[Reaver]

TBH, I gave up on D&D when 4e came out.

[Marcus]

TBH, I gave up on D&D when 4e came out.

4e was so fun, I'm so sad that folks didn't see the brilliance of 4e.
4e was so easy to run! So easy to build an adventure for, so systematically transparent, they just didn't hide it behind the curtain.
5e is fine, it's nice easy to learn system, it's got a lot of 2nd in it. But it's normalization the hit curve is a problem, it just flat out is a problem.  It doesn't hold up well, and can result in terrible things. I've seen it over and over at the table.
I like Advantage, but it's not gonna save you if you only a 5% chance to start with.
We'll see where it goes from here, but it's still a little messy.

[Shadowjack]

One thing I've noticed is that most players find hobby related knowledge skills to be useless or a waste of karma. If your character has only shadowrunning related knowledge skills it can serve as a detriment because you have nothing in common with people outside the shadows. Having knowledge skills pertaining to baseball, fine restaurants in Seattle, comic books, trid shows, etc is valuable because it gives you something to chat about with npcs. Having common ground is a great way to get on someone's good side and these types of things come up all the time in game. It also helps your character blend in with the masses more. Another aspect of it is realism, even shadowrunners are almost always going to be fond of activities unrelated to the shadows. Being able to watch all the Mariners games during the regular season and playoffs and actually caring about it adds depth to your character, makes them more believable, and can have an impact on how you set up your apartment, which merchandise you buy, how you dress in social settings, and so on.

I made a character once that invested a fair bit into knowledge skills and also knowsofts and linguasofts. It did set him  back on the job but he was very well fleshed out and it made him a lot of fun to play, I'd say he was probably one of my best designed characters I've ever made. He also survived and turned out to be decently powerful in the end. I remember when I was a kid I was always worried about my characters losing because the GM could then do bad things to them. So I often tried to build pretty strong characters, and of course, they were less fleshed out and less fun to play as a result. Nowadays my goal is to create the best character I can, not in terms of power but in terms of how much fun I'll have playing them. This definitely comes at a cost but overall I find roleplaying much more fun this way. I no longer worry about losing, my character is how he is, for better or worse.

[Strill]

One thing I've noticed is that most players find hobby related knowledge skills to be useless or a waste of karma. If your character has only shadowrunning related knowledge skills it can serve as a detriment because you have nothing in common with people outside the shadows. Having knowledge skills pertaining to baseball, fine restaurants in Seattle, comic books, trid shows, etc is valuable because it gives you something to chat about with npcs. Having common ground is a great way to get on someone's good side and these types of things come up all the time in game. It also helps your character blend in with the masses more. Another aspect of it is realism, even shadowrunners are almost always going to be fond of activities unrelated to the shadows. Being able to watch all the Mariners games during the regular season and playoffs and actually caring about it adds depth to your character, makes them more believable, and can have an impact on how you set up your apartment, which merchandise you buy, how you dress in social settings, and so on.

The problem there is that interacting with NPCs is in and of itself a specialization, and if you don't have the skills for it, the GM is liable to call for a skill check which you'll default on, potentially leading to a critical glitch and screwing up the run.

I've seen plenty of people on the character building forums advise charisma 2 characters to never speak, because it can only end badly. "Let the face handle it instead" they say.

[Glyph]

Shadowrun has the concept of everyday tasks and rating: 0 skills.  You might need to roll etiquette for your ex-company man to fit in at a ganger party, or negotiation to get a package deal on the sniper rifle and scope that your arms dealer contact just scored for you.  But just chilling with your buds shouldn't require any rolls.

I like hobby skills, but not every runner's hobbies will necessarily be represented by a knowledge skill.  Maybe the character just vegges in front of the trid, or goes to singles bars, or listens to classical music because he finds it soothing, even if he couldn't tell you who Beethoven or Bach were.

[Shadowjack]

One thing I've noticed is that most players find hobby related knowledge skills to be useless or a waste of karma. If your character has only shadowrunning related knowledge skills it can serve as a detriment because you have nothing in common with people outside the shadows. Having knowledge skills pertaining to baseball, fine restaurants in Seattle, comic books, trid shows, etc is valuable because it gives you something to chat about with npcs. Having common ground is a great way to get on someone's good side and these types of things come up all the time in game. It also helps your character blend in with the masses more. Another aspect of it is realism, even shadowrunners are almost always going to be fond of activities unrelated to the shadows. Being able to watch all the Mariners games during the regular season and playoffs and actually caring about it adds depth to your character, makes them more believable, and can have an impact on how you set up your apartment, which merchandise you buy, how you dress in social settings, and so on.

The problem there is that interacting with NPCs is in and of itself a specialization, and if you don't have the skills for it, the GM is liable to call for a skill check which you'll default on, potentially leading to a critical glitch and screwing up the run.

I've seen plenty of people on the character building forums advise charisma 2 characters to never speak, because it can only end badly. "Let the face handle it instead" they say.

It's better to have something to chat about than nothing. Going into a social situation without any semblance of ties to normal society is going to make you look awkward. Being sociable and relatable is very valuable. I don't think the GM should require you to roll to converse about a topic unless the information is scarce. Simply chatting about basic topics is going to be enough in most cases. As far as the people that recommend not talking go, they aren't really roleplayers, they're gamers. Roleplaying and talking go hand in hand. 2 Charisma is only 1 below average and in many cases it is perfectly acceptable to not be socially appealing. Now that can change in a particularly socially demanding situation, of course. But even then, most people don't think they have poor social skills and even if they do have a low Charisma score they can still be attractive, well dressed, properly groomed, physically or intellectually impressive, and so on. They may even have higher social skills than someone with a  higher Charisma.