What other schools of magic or names for magic can you guys think of? I'm trying to make my own system...

What other schools of magic or names for magic can you guys think of? I'm trying to make my own system, but a lot of these words are used over and over again in different games and things and I don't want to appear too derivative.

You need to have some fundamental structure behind the split. Otherwise, you might as well get an infinite number of school by picking a random domain and adding '-mancy' at the end. Like Unknown Armies does.

Look at how Ars Magica does it.
Each spell requires two magical skills: one for the object and one for the action.

This is the big one.

D&D's schools are shitty because some are defined by method (Conjuration, Transmutation), others by end result (Abjuration, Illusion), which is how you get schools that can cover vast swathes of actions and some that can barely put their pants on in the morning.

>D&D's schools are shitty because some are defined by method (Conjuration, Transmutation), others by end result (Abjuration, Illusion)
Elaborate on this. I was planning on having 12 (the game is primarily about magic) and all of these were making the cut in some way shape or form so far.

This is useful just for help in naming things alone. Thanks!

>I'm trying to make my own system, but a lot of these words are used over and over again in different games and things and I don't want to appear too derivative.
Stop. Just stop.

Novelty for the sake of novelty is foolishness, and only leads to bad games.

If you have a thematic split you like, use it, and fuck anyone who cares if the names have been used a lot. Don't make something new for the sake of making something new; make something new because *you like it and you want to share it with people*.

And, yeah, what said, and . Structure is more important than nomenclature.

>D&D's schools are shitty because some are defined by method (Conjuration, Transmutation), others by end result (Abjuration, Illusion)
>Elaborate on this. I was planning on having 12 (the game is primarily about magic) and all of these were making the cut in some way shape or form so far.

I'm not that user, but what he's getting at is that the difference in the way the schools are set up makes certain schools (notably Conjuration and Transmutation) excessively broad. For instance, Abjuration is supposedly the school for defenses and wards -- but Transmutation can do that too, with spells like Magic Vestment, Blink, and Iron Body falling under its purview. The methods-based schools are much broader, because it's easy to justify all kinds of things within the context of a given method, and the designers never bothered to restrict any of that on the basis of protecting other schools' niches. So you have a situation where just having Conjuration and Transmutation alone can cover just about all of your bases, whereas a different pair of schools (say, Abjuration and Evocation) leaves you vastly more limited.

I'm not necessarily trying to do novelty for the sake of novelty, but I don't want to use exactly what D&D uses or exactly what Mage uses or whatever. A list of magical words would be useful.

Would something like
>Conjuration: the summoning of physical magic and creatures
>Transmutation: the altering of physical properties
>Abjuration: the use of magic for defense and healing
>Evocation: the manipulation of elemental forces
Be clear definitions?

The Elder Scrolls has a pretty concise setup for their magical schools.