Origin of this MANA system?

[mordrene]

When i was in high school (circa 1988) i went to a con in Peoria Il where i met some gamers who used a mana system for d&d. a spelcasters mana points were calculated from the average of STR, CON and their magic stat, INT for wizards and WIS for clerics. then that average was multiplie by the characters level divided by 3. thus a first level mage with a STR of 10, Con of 10 and INT of 16 has 4 mana points. [(36/3)*(1/3)= 4] Spells cost their level squared in mana points.

Now I state this because does anyone know where this comes from? is this a basic house rule or is this from some ruleset i do not know about?

[talysman]

SOunds like a house rule. I can verify that there was a mana system in Illinois pretty early. I started playing in Rantoul, Illinois in '75 or '76, with what I later discovered was a house-ruled white box version of D&D. It had "magical conductivity", which functioned as spell points, but I think they were determined by cumulative die rolls, and there was a separate Piety score for clerics. Spell costs were based on spell level, but variable, with a progression something like: d6/3, d6/2, d6, d6+1, d6+2, 2d6.

[thorswulf]

I wonder if Arduin or Warlock were influences. Maybe even Alarums and Excursions.

[talysman]

I wondered that, too. I'd heard that Warlock was the "California" variant and that it favored that kind of calculation. I have *a* version of Warlock that's available free on the internet, but I think it's a later one and I haven't even gotten past the first page or two, so I can't be sure.