[Mettius]

One of my players created a character with several low connection rating contacts.

For example: A bartender connection rating of 1.
I'm having trouble wrapping my head around what this would look like. A bartender with "Virtually no social influence, useful only for their Knowledge skills".
Knowledge of Mixology?

Similarly a Gang Boss with connection 2... Is the the boss of a gang numbering a half dozen?

[ZeldaBravo]

Said bartender may have some useful knowledge skills like News [Underworld], Rumors, Underworld [Safehouses] etc. Good as a low-tier information broker.

And yeah, a gang leader with a connection 2 most likely leads a wolfpack of a dozen angsty teens. But angsty teens can wield AKs and Hatchetman was such a teen back in the days too. Might be useful.

[Blue Rose]

My personal favorite is a plucky street urchin, possessing many freckles.

[Hobbes]

Street Docs, Armorers, Deckers, Mechanics, Strippers all work at a low connection rating for simple things.  Keep your expectations low, but adding gun/armor mods, simple matrix searches, patching bullet holes in cars or characters, installing cyberware you've gotten from somewhere, low availability gear, or as a distraction in a Con game. 

You're not going to source Deltaware from your Connection 2 Street Doc, but installing off the shelf Muscle Augmentation is no problem. 

Not every contact needs to be a former street legend. 

[忍]

Bartenders can know a lot and yet have no social influence. They can meet and hear plenty of people and their stories/gossip/rumors. Just don't expect them to ask a favor from one of their highly paid regulars.

[Mettius]

Thanks all. That was helpful.

[k_night]

I've got a high-risk taxi driver.
for getting around in the barrens and local area knowledge

[Glyph]

The smuggler archetype has a 1/1 fixer contact.

[Blue Rose]

His name is Larry.

He's pretty sure he has some cool stuff in some of the boxes in his basement.

[Glyph]

Plus, he knows this guy who's a smuggler.

[Fedifensor]

My character has a smuggler known as "The Man With The Van" (Connection 1).  Everything he has available for sale is in the van that he drives around town.  I picture him as a guy who makes his money buying items from shadowrunners, fixing them up, then selling them at a markup to other shadowrunners.  There's probably a fair bit of dumpster diving as well.  No real social influence...just people willing to sell stuff to him or buy what he's selling.

[Redactedguy]

My favorite contact I've seen is "Punk Kid"

To be fair, Punk Kid (They literally never learned their name) was handed 5 grand to run up to a crime scene and steal a cop's hat. And poof, suddenly they are all chasing him and we BS our way into the scene and do our own investigation since all the knowledgeable cops who could call our bluff were currently chasing down just some punk kid.

SPK also set off firecrackers on a side of a warehouse as a distraction, yelled fire in a movie theater to get it evacuated, and tried to mug a guy we wanted to make our friend so we could "Save his life" from the punk.

Ahhhh good times with SPK.

[Rooks]

My favorite contact I've seen is "Punk Kid"

To be fair, Punk Kid (They literally never learned their name) was handed 5 grand to run up to a crime scene and steal a cop's hat. And poof, suddenly they are all chasing him and we BS our way into the scene and do our own investigation since all the knowledgeable cops who could call our bluff were currently chasing down just some punk kid.

SPK also set off firecrackers on a side of a warehouse as a distraction, yelled fire in a movie theater to get it evacuated, and tried to mug a guy we wanted to make our friend so we could "Save his life" from the punk.

Ahhhh good times with SPK.

Random Homeless Person will do it for 500

[Coyote]

My favorite contact I've seen is "Punk Kid"

To be fair, Punk Kid (They literally never learned their name) was handed 5 grand to run up to a crime scene and steal a cop's hat. And poof, suddenly they are all chasing him and we BS our way into the scene and do our own investigation since all the knowledgeable cops who could call our bluff were currently chasing down just some punk kid.

SPK also set off firecrackers on a side of a warehouse as a distraction, yelled fire in a movie theater to get it evacuated, and tried to mug a guy we wanted to make our friend so we could "Save his life" from the punk.

Ahhhh good times with SPK.

Random Homeless Person will do it for 500

But they don't run as fast as Punk Kid so the distraction doesn't last as long.

[Beta]

A character that I almost played in an on-line game* had a backstory where he’d spent some unknown period of time in dog form (under a quickened spell, probably).  It was recently dispelled but he doesn’t really remember his life pre-dog years, so almost all of his contacts were people he’d formed a relationship with while he was a stray.  One was ‘Mustard Boy’ (so called because he’d sometimes share food with the dog, even if he didn’t have much food – but he slathers most of his food with mustard).  The character was an adept with Adept Spell: Shapechange, and I figured there would be occasions where he’d need someone who could hide clothes for him (or go get some cheap ones from a vending machine). 

* I hope to actually play the character at some point – I was having some mechanical issues with how I’d originally envisioned the character, and heard that Howling Shadows would be coming out soon, which were both good reasons to go with a simpler build at the time and save the concept for another time