As a player, you can choose two skill proficiencies and a total of two tool proficiencies or languages. You can't choose languages granted only by class features this way. You can also choose personal characteristics — personality traits, ideals, bonds and flaws — from any background. All of these choices should be discussed with the DM to see how they fit your character's backstory.

The players also gain two background features — a group background feature, and an individual background feature. The group background feature shows how the character is related to the world and can give them a trinket that should somehow tie them to the organization, while the individual background feature gives the player something that makes them different.

As for equipment, I would recommend using the variant rule about rolling the starting money presented in chapter 5 of PHB, or choosing one of the equipment packs in the PHB's backgrounds section.

Additionally, if the chosen group can provide a service for you, such as sailing a ship or casting some spells, they are willing to do it for a reduced cost of small favor in return, depending on the task.

Choose one group such as an organization, a small town or a district of a large city. You can find place to hide, rest or recuperate among other commoners in the chosen group, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them. They will shield you from the law or anyone else searching for you, though they will not risk their lives for you.

Individual Features List

You can choose one of the following features as a background feature that characterizes you more personally.

Authority. Whether it's due to your noble heritage or unnatural beauty, you are welcome in high society and people assume you have the right to be wherever you are. You have no troubles securing an audience with a local noble if you need to, and the common folk make efforts to avoid your displeasure, as long as they have respect for you.

Bad Reputation. People are afraid of you due to your reputation. You can get away with minor criminal offenses, such as refusing to pay for food at a bar or breaking down doors at a local shop, since most people will not report your activity to the authorities.

Black Market Contact. You know how to gain access to the local black market, where you can buy equipment you wouldn't be able to buy legally.

Citywise. When you are not in combat, you (and companions you lead) can travel between any two locations in the city twice as fast as your speed would normally allow.

Companions. Whether they are servants, companions from your group or fans, you have the service of three commoners who can perform mundane tasks for you. However, they will not follow you into obviously dangerous areas, and will refuse to fight for you. If they are endangered or abused too frequently, they will leave.

Curiosity. Through the curiosity you spark in others just by your presence through your accent, mannerisms, figures of speech, or perhaps even appearance, you can gain access to people and places you might not otherwise have, for you and your traveling companions.

Discovery. You have uncovered a great truth of some nature. It could be a truth about the cosmos, forces of nature, or a fact that has been long forgotten. Work with your DM to determine the details of your discovery and its impact on the campaign.

False Identity. You have created a second identity that includes documentation, digital profile, established acquaintances, and disguises that allow you to assume that persona.

Favor Exchange. You can call in a favor from a contact within your chosen group to perform a mundane task for you such as gathering information or arranging safe passage. If the favor puts your contact at risk, they will require an equally risky favor from you in return. The contact can refuse to perform tasks assigned to them before they manage to finish the first one.

Immortal. You can't die of old age. Work out with your DM the details of your immortality — how did your character achieve it, whether there are any side effects it has etc.

Innocent. When you are at the mercy of another, they always prefer to capture you rather than kill you, unless you resist capture to the point of death. If you offer yourself as a hostage (perhaps in exchange for another), almost any creature accepts this trade.

Landowner. You own a building larger than a regular home and a plot of land it stands on. Determine with your DM why you own it, what exactly it is for and some basic parameters such as the size or some rooms it has.

Oathbreaker’s Mark. Your soul is marked for your transgressions, and the magical beings can always recognize an oathbreaker mark. Encounters with the magical creatures are not necessarily hostile, but they are never trusting. When a creature breaks an oath or bargain with you, you can mark it as an oathbreaker if it is on the same plane of existence as you are. You can end a mark that you placed at any time, and you can sense oathbreaker marks on others if you can see them, and they are within 30 feet.

Pattern master. By observing a pattern you can predict what comes next, if advancing, or what came before if needing to predict in reverse order with 100% accuracy. This ability works with even irregular patterns, or ones that don’t seem to follow the same set of rules all the time. The more complex a pattern is, the longer it takes you to figure it out.