Would a necromancer that only summons spirits be viable way to play?

Better question, how can we make Necromancers MORE evil?

I'm thinking we make them Tax Collectors who go around to the deceased and basically call up souls from their eternal rest to pay off their monetary debts through zombie labour.

I made it so necromancy in my setting actively destroys the soul of a person's body, since it has to override all the will of the dead person with the necromancer's. Thus, you end up with them being empty husks after the fact from their service as robots.

It's mainly because shaman and necromancer doesn't have the same flavor in most fantasy setting, like in warcraft to cite the most popular. A shaman will talk and make deal with spirit (who aren't always ghost so there is also that) when a necromancer will force a ghost to do what he wants, or even kill somebody and force his ghost to serve him.

That's literally what the Orzov guild does, also Ravnica was probably the only good thing to come out of magic's new lore mtg.gamepedia.com/Orzhov_Syndicate

I don't know if I would exactly call Ravnica 'new' lore. The original block was quite a while ago, and it happened before Cold Snap, Time Spiral, and the introduction of Planeswalker cards.

Everything you said is accurate. Shamans talk with all sorts of spirits. Necromancers focus on the dead. Most necromancers would be forceful about it.

However, it would be 100% possible for a Necromancer to not be forceful about it, and simply use their magic to speak with the dead and cut deals with them like a Shaman instead.

There's no real reason why it wouldn't work, except for getting hung up on the name of the class and insisting that it can't be good even by avoiding the specifically evil spells and methods.

its only evil as you want it to be

if you go with diablo style necromancy, where the skeletons are just crude proto-flesh golems, and necromancy is just another art form that is used to examine the endless cycle of life and death than good and evil necromancers can both exist
indeed, the frank and blase view the diablo 2 necromancer had towards death meant that he went to hell and back without losing his sanity

if you deliberately make necromancy as evil as possible, making an ad hoc explanation for every reason or argumeny to make it evil, than it becomes considerably harder to do so
but no matter how edgy you make necromancy, people will still want to be a necromancer because you have to realize that summoning skeletons is really cool but the average player doesnt want to be evil

so really its a mix of "depends on the setting" and how much you want to limit the players choices

there is also the tiny detail of PCs always acting (or at least claim to) in a good manner no matter how big you draw EVIL all over their charcter sheets, you really have no control over how they act, they can act like skeleton ghandi and there really isnt anything you can do to dissuade if they do so

I consider anything Mirrodin and beyond new magic

>or you raise the dead bodies of previously loved ones and make a mockery of them

What? like force them to do silly dances, wear silly outfits? Engage in acts they would never have done in life (like ordaining gay marriages)

if he comes from a place where they have different outlooks on dead bodies, then he may find you the crazy one, since from where he is from he is honoring them by giving their bodies purpose and doing his civic duty of recycling bodies