Magic

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If you're looking for the card game, check Magic: The Gathering

Magic is a term that encompasses supernatural powers found in many games. These allow a person who learns how to use magic to create fantastic, supernatural effects. It could be evoking inherent mystical forces in the world, or invoking spirits to do thy bidding, flexing psionic brainmuscle, or wielding an item of unknowable power... but it all has this in common: you can't do this stuff in real life, but you can get away with it in the game. Usually only a vast minority of the population can perform supernatural magic, but some game settings (e.g. TSR's Dark Sun) make it common.

Magic is spelled magick if you are a homo or four hundred years old.

Schools of Magic

Most magic systems try to divide up all possible supernatural effects into categories. Four By Five Magic is probably the simplest example, damn near identical to Ars Magica but without copyright junk and easier to remember. Mage: The Ascension had all of reality divided neatly into nine categories before throwing it all away so they could sell more product with Mage: The Awakening.

But enough pretending; you play D&D, so you want the schools of magic used by Dungeons & Dragons.

Abjuration - protection, prevention, barriers, wards, your "Protection From Evil" type spells.
Conjuration - creating (temporary) things out of nothing, summoning far-away things to here. Summon a monster to fight for a minute, or teleport your target to here. Also covers personal teleportation, which is like summoning yourself to over there.
Divination - see the invisible, know the unknowable (row row fight the powah). "Detect Evil" goes here.
Enchantment - charm, dominate, antipathy, mind control stuff that clobbers free-will.
Evocation - KABOOM! Like conjuration, but you're creating energy out of nowhere and venting it at a target. Fireballs and laser blasts.
Illusion - make people see/hear/sense things that aren't there, or the exact opposite in the case of invisibility spells. Unlike Enchantment, you don't have to target a person, just the place or thing you want to look/smell/sound different.
Necromancy - mucking with dead things, or life-force stuff. With the use of necromancy, dead girls can't say "no."
Transmutation - change one thing into another thing. "Polymorph Other" goes here, along with those very very valuable buff spells for your meatshields.

For some reason, healing spells in D&D are considered "conjuration" spells, not "transmutation," despite changing a broken bone into a not-broken bone, and it's not "necromancy" despite mucking with life-force stuff. In older versions of D&D, healing was considered Necromancy, so, whatever.

There's really only one school of magic in the Warhammer 40K setting: HERESY!!1!!!one!!

Oh wait, there is actually five psychic schools in 40k - they all origins from Dark Heresy books, but became known to wargamers through 6-th edition 40k rulebook. Fluff wise they was founded by Thousand Sons and Magnus the Red. Because pretty much everything Imperium knows about psychic powers and sorcery is taken from remnants of Tizca libraries on Prospero.

Biomancy - Manipulating with flesh - own, ally or enemy. Here comes healing and buffs (some self buffs can turn a pyskers in death machines that eat up dedicated combat HQs), as well as abilities, that cause people to vomit to death or literally expode. For some reason biomancers also can shoot lightnings, which is explained by using their nervous system to generate unholy levels of high voltage.
Pyromancy - Here to kill thing with fire. Fireballs, flamethrowers, fiery swords or melta beams are their specialty.
Telekinesis - Moving things with the mind. Known to create tough kine-shields and barriers to protect allies, as well as smashing things with other things (think human sized lifta-droppa) or for extra lulz using more subtle things with less powerful but accurate telekinesis - like jamming guns or pulling out the pin from a grenade on the enemy's belt.
Divination - Foreseeing the future and messing with a probability. Could be a real pain in the ass, guiding few strong units with knowledge of the ways of future. Known to be the most nerdy of all psykers, divinators almost always possess more knowledge than other psykers about how their powers work, and about how warp works in general.
Telepathy - Reading and manipulating minds. Illusions and mind control is their power, as wall as causing fear and panic or making people heads explode.

Magic in D&D 3.5e

Magic in Dungeons and Dragons 3.5e is called the art by elves and other such nonsense by other such nonsensical creatures. It is similar to the weeaboo idea of chi/ki where magic is all around us like the force from Star Wars, like the holy Gandalf in religion and the.... yeah you get the picture. Magic in 3.5e is everywhere like pedobear.

To cast spells you first need to know the spell (if it is an arcane spell) which makes sense - you can't differentiate an integral if you don't haz mathz. Divine spell casters have it easy though, their god/deity/imaginary friend lets them cast any spell if they have enough levels and if they ask really nicely in the morning.

Casting the spell takes "lots" of effort (seriously, magic users in D&D are physically weak) so they can only cast a certain number of spells from a certain casting difficulty per day. Except for Warlocks and Dragonfire Adepts. Cheating bastards.

Additionally, a few other magic systems were released that operate by different rules. Examples include:

Psionics, a very old system that was even included in the SRD, is pretty much reflavored spellcasting, except with a mana reserve referred to as power points and the potential to become massively overpowered.
Incarnum, a very confusing system that was released during Dread Cthulhu's brief employment at WoTC
The Book of Weeaboo Fightan Magic.

Magic in D&D 4e

In 4E, familiar spells from prior editions still exist, though many of them have disappeared, and many spells that have the same names as in 3.5 function in a much weaker manner, such as fireballs that cannot kill even a low level monster, or 'disintegrates' that do little more damage than a skin rash, 'teleports' that barely cover the distance of a room. All in all, the spell selection is significantly smaller in 4E, with many spells removed, particularly ones that would require effort of a human GM to adjudicate. Indeed, in 4E, spells are less intricate and specific, and more straight-forward.

Another notable point in 4E magic is the fact that classes don't generally share spell lists anymore, and that all classes are comprised of abilities that are basically spells. For example, the Wizard and Sorcerer have wholly different selections of spells and class features, and generally have a list of spells only moderately different in effect than the fighter's spells, or the rogue's. Spells in 4E are classified with powers, meaning a spellcaster is going to generally have about as many spells as a Fighter has special attacks, stances, and disciplines. They're also functionally similar, differing only in affect, but not in the usage of attack rolls to resolve the success of the spell. This has led to the prevalent criticism that "all classes in 4E are spellcasters."

There are also rituals, which are questionable magic effects that take a while to occur, and cost sometimes far more money than a reasonable player would be willing to spend (such as a fairly expensive ritual that would allow you to listen behind a door 20' away). They generally have out of-combat purposes, unlike most of the typical spells like those mentioned above, which are almost exclusively for combat.

Magic The Warp in Dark Heresy

Unlike in most D&D, where everything's colourful and cheery, trying to use ethereal powers in the 40,000 universe could get your "beautiful snowflake" soul stolen by nasty daemons you will then rape the shit out of your body and then defecate your eyeballs.

On the plus side, Psykers (as magic users are called) know very few powers (two at the start) in the game but can cast them whenever they want as long as they don't fail the casting roll. Failing the casting roll can cause hilarious effects, if you're the kind of person that laughs at safety videos for farm equipment.

Magic in Warhammer Fantasy aka The Shit

In Warhammer Fantasy, magic plays a huge part in both the fluff and on the table top. Magic is used to keep whole armies standing up, to write shit on rocks fired by Dwarven artillery pieces, and everything in between. The eight Winds of Magic which emanate from the Realm of Chaos are harnessed by most wizards around the Warhammer world, but some wizards like the Chaos Sorcerers of the Northern Wastes use magic in its purest form. The eight Winds (one for each point on the star of Chaos) each have their own Lore practised by their Imperial College of Magic, but most races also use their own form of magic along with or instead of some or all of these Lores. The eight Lores and their respective Winds are as follows:

Fire: Like Pyromancy in 40k, this Lore revolves around burning things. Naturally, this lore has lots of magic missiles and direct damage spells, with the odd hex or augment thrown in for variety. The signature spell (like a 40k Primaris Power), Fireball, is very useful, reasonably powerful, and easy to cast. Most armies have access to the Lore of Fire, which is generated by the Wind Aqshy. Imperial wizards that use this Lore are known as Bright Wizards.
Heavens: The Lore of Heavens is all about using stars and the sky to your advantage. This sounds unusual, but it can be a very useful lore to use. Its spells include unleashing lightning on poor souls, divining the future using star positions, and even sending a motherfucking COMET falling onto the enemy. This Lore is created by the Wind Azyr and is practiced by the Celestial Wizards.
Light: Light is more of a situational lore than most of the others, because it works excellently against Daemons, Undead, or armies with high I/WS, but falls to bits against anything else (OG and Dwarf players just laugh a lot). Other than Banishment and Shem's Burning Gaze, most of the spells boost your army's WS or I stats to rape-tastic levels. The Wind Hysh makes this happen, and it is studied by the Light Order of wizards.
Life: This is basically Biomancy (along with the Lore of Beasts), and boy, can it work miracles. Not many armies can take this, only the ones that can stand its supreme amazingness. It makes your men abnormally tough, eats your opponent with the ground and can even BRING YOUR MEN BACK FROM THE MOTHERFUCKING DEAD! Is it awesome? Yes, Mr. Skittles Guy, it is awesome! The Jade Wizards that use it tap into it from the Ghyran Wind.
Death: Kills shit. Amethyst Wizards. Wind of Shyish. Nuff said.
Shadow: A bit like Telepathy in that is uses tricksiness and deceit to work. Grey Wizards (not Gandalf) use the Wind of Ulgu to make people fly a bit, appear behind the enemy, and unleash an ECKSBAWKS HUEG pendulum on everyone. Yep, this is fun.
Metal:Don't get this confused with the Techno-Mages of 40k. While the AdMech worship metal as it is used to build awesome stuff, the Gold Wizards see it more as worshipping metal itself. They use their powers taken from the Chamon Wind to turn people into solid gold, attack people with metal death dogs and enhance or weaken weapons and armour.
Beasts: The Lore of Beasts makes up the other half of Biomancy, with the scarifying of the user and their allies to improve their bodies. This lore is used by ~~Radagast~~ the Amber Brotherhood and involves mutating more limbs to RIP AND TEAR, attacking people with crows and turning yourself into a fucking DRAGON! Trust me, this lore IS THE SHIT.