I've been working on Rootless as an idea in my head for a long time, but it's become an actual viable project in the last month or two.  Rootless is a tactical RPG where players manage a team of vagabonds through odds jobs in the woodland, making a living by working on jobs posted by the factions of the forest.  There's a few key tenants of the game design that I'm going to focus on:

• mission variety: I find a lot of TRPGs are lacking in mission variety; most of them only contain some variant of "kill everyone", "kill a specific unit" or "defend a unit by killing everyone".  I want to ensure there are a wide variety of mission types, including game modes like 'plant and defend equipment', 'escort unit', 'endure # of rounds', 'steal item', 'cross map', 'gather and build', 'capture the flag', 'occupy', 'destroy spawns', 'light beacons', 'rescue', and others.
• unique leveling system: instead of the generic XP / Level system that most RPGs have, I've brainstormed a neat item-based re-spec system before each job.  Dubbed the "campfire phase", this is where your characters will prepare for their job by preparing a meal, which will allow them to effectively "level their stats" according to the mission.  If they're on a high stealth mission, maybe you eat items that buff your agility, finesse, or speed.  If you're going to have to endure some punishment, eat some items that will increase your stamina, fortitude, and might.  By extension this will make inventory management a key component of the game, having to gather "ingredients" between jobs
• skill variety: one of the ideas I've been playing with is the idea of a job-less system, at least for the player characters.  The idea instead would be that each character would have four skills that they can equip from basically any skill they've observed or learned.  The more an equipped skill is used, the better the character will be with it.  If, in-battle, you see an NPC use a new skill, after the battle you may choose to equip it (at level 1), or perhaps between jobs you can spend some time in town learning or improving a skill at a higher level from a local teacher.
• faction control: the woodland is a large forest consisting of several regions, all of which are under a certain level of influence from one of the many factions at play.  Jobs that the player's team take on will influence this balance of power, with successes helping their employer and failures hindering them.  The eventual game playthrough goal is to assist one faction to gain control of the forest.
• tag system: though gameplay and other effects, units will gain "tags" which will have both game effects (being "weak" might give you -1 might) and also inform the generative AI systems in the game.  Tags on a unit can come from their species, equipment, past events, terrain tile, weather, faction alliance, and various other forms to help build a complete picture of the unit's current state.
• named NPCs: each battle will feature at least one named NPC, which is a character with "memory".  How the player's units interact with this named NPC will be remembered and referenced throughout the story; if you defeat them in battle, or assist them in a mission, or kill them, or let them flee; these are all choices that will influence future events
• generative AI: I know it can be a bit of a dirty term in the game development community, but I'm planning on using generative AI to generate a narrative that responds to the user's gameplay in a dynamic way.  Through in-battle dialog that reflects recent events, travel events between jobs, and various other forms, generative AI will be used to tell a story that responds to the user's actions and choices

I've been working on a grey-box prototype in Unity 6 to prove out the concepts of the game; I hope you'll join me on my development journey!