you're planning on taking organs from half the world away and implanting them. Fairly rapidly too. Especially if not given proper care in the transporting process. Which is expensive.
From the poor chummer living a few blocks away? Sure. Still no good chances, but immunodepressants will go a long way, coupled with swift action. A few hours flying away? No way.

That'd be an interesting metaplot point actually.

*Sighs* Another reason I wish I had been able to game in the '90s.

Apologies if this was brought up already. From Augmentation (53): (paraphrased)

2032: unique genotype of Owen Whiting (for whom Type O is named, page 54) discovered
2034: Shiawase granted a patent on Type O by CC
Mid-2040's: Wimps become mass produced
End-2040's: Mass production of commercial bioware and biotech

So no. Canray's statement is wrong. Type O cloning is a mature industry that has been around for 25-30 years. SR4A doesn't include rules for a) losing body parts (Severe wounds in Augmentation 121 is optional and easy to avoid), or b) what level of doc wagon you need to get those parts in your contract. SR4A has a copypasta of the SR3 DocWagon rules in the gear section but since it was the SR3 severe wound rules that included organ replacement it didn't make the jump to the new edition. SR3 puts organ replacement as part of the Platinum contract -- below that you have to pay. SR3 also mentions that cyber replacements are available but the GM/player have to decide the costs themselves. This is only based on the SR3 BBB because I don't have Man and Machine at work. 9000 nuyen for a brand spanking new kidney that will never need replacement or immunosuppressants is pretty cheap.

Holy crap SR3 was gritty compared to SR4. Get 1 success on your "blown to pieces" check and you lose a limb or eye. 0 successes loses you 1 point from an attribute, -1 to racial modified limit, double healing time, need intensive care and a replacement limb or die regardless of being stabilized. Check was Body (tn 4) test or 6(!) if a trauma patch was used. This was all in the BBB and was NOT optional. Sucks to dump Body. Now you optionally need to take 7+ boxes in one go and fail an Edge (1) test or have the GM handwaive you into the injury.

Really, really wish I could have gamed back then...

For reference, in today's (well, a few years ago's) prices, kidneys net you $1000. Iranian Kidneys

That's a lot less than I expected. I thought it'd be 10K at least.

Life's pretty cheap, and getting cheaper.

Me too, but bear in mind that 1000$ are a lot more in a country with nominal per capita GDP of 4,500$ (circa, depending on which source you use), less than a tenth of the US. So if you bought a kidney in the US it would probably cost ten times as much, plus an additional markup because you are doing it illegally.

The Iranian "regulated sale of organs" system is quite interesting. The transplant communities in Europe and the US are aghast at the idea of free-market forces determining who gets organs, but their results have been pretty amazing- i.e. elimination of waiting lists. Contrast that with our "altruistic" system wherein 40% of the people on the waiting list will die before getting an organ. Very interesting.

And just as an aside kidneys in non-Iranian countries sell for much more. There are a many anecdotal reports in the media about people buying kidneys and they are usually upwards of $20,000.

And there's always the problem of filling the bathtub full of ice from those broken down ice machines in the POS Motels...