I love the idea of wizard school, and I've been mulling over some concepts recently.
My current idea has player playing wizard professors competing to seize the position of headmaster, after the old one died suddenly. Players have to gain the most prestige to win, which can be accomplish through several means.
One of the core mechanics that appeals to me is card drafting. Each day, players have to determine which classes they will teach (which might give them special actions, control over certain parts of the school, and influence over different students' grades) and this gets determined by drafting class cards (care of magical creatures, defense against the dark arts, potions, etc).
The other alternative might be that each player only specializes in one magical discipline, and this gives them unique abilities that other players have to ask their permission to use.
Another idea was that players have to build the school itself through a real-time tile laying minigame.
One way that players could gain lots of prestige could be through mentoring promising students to become famous wizards. There might be a number of student cards out that players would have to guide in different ways to earn prestige from them.
Other ideas: having a board of the school layout, and have lots of cubes, representing students, flow from room to room as classes change.
More flagrant potter plagiarism: have a number of student "houses" which behave differently.
Possibly push-your-luck mechanics where you can attempt more and more dangerous spells, which could gain you lots of prestige, but could backfire horribly.
Maybe the game could take place over a longer time-frame, where each round is a whole year of school, and players have to select cards that determine what objectives they focus on that year (mentoring students, research, keeping the forces of darkness at bay, etc).
Perhaps it could have some worker placement, where each player is the head of a student house, and can send students on mission to different rooms of the school, where they can take certain actions. So, worker placement where the workers have to spend time getting to their place.
Any other ideas?
What sounds like the most fun to play?
After giving it more thought, I'm leaning more towards a card driven engine, that takes place across 7 years/rounds.
One thing that occurred to me is that each year players have to draft which classes they will teach that year. These cards tell players the types of actions they can take during that year. Players will be very constricted by these actions, so they have to choose them carefully. Perhaps they have to ask for permission from another player to use one of his actions.
Has a system of action drafting been done before? I suspect it has, but I haven't heard of it.