An in-game bestiary (some play report inside)

My new game is going so great. All of them are long time friends, with the exception of a kid, nephew to one of them. I'm getting a lot of advantage of them never having actually played D&D so I am selling all my quirky houserules such as GLOG magic and all d6 pool resolution as "this is the real game guys". And they are really liking it, but not as much as me. They keep me asking for information about new spells (so I have actual pressure writing my long procastinated spellbook). It feels awesome when you just met for a coffee or a walk and they just ask you things about what they found in that dungeon the other day. I know I am doing something right.

One of them happened to be devoured by a ghoul recently; precisely right after he had spent the previous night drawing a portrait of his character (Krim, see above). He died like a hero, tanking a doorway, and two hobbits managed to finish the ghoul shortly after. When the player rolled his new character for the next session, he told me previously that he wanted something:

As I wrote recently, I give characters a "once in your life" object at any time, that must be related to your life background. This is mostly a trick to make characters have at least some tenuous background without the need of writing it prior to play, but has no further impact unless your intelligence is higher than 13 (see full entry if you want). He (an intelligence 9 fighting man) said he wanted to be a former sage, and have a bestiary book as an object.

I quickly saw the potential in this: They are all new players, unfamiliar with the deep lore of D&D beyond what has permeated Final Fantasy, Warhammer and others. This could be a fair way to introduce information that other players take for granted; and the player was actually paying a cost for it: his special object.

So I made it like this: As the character appeared the next day and brought up his book, I made him roll 3d6 and take the middle one: It was a four.
So, his bestiary would give him information four times, after that it would be considered exhausted (actually a great quality I guess). The information would be only about monsters, and it would only have information 50% of the time; you must make a concrete question (are ghouls vulnerable to something?). Failed searches would not tick down uses.

For now they have been only used it twice: One for learning that ghouls are vulnerable to holy water, and another for knowing that ghoul touch produces paralysis. It seems that whoever wrote that book knew a lot about ghouls! Maybe the book is no other than Comte d'Erlette's Cultes des Goules itself!(the fictional book from the Chtulhu mythos)

Before that, the magic user had been picking ghoul drool from its grotesque corpse with his bare hands. They left the room by a new path; the magic user leading the march. I resolved to not have him be paralyzed until two turns had passed for some reason (it felt right). Just at that time, they found a silent, armored knight giving them the back, and then turning his head slowly towards the newcomers.

The magic user got paralyzed right away starting from his hands. The rest of the party (three hobbits, fighting man was dead by then) took him out of the room quickly, all paranoid because they thought it was the gaze of the knight which had caused such effect. They spent the rest of the session recovering a broken mirror from another room (which currently still has a very angry doppelganger inside) and then trying to attack the knight using a mirror to see him, or just shooting at him with the eyes closed. Luckily, they soon understood they had to flee. I had a really bad time trying to not tell everyone of them how cool it was that they were acting so well in a way, but on completelly erroneous assumptions!

I think I am going to put some more books around the setting. Not all of them bestiaries, but can work the same way as that one with other topics; maybe they can even be bought at shops for some ton of money, or even found as treasure. Maybe small town wise men can work like that too: weird people that funnily has an answer to a current problem, and then proceeds to not say anything interesting at all in a lot of time or ever.

how I do character backgrounds

 Image: Ilya Shichkin

Right now, I have my players choose between four classes: Hobbit, Elf, Fighter and Magic User. Normal people doesn't have levels on any class. They are "level 0" to say. 

Thieves come from a "Thief" background, while Rangers come from a "Ranger" background. Those are in addition to the class they might have. The trick is that no matter which one they choose, it doesn't actually take mechanical effect unless the PC's intelligence has any bonus. 

I am also a fan of backloading complexity, so I tell them to choose background during play, never at character creation.

Now, the long explanation:

As I explained on previous entries, Wisdom is the magical ability score, while...

Intelligence is strictly non-magical. You have a list of backgrounds that are mostly dressing, but when you have an intelligence bonus you get an extra die when performing related tasks (lockpicking, bushcraft, navigation, etc. That kind of marginal stuff). Not only that, but once per character you can retroactivelly produce an item on your inventory that is related to your background or is on the basic items list of the closest rulebook at hand. This is often the main bonus of it.

This means that, unless your intelligence goes beyond 12, your background might give you RP opportunities, or let me, as the GM, give you specific information through a different lens or influence the way that NPCs react to you; but normally it won't give you mechanical benefits. Your ability scores might grow a little bit over time (2 in 6 chance to increase one by 1 every level) but if your intelligence is low, you have little pressure to choose your background. You can even not to choose any at all.

However, if your intelligence is high, is probable that you want to get the most advantage of it. So you will probably want to see the list of OFFICIALLY APPROVED BACKGROUNDS. Notice that by design, they will never give you combat bonuses:

Thief: pick locks, sleight of hand. You get to roll 1d6 per INT bonus, with 5+ being a success.
Ranger: +1d6 per INT bonus while foraging/surprising on the forest (other terrains, like desert, mountain, urban... can be chosen instead)
Sailor: +1d6 per INT bonus on any roll related to piloting a boat.
Engineer: Allows for the Dwarven "structure knowledge" roll, and if a PC has this, you dont need to hire an engineer when you build a castle.
Sage: You can investigate yourself instead of hiring a sage for 2000gp: roll after spending significant downtime into investigation, each 5+ is a success. You can only choose a broad field of knowledge to be a sage of, but you can choose it anytime. You get an extra die if you have access to a library or similar.
Animal Trainer: As BX specialist, requires a success to advance in training every downtime
Armorer: As BX specialist. Low Int armorers can be assistants or smiths.
Alchemist: As BX specialist, a success is needed for each attempt at a potion.

You can make your own, of course, but as always, my advice is that they shouldn't be strictly better than an existent one. To narrow down the exact abilities of a background, a good measurement is to pick an existing skill and enhance it, or allow a PC to do him/herself the work of an specialist. 

Note: Only the thief and ranger backgrounds have been actually tested XD. It sounded clean in my head but now I see it written looks like a mess.