LitRPG and progression fantasy inspiration

I've previously mentioned Royal Road as a site that I'd like to post my longer form stories on, as I develop my writing skills beyond the short stories that I post on this blog. This would be coming full circle as it was my discovery of Royal Road that led me to the type of genre that I feel I could write.

The first stories I read on that site were of the "LitRPG" genre, which are stories based on Role Playing Games. For example, the main character would sign up to play a new fully immersive virtual reality game, and they would experience actually being their game avatar with its physical characteristics and capabilities. The game world would feel as real as this world, and every interaction would be with other characters who have agency, either other players or in-game characters powered by artificial intelligence.

Some LitRPG stories are very statistics heavy, true to tabletop RPGs where a character's stats determine the equipment/spells they can use and the actions they can take. With experience they level up, beef up their skills and unlock new capabilities. Other stories have skills progression at the core without existing within a gaming world, the progression system is just how that world works, and these can be described as "progression fantasy".

For me, I would always skip over any detailed stats and equipment lists in stories as I was more interested in the story line, not how many points the character had in strength, dexterity etc, or the special characteristics of their armour. But I did like the progression itself, that as the character continued in the story they would unlock more capabilities explicitly through their actions which opened up more options for them. That persistent striving would lead to consequential results.

The sci-fi universe I intend to build takes elements from LitRPG/progression fantasy. It is a high tech universe where the specific items an individual can use is directly linked to the "skills" they have unlocked through their actions and experience. If they haven't got the right skill, they can't use that item. Similar to having a child lock that can't be disabled.

One of the areas I need to work out is how people gain the skills, as well as what skills are available and their related technology. This includes areas such as mining, manufacturing and combat as well as agriculture and medicine.

Also key is how Earth is introduced to this technology, and the benefits and tradeoffs for humans.