thomas.berubeg
Wandering the World
Nice idea.
How about these categories:
Summoning, Settlement Enchantment, Unit Enchantment, Direct Damage, and Land Altering?
Summoning is obvious. Settlement Enchantment can up the defenses of your settlements. Unit Enchantments can up the power of your units. Direct Damage means that your Wizard casts a spell directly at an enemy unit. And Land Altering would be that your Wizard casts a spell directly at an enemy location, settlement, or land.
How are these categories? Can I trust players to come up with good spell names on their own? Perhaps I should give a list of examples? They would only be names. Because the effects of the spells will be dictated by how much mana you have and how many spell books you have in a certain school of magic.
I also might make it so you have to research or train your Wizard in order to allow the Wizard to put more mana into a spell.
What about schools of magic? Should I have them or do away with them completely? Do you all generally think such a thing is cliche, and would rather focus on a wide range of spells based on their effects - or would you want your Wizard to be limited to, say, only Death and Chaos spells?
More categories could be added with time. Make sure the rules of magic are properly drawn up and air-tight to keep from abuse. Players should be able to come up with good names on their own in my opinion and experience, though you could always modify the less good names, along the lines of the suggested name.
I think you should have schools of magic, but not be more specific than that, aside for clearly indicating the limits to the power of a spell. Players will come up with spells and effects, and run them by you (and, odds are they're combined mass will be infinitely more creative than you could possibly be in creating spells.)
your role as GM, I think, in terms of magic, should be approving or vetoing spells.