[Tecumseh]

Has anyone used an alternative approach to Knowledge skills during chargen other than the default (Intuition+Logic)*2 points?

Understandably, my players gravitate toward the knowledge skills that are most likely to be useful - Small Unit Tactics, language skills, local area knowledge, etc. - at the expense of Interest skills. I've always enjoyed the extra flavor that Knowledge skills add and would like to promote their wider use.

I could always just give players free points for Interest skills, or other skills unlikely to see game time, but I wanted to ask the community if anyone else had an approach that they had used and/or would recommend.

[Glyph]

A lot of people have griped about the Knowledge skill point allocation being so low in SR5.  Two ways, off the top of my head, on how you could house rule it.  The simplest way would be to increase the multiplier from (x 2) to (x 4) or even (x 5).  If you think your group would still ignore the "flavor" Knowledge skills in favor of more practical ones, you could always give them two sets of free points, with one set being restricted strictly to interest and hobby skills.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

You could also incentivize branching out into "fun" knowledge skills by habits during play.  Getting edge back is a GM call, but one of the suggestions is having the right skill at the right time.  Sure, Knowledge of Elven Wines won't come up every Shadowrun, but rewarding it with edge when it does come up might encourage such fun skills.

[Tecumseh]

Once gameplay starts I award karma specifically for advancing knowledge skills. I call it...  Knowledge Karma. Players like it so that's a keeper.

This question is more about chargen. I've done *3 and *4 before and they worked out better than *2, but I was wondering if anyone had something more creative.

If we consider ourselves, any of us could reasonably claim dozens of points of knowledge skills points,  and it's not because we're all Logic 6 + Intuition 6.

Right now I'm considering free points dedicated to Local Area Knowledge, as PCs should naturally accumulate this just by living or working somewhere, plus more free points for Interest skills.

Still open to ideas though.

[fseperent]

I would also consider free points for specific gear used regularly (Example: Ares Predator V but not Heavy Pistols) and enemies.

[k_night]

At our table we get x4 knowledge skills, and x1 language skills.
We also get knowledge karma, and at the end of a run the GM allows us to increase knowledge skills relevant to the run at a discount.

[SunRunner]

My GM hands out free ranks in knowledge skills for stuff we have encountered. Example we go on a run and end up ass deep in a wasp insect spirit hive. At the end of the run we all got one rank in insect spirits for free because we actually now know shit about them because we have fought them and been inside a hive and lived to tell the tale. Were not experts with only one rank but we now have some idea how they operate and what to expect. After the 1st free rank were generally on our own but if we just keep ending up fighting insect spirits he eventually gave us a second point for free because of extended contact with them. Work with a local crime family long enough and do enough jobs for them and you get things like XCrimeX family politics and XCrimeX family establishments because you start to know whos who and whos got an axe to grind with who and where they like to hang out.

[Beta]

I was mulling over just this question yesterday, and was thinking next time we are doing character creation I'll make knowledge skill points be 'mental limit * 3'.  I think willpower is actually relevant (staying focused on learning something), and this puts a bit more reward to that and logic (everyone wants high intuition anyway). 

[Tecumseh]

Hmm, using Mental limit is an interesting idea. I agree with Beta's reasoning.

By extension, you could make a similar argument for using Social limit when calculating the number of free points for Contacts. I'm going to consider these.

[Beta]

I was thinking the same about social limit.  Penalizes less  a low charisma character (because sometimes those are fun to play, but when you have bad social skills and very few contacts it can make them pretty sidelined in certain situations)

[farothel]

Next to the things already proposed above, you can also make sure hobby skills come up during a run.  To give the example of elven wines, if the characters meet a target they need to get information from during a fancy party, their knowledge can put them into the target's good graces and make it easier to gain this information.  If you do that a few times, the players will search themselves for ways to use these skills during play.  At least in our group we do (we're not only creative with spells, but also with knowledge skills).

[Tecumseh]

Thanks for everyone's thoughtful feedback, which I appreciate. I might be running some more questions past the forum in the next day or two.

I'm very comfortable with the use and advancement of knowledge skills once gameplay starts. The question at hand is how to promote them during chargen. I can't creatively insert hobby skills into a mission if the player doesn't take any hobby skills to begin with.

I'm currently thinking 6 free points for Local Area Knowledge, and 12 free points for hobby skills. The default skill points (which might be Beta's Mental Limit * 3) could be spent however the player likes. Granting that these are somewhat arbitrary and that any free points are better than no free points, are there any opinions on those defaults?

[FST_Gemstar]

You could also just tell players that you don't intend to offer a lot of utility-based knowledge checks. There are some things that you are just going to assume characters know because of who they are (ex. if they are a magician, they probably know about their own magic tradition, or if they are all professional shadowrunners, they know about shadow world/community). Tell them that they can use active skills + Intuition/Logic -3 for knowledge roles for those things if they want to make a check. (ex. Someone can roll a magic related skill for magical knowledge checks). 

You can also just say, I will privilege knowledge skills that are more specific/characterizing than those that are broad/utilitarian. Basically, lowering thresholds/giving bonuses when rollling something specific than something utilitarian and broad. 

[Marcus]

I think the reason we don't see a lot of knowledge skill is multi-fold. First the value of Knowledge skill isn't very high. Given the vast diversity of knowledge skill, getting use out of them can be very hit or miss. Even broad categorized knowledge skill very rarely get rolled.
My experience Small Unit tactics, various flavors of gang land, various flavors of knowledge local, cooperate security procedures, are the knowledge most likely to come up.

Next Logic, is not stunningly popular stat, in editions past, you had deckers run logic, and you had hermetic run logic. However Hermetics have fallen out favor, you mostly see chaos or other Intuition based traditions and of course various flavors of Cha based traditions. So that means one large constants of logic based character really is no longer seeing a lot of play.

So if we want push knowledge skill i think a couple steps would be useful. One more effective uses for knowledge, by that I mean complementary skill tests for useful knowledge. Pick a couple, small unit tactics, anatomy,  knowledge Military battle, things like this give complementary skill rolls on various things in battle. Doesn't need to be shooting necessarily but things that we don't see often like leadership checks. Finding way to increase the value of various little used combat options.

Use of Hobbies, so rolling a hobby skill to "de-stress" after a fight to help recover some stun.

Things like this. Could help encourage players to see value in skills.

In terms of getting more skill on sheets I personally favor just increasing the multiplier, given that logic is currently kinda under performing compared to others, means increasing the multiplier increase the value of the stat, which seems wise to me.

[Sphinx]

I sometimes allow Knowledge skills to complement Active skills with something like a teamwork test. A character can make a Knowledge skill test, and any hits become extra dice for the Active skill test (capped by the skill rating).

For example, if a PC has a Knowledge skill in "Yakuza," it's bound to be useful when negotiating with a Seattle oyabun. The hits on a Knowledge Test add dice to the Negotiation Test.

Similarly, a character with a hobby Knowledge skill in "Urban Brawl" is bound to eventually run into a Mr. Johnson who's a big Seattle Screamers fan. Hits on a Knowledge test can add dice to the next social skill test. (Tip your fixer for the heads-up.)