Tony Vargas
Legend
Wouldn't even be that revolutionary(npi) an idea.I could just as easily say that sorcerers reflect an inherent position of privilege because they're literally born into power and hence obviously constitute an arcane aristocracy,
I can't recall if anything resembling a mana system snuck into Tome of Magic or some Player's option thing in 2e, but no, nothing official, just very common variants...As part of the official game? I tried to restrict it to official game material but if you go outside that, people have been unhappy with the magic system since it was introduced and have howebrewed a variety of systems to replace it.
… and well-regarded, by some at least, as alternatives to Vancian... though also regarded as crazy-broken compared to the heavy restrictions inherent in Vancian, by others...
… now, of course, 5e has removed so many of those restrictions that it can casually present a similar spell-point variant in the DMG without much comment at all.