Here's another idea for a magic system variant.
At character generation the DM rolls 1 black D20 and one red D20. Subtract the black D20 from 80, then add the red D20. This will give you a number somewhere between 60 and 100. This is the characters natural lifespan in years. Obviously you need to apply racial modifiers to the result. For example if a player is rolling and elf you repeatedly punch them in the face until they stop being gay.
Once the DM has these lifespans they should obviously be kept recorded somewhere secret. How does this relate to magic? Simple, the level of the spell cast determines how much it takes off the casters life. So a level one spell would take off 0.1 years. A level spell would take off 0.2 years and so on in a logical progression.
Of course, if you wanna do this properly you don't reduce the characters life expectancy total. You add it on to the characters CURRENT effective age. And you have a table of effects of old age that you can apply to the characters. Sure, they might storm through the first dungeon or two chucking fireballs around like monkey poop, but once all their hair falls out and they can't get erections anymore then they're going to start thinking twice wether or not that Acid Burst is worth a year off their already reduced span.
Of course, you can always plug something like this in as an overcasting mechanic. If you want to let your characters push past the usual restrictions of whatever you're running at great personal risk and sacrifice. Just increase the penalty by a suitable order of magnitude, and maybe throw in some more immediate health effects.
Of course, any sane and reasonable system will offer the players ways around these restriction. Some way of offsetting or overcoming the penalties so that they can actually get on with playing. But as an initial framework I think it could be interesting.
Especially if you don't actually tell them until after they've lost a decade or two.
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