I am trying to make the different magic types in Eos very distinct in what they do in the game system. I am aware of the comments related to some other games in that the same base of spells are used, etc... I was wondering, how do people percieve the different magic types? Are they distinctly different enough in the Rules Guide?

Quite scary how your mind seems to pick thoughts out of my head...lol

As I said, I'm in the middle of the magical lore sheets and its plain to me that the development of the different magic types differentiates them well enough. My only worry is that enough seeds have been planted in the main rules guide. I didn't want the spell types to seem samey even in their.

Completely take your point on Summoning, I guess in part its because other systems have shied away from it. Still, I'm pretty sure when people think about it they'll find just as much depth in all of the types of magic.

Curses were a late addition to the rules guide just before release - I kinda had a brainwave...lol. Spent most of the earlier hours this morning nailing them down.

With every LRP game if you scratch hard enough you can make a hole in it. I guess with magic I'm keen that people can scratch around a fair bit to find more interesting things beneath the surface.

I personally would avoid summoning, "Thankyou for calling the Abyssal Hotline.  All our entities our busy on other calls at the moment.  Please hold.  Remember your Summonation is important to us."

Whereas the other magics you can pick up and run off with (assuming your lore sheets don't all say "Get a ref".  Don't do that Mr S.) because only summonation needs an NPC.  The rest all use PC's. 

Yeah don't worry, I have a few tricks to handle the whole summoning thing, else I wouldn't have written it.

However as a general point each of the types do have a pretty uber direction. Some just aren't quite as obvious. Part of my hope to bring a bit of value to specialism in LRP and RPGs really. Many games have gone down the jack of all trades route because that makes it easy to please people. Whereas I think you can get even more out of encouraging a balance of specialists, who when the shit really hits the fan, everyone has to huddle round to see if they can bring their big levers to the table.

In terms of magic design its been said before, rote effect spells have their place, but flexible spells that give players a bit of a chance to tinker encourage people's imagination. The ones that are a bit open ended are the ones that keep you awake at night thinking "I wonder if I use this like this..." etc...

Actually Ritual Magic was the first one I thought of, but I was looking in the context of Necromancers who actually had to show up to do rituals and would do something big and powerful and cool.  Possibly over a couple of hours.  With big black dribbly candles.   And chanting.  And hooded robes.  Mmm... hooded robes.  With sigils! and big books! bound in curious materials... 

Hmm cthulu-esque. 

Damn.  May need quick rewrite of group concept.  :-9