Bah.

My brain goes to MU* ideas. Specifically, in this case, a 'magical/adventurers academy' MU* academy. Perhaps using D&D 3.5, or even 4.0. The concept would be, well, a magical academy of the type that yearning schoolkids (and out-of-school kids-at-heart) always wish we could go to, for young, would-be adventurers. You could choose a character who is level 1-4, which would also be equivalent to whether you were a freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior. When a student graduates, the character is retired. So, you /could/ pick a Senior character, and be on the top tier of power, but also have to retire the character at the end of the school term. Or you could pick a Freshman, be at the bottom, but the character grows each year.

Obviously, experience would not be standard for a D&D game; you level up at the end of the year. Would probably have to consider an alternate rewards system, not related to character advancement, in order to encourage people to participate. Inside the academy, you'd have the usual interpersonal/social RP, along with research, classes, and such events. Teachers would be NPCs with broadly defined personality traits, which any staff member (or even player) could take control of for a scene. However, there would be areas of wilderness outside of the academy to which the young adventurers would be sent on 'field studies' (i.e. rented out to the local peasantry to resolve their bandit/monster problems) for practical experience.

The tone and theme of the game would be fairly light-hearted and somewhat tongue-in-cheek, with the occassional serious/angsty/horror turns.