History Main / CallAHitpointASmeerp

As we all know, there are many conventions of video games, like HitPoints, extra lives, high scores, money systems, [[{{Mana}} Energy Points]], respawning, loot collection and so on, which are almost universal.

One way to handle the issue is to keep the errant mechanic, but offer a simple (or not-so-simple) "fluff" explanation. Superheroes might collect "flashbacks" or "trophies" from defeated supervillains that act like standard loot; realistic characters might have "Fatigue" or "Vitality" that represents near-misses or luck; and death can be smoothed over as "unconsciousness," with resurrected characters brought back to their feet by slightly more realistic restoratives.

** In contrast, while Ezio can desynchronize by (directly) killing civilians frequently enough, dying, staying outside the game areas' boundaries or failing missions, he has health and instead Synchronization refers to how far along you are towards [[HundredPercentCompletion 100% complete synchronization with Ezio's life]].
* ''DonkeyKong64'' has a pretty weird example: watermelons! Yep, your character's life is represented by a watermelon, adding up to three as you progress through the game. If you get hit, you lose a slice. From the same stable, ''BanjoKazooie'' uses Honeycombs, and ''ConkersBadFurDay'' uses ''Anti-Gravity Chocolate''.

** Same deal with Spanish translations, which can't decide on "Puntos de Salud" (Health Points) or "Puntos de Vida" (Life Points), even if the original term is always "Health Points". Though the cake goes to the ''FinalFantasy'' translations, whiich bizarrely use.... "Vitalidad" (Vitality). Not Vitality Points, just Vitality. Even though Magic Points are still Points. Don't ask.

* The ''{{Golgo 13}}'' light-gun arcade games reward/punish for accuracy instead of whether you (playing as Golgo) get hit. You start the game with 100% "reliability". Do well on a typical mission and you will gain 30% reliability up to the 100% maximum but no further. Miss the mark and your reliability goes down 80%. When your reliability goes down to 0%, you can't get a job because you're, well, not reliable, and you'll have to continue or accept a game over. All in all, it's a reasonably clever take on Calling A Hit Point A Smeerp while avoiding the HostageSpiritLink problem: you won't take damage for hitting the wrong people, but nobody will trust you enough to hire you as a hitman.

* In ''StarControl II'', your spaceships have "Crew" instead of HP.

* ''CityOfHeroes'' has this in spades. Money is referred to as "influence," but it works exactly like money mechanically, to the point of being able to walk into stores and purchase items using influence, and to sell items for influence. There are also "enhancements," which are implied to be non-tangible items like training or genetic mutations that improve your powers, but they can still be looted, traded, sold, and transferred just like physical items. Even Inspirations, single-use "boosts" that are implied to represent internal resolve, can be purchased and sold. This is a particularly notable example because early developer interviews stated that they wanted to avoid the "loot collection" mechanic because it did not fit with the superhero theme. In later issues, on the other hand, even more "item-like" elements were added, such as "crafting" new Enhancements, places where enhancements could be "stored" and then "picked up" by other guild members, and even auction houses.

** When CityOfVillains came out, they used "infamy" (conveniently allowing the same abbreviation, "inf"). Recent changes that have combined the two have, due to problems finding a third word that begins with I-N-F that's remotely applicable, have changd both to "information".

* ''LordOfTheRings Online'' calls hit points "morale" and has songs, etc. that can restore "morale". Again, morale works just like hit points, with armor mitigating damage to "morale" and weapons hurting it. Rather than dying, characters are stated to be "retreating", but this again works just like death in most [=MMOs=] - you have to "retreat" all the way back to a respawn point, and you stay in the same position (in case someone wants to heal you) until you respawn.

* Clasically, the ''{{Castlevania}}'' games use hearts not as health restoring PowerUps, but as mana points (in that hearts are spent by firing your subweapon). The second game in the series instead uses hearts as currency.

* ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney uses macca as its in-game currency, much like in the other games. However, its implication is nothing short of genius. Macca is a form of energy used by demons which is compatible with the batteries on the MobileBase. Because the protagonists are on a sensitive mission deep in another world, the player is charged macca to make up the difference in using the ship's energy to treat injuries or synthesize new equipment. They can also use [[OrganDrops forma harvested from demons]] to synthesize new equipment and break down old items into energy to gain more macca. In short--it's a complete and immersive justification for an RPG economy and a total aversion of AdamSmithHatesYourGuts.

** Bottlecaps were money in ''Fallout 1'', but became worthless by ''Fallout 2'', having been substituted by gold coins. In ''Fallout 3'' (which takes place across the country from the original two games, and decades after FO2) bottlecaps are still the only currency, though no explanation is given. In New Vegas, caps have returned but it is explained that the gold coins were phased out after the NCR, who backed the coins, had their gold reserves destroyed. And also, the bottlecaps are indeed backed by water, at least in New Vegas.

* The various Palladium RPGs use Hit Points, but also Structural Damage Capacity, or S.D.C., which is both the hit points of inanimate objects and the [[OnlyAFleshWound superficial bruise and scratch damage]] a character can take before the damage rolls over into hit points. And just to make things more complicated, the sci-fi settings of ''{{Robotech}}'' and ''Rifts'' add Mega-Damage Capacity, or M.D.C., which is Hit Points at two levels of magnitude higher, to be applied to mecha, armoured vehicles, some PowerArmor, and spaceships.

As we all know, there are many conventions of {{MMORPG}}s, like HitPoints, [[{{Mana}} Energy Points]], respawning, loot collection and so on, which are almost universal.

Some games, however, try to avoid some of these conventions because they don't fit in with the genre. For example, [[SuperHero superheroes]] don't usually [[TreasureHunter collect loot]] or use [[ItOnlyWorksOnce expendable items]] like {{healing potion}}s, [[CriticalExistenceFailure realistic characters don't function normally up until the brink of death and then suddenly die]], resurrection doesn't exist in all settings, and lots of character types wouldn't use money to buy items.

However, sometimes it doesn't always work as advertised, and what ends up being created is something exactly the same, or very similar, to a standard game mechanic, except that it has a different name and "fluff" explanation. This can hurt the SuspensionOfDisbelief if the way the mechanic works does not make any sense when used in the new context. On the other hand, it's not necessarily bad - standard game mechanics are standard for a reason, and this method can help in fitting time-tested game mechanics into a new system.

* The ''{{Mother}}'' series uses PP rather than MP, since the characters are using psychic powers rather than magic spells.

* The {{Mother} series uses PP rather than MP, since the characters are using psychic powers rather than magic spells.

* ''Legend of the Ghost Lion'' uses "Hope" to represent the main heroine's CharacterLevel, "courage" for her [[LifeMeter hit points]], and "dreams" in place of [[ManaMeter magic points]] (which are primarily used for {{summon magic}}).

* ''{{Okami}}'' uses Solar Discs for hit points and Ink for skill points.

* Okami uses Solar Discs for hit points and Ink for skill points.

!Examples:
* ''Trespasser'' has no explicit hitpoints. Instead your character has a heart-shaped tattoo on her breast, which you can see by looking down. The heart's condition reflects your remaining Smeerps.
* ''CityOfHeroes'' has this in spades. Money is referred to as "influence," but it works exactly like money mechanically, to the point of being able to walk into stores and purchase items using influence, and to sell items for influence. There are also "enhancements," which are implied to be non-tangible items like training or genetic mutations that improve your powers, but they can still be looted, traded, sold, and transferred just like physical items. Even Inspirations, single-use "boosts" that are implied to represent internal resolve, can be purchased and sold. This is a particularly notable example because early developer interviews stated that they wanted to avoid the "loot collection" mechanic because it did not fit with the superhero theme. In later issues, on the other hand, even more "item-like" elements were added, such as "crafting" new Enhancements, places where enhancements could be "stored" and then "picked up" by other guild members, and even auction houses.
** Ironically, HitPoints still have their normal name.
* ''LordOfTheRings Online'' calls hit points "morale" and has songs, etc. that can restore "morale". Again, morale works just like hit points, with armor mitigating damage to "morale" and weapons hurting it. Rather than dying, characters are stated to be "retreating", but this again works just like death in most [=MMOs=] - you have to "retreat" all the way back to a respawn point, and you stay in the same position (in case someone wants to heal you) until you respawn.
** ''ToontownOnline'' has a similar approach to hit points. Rather justified--making a cartoon character depressed would certainly take them out of the action.
* Many games use unorthodox items for money -
** ''TheMatrix Online'' uses "information", ''KingdomOfLoathing'' uses "meat", and so on.
** ''KingdomOfLoathing'' only uses it because the creator didn't have a picture of gold, whereas he did have a picture of a steak.
** And because of the oft-parodied thing about [[MoneySpider giant monsters randomly having currency]]...
* The sheer variety of names for currency units that bring to mind gold coins or gems:
** [[FinalFantasy gil]] and [[LegendOfZelda rupees]] respectively the most famous.
** ''Perfect World'' calls the RMT currency Zen before it's transferred to a server, rewards Spirit instead of Training Points or {{Tech Points}} for beating monsters, and has Chi instead of a Rage/Adrenaline meter. Yes, it's a [[FamilyUnfriendlyAesop game where you beat the snot out of bad guys and pay money]] to [[WarriorPoet become more spiritually aware]].

*** In contrast, while Ezio can desynchronize by (directly) killing civilians frequently enough, dying, staying outside the game areas' boundaries or failing missions, he has health and instead Synchronization refers to how far along you are towards [[HundredPercentCompletion 100% complete synchronization with Ezio's life]].

* The ''{{Fallout}}'' series uses bottle caps as the in-game currency, although individual characters will barter as well. This is a thematic choice, though, to match the humor portrayed everywhere else in the post-apocalyptic world.
** Story wise "caps" are currency because the water merchants (who control the most valued item in the world) endorse them.
** I always assumed that, since the caps were backed by water, one cap was worth one bottle cap full of water.
*** Bottlecaps were money in Fallout 1, but became worthless by Fallout 2, having been substituted by gold coins. In Fallout 3 (which takes place across the country from the original two games, and decades after FO2) bottlecaps are still the only currency, though no explanation is given. In New Vegas, caps have returned but it is explained that the gold coins were phased out after the NCR, who backed the coins, had their gold reserves destroyed. And also, the bottlecaps are indeed backed by water, at least in New Vegas.
* ''Yggdra Union'' has Morale instead of HP, yet one enemy has an ability referred to as "HP Control System".
* This is getting frustratingly common in the German adaption of [=RPGs=] since everybody and his mother decided he wants to translate the English term "Hit Points" into something different. Mind you, the english words "Ability" and "Item" are still used...
* The ''StarTrekStarfleetCommand'' series uses "Prestige" as its currency. Wanna upgrade your ship? Congratulations, you've just gone from being the most famous captain of a scout ship to being just an unknown Constitution-class officer.
* ''Destiny of an Emperor'' for the NES revolves around you recruiting famous generals from the Three Kingdoms' Period to fight for you. Instead of hit points, your generals (and enemy generals) have "soldiers" that represent the number of, you guessed it, soldier who follow and fight for the them.
* ''DonkeyKong 64'' has a pretty weird example: watermelons! Yep, your character's life is represented by a watermelon, adding up to three as you progress through the game. If you get hit, you lose a slice. From the same stable, ''BanjoKazooie'' uses Honeycombs, and ''ConkersBadFurDay'' uses chocolate.
** ''Anti-Gravity Chocolate''
* The ''OrderOfTheStick'' adventure game measures health in "wounds". When your character runs out of wounds, he/she must retreat. Taking damage causes you to lose a wound, and Durkon's curing spells heal them - thereby ''restoring'' a wound to make your character healthier. Extra irony points for being based on a comic that uses the term "HP". This isn't such an irregular measurement. Many non-d20 Tabletop [=RPGs=] measure health in 'wounds', such as the White Wolf games.

* ''FearEffect'' had a "fear meter" rather than a life bar. The more afraid the character was (measured by their heartbeat), the closer they were to death. It's an interesting idea, but in practice works pretty much like a life bar, with each hit speeding your heart up until, when it's really pounding, one hit will kill you. The only real difference is that there are no health packs; there are a couple different ways to "calm down," like moving away from enemies and winning fights.
* ''TheElderScrolls'' series has long used "magicka" as {{Mana}} and, in the 3rd and fourth game, "fatigue" as stamina. The coin of the realm is Septims, though for most games they have been depicted as generic gold coins and have been called "gold" (Oblivion was the first to include an actual design on the coin).
* Clasically, the ''{{Castlevania}}'' games use hearts not as health restoring PowerUps, but as mana points (in that hearts are spent by firing your subweapon). The second game in the series instead uses hearts as currency.
* ''KidIcarus'' likewise uses hearts as currency, and strangely enough has a credit card as well.
* The main miniature games from WizKids use the 'clicky' base concept, where a character's stats are represented by a dial on the character's base. As the character takes damage (or is healed), the player turns the dial to reveal a different set of stats. Each turn makes an audible 'click' - thus Hit Points in these games are generally called 'clicks'; i.e. "my Superman hits your General Zod for 5 clicks".

* ''ApeEscape'' has, of all things to measure your health, cookies!

* ''{{Champions}}'' has Stun Pips and Body Pips instead of hit points, but they really do work differently. While running out of Body kills you, running out of Stun merely knocks you unconscious. Additionally, Body isn't "abstracted hit points" like it is in D&D -- it really represents the ability to withstand physical injury. A very experienced character is not expected to have more Body than a novice character, unless his super-powers call for him to be (say) 50 feet tall and made out of stone.
** ''ChampionsOnline'', on the other hand...
* In ''KingdomOfLoathing'', {{Mana}} Points are called different things for different classes: Mysticality uses Mana Points, but Muscle classes use Muscularity Points (for special damaging techniques) and Moxie classes use Mojo Points (for songs and dance moves).
* A non-video-game example: the original collectible card game, ''MagicTheGathering'', uses the term "tapping" to refer to turning a card sideways to indicate it's been used for that turn. Many other card games, as well as board games that include some cards, have cards that can be used once per turn, which is almost always indicated by turning them sideways (or sometimes, upside-down). Pretty much all those games have their individual terms for this action ("activating", "exhausting", etc), and yet pretty much all the players use the word "tapping" anyway.
** This troper seems to recall that the reason for this is that Wizards of the Coast has (trademarked? patented?) the word "Tap" when it refers to turning a card sideways to signify that a once-per-turn effect has been used. Other Wizards games can use the word, but not those from other companies. Legend of the Five Rings, meanwhile, though a Wizards game, has been using "bow/straighten" to mean "tap/untap" since before this was the case, and since it fits thematically, it hasn't changed.
** This has had the humorous effect of making a t-shirt sold by Penny Arcade, stating "I'd (World of Warcraft TCG symbol for 'exhausting' a card) that," ''make no sense at face value,'' since the terminology is so embedded in the TCG community that no one involved in the shirt's design ever even bothered to remember it's not called tapping in the WoW game.
* Averted in DungeonsAndDragons 4th edition, even though the "hit points" really are an abstraction of everything from health to morale. "Healing" includes things such as being a {{Determinator}} or being shouted at by the party Warlord. This has caused some people to wish they did call it a smeerp.
* This trope was used for entirely different reasons in the old 80s Roles Aids and Judges' Guild products for D&D, as "hit points" was then a fiercely-guarded trademark of TSR. This forced writers from other game companies to use terms like "HTK (Hits To Kill)" as a transparent stand-in for hit points.
* ''{{Psychonauts}}'' uses mental health as HP, astral projection layers as extra lives, and mental aggression as ammunition. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]], as most of the gameplay takes place in the form of astrally projecting yourself into the unconscious minds of those around you, but it gets rather ridiculous when you lose a layer of astral projection after being slaughtered by a pyrokinetic cougar or those ''[[DemonicSpiders goddamn fucking rats.]]''
* In ''StarControl II'', your spaceships have "Crew" instead of HP.
* ''MassEffect 2'' has "thermal clips", which are described as ejectable heat sinks for the guns but behave exactly like bullets in any other shooter. Right down to OneBulletClips.
** Thermal clips are an attempt to reduce the amount of RetCon required to add an ammo system to a series that had previously established that weapons don't run out of ammunition in a reasonable timeframe. Unfortunately it had also established that the weapons cool down quickly on their own...
* The ''PaperMario'' series has "heart points" for hit points, "flower points" for magic points, and "star power" for LimitBreak points.
** The flower points started in ''SuperMarioRPG''.
* ''Legend of the Ghost Lion'' uses "Hope" to represent the main heroine's CharacterLevel, "courage" for her [[LifeMeter hit points]], and "dreams" in place of [[ManaMeter magic points]] (which are primarily used for {{summon magic}}).
* In the sci-fi [=MMORPG=] ''Anarchy Online'', nanotechnology is [[MagicFromTechnology functionally equivalent to sword-and-sorcery style magic]]. {{Mana}} becomes nano points, mages become nanotechnicians, and so on. {{Handwaved}} that the local {{Phlebotinum}} is just that special.
* Many games based on HumongousMecha, such as the GundamVsSeries and ''AnotherCenturysEpisode'', use Armor Points.

* ''[=~American McGee's Alice~=]'' has sanity and will for Health and Mana respectively.

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<<|VideoGameTropes|>>

** This troper seems to recall that the reason for this is that Wizards of the Coast has (trademarked? patented?) the word "Tap," when it refers to turning a card sideways to signify that a once-per-turn effect has been used. Other Wizards games can use the word, but not those from other companies. Legend of the Five Rings, meanwhile, though a Wizards game, has been using "bow/straighten" to mean "tap/untap" since before this was the case, and since it fits thematically, it hasn't changed.

** ''TowntownOnline'' has a similar approach to hit points. Rather justified--making a cartoon character depressed would certainly take them out of the action.

** KingdomOfLoathing only uses it because the creator didn't have a picture of gold, whereas he did have a picture of a steak.

* ValkyrieProfile calls its hitpoints DME, or Divine Materialize Energy. Other games in the series don't seem to bother though.

* DonkeyKong 64 has a pretty weird example: watermelons! Yep, your character's life is represented by a watermelon, adding up to three as you progress through the game. If you get hit, you lose a slice. From the same stable, BanjoKazooie uses Honeycombs, and ConkersBadFurDay uses chocolate.

* {{Anachronox}} has "NRG" instead of MP. Notably, though, it doesn't make up it's own currency: it uses the ''Canadian Loonie'' as it's inter-planetary currency.
* FearEffect had a "fear meter" rather than a life bar. The more afraid the character was (measured by their heartbeat), the closer they were to death. It's an interesting idea, but in practice works pretty much like a life bar, with each hit speeding your heart up until, when it's really pounding, one hit will kill you. The only real difference is that there are no health packs; there are a couple different ways to "calm down," like moving away from enemies and winning fights.

* ApeEscape has, of all things to measure your health, cookies!
* Dungeons of Daggorath measures player health with a beating heart at the top center of the command/status area. When enemies hit you, your heartbeat gets faster. One of the game's few healing flasks slows your heartbeat. A poison flask speeds your heartbeat, sometimes fatally. Physical exertion, including swinging weapons and moving, especially moving with lots of backpack items, also speeds your heartbeat. Your heartbeat slows with time and rest. Let your heartbeat increase too much and you will "faint" -- your screen fades to black, and monsters (if any) might get enough time for a free attack (or two) before you recover. Let your heartbeat increase further and your game ends.

* In KingdomOfLoathing, {{Mana}} Points are called different things for different classes: Mysticality uses Mana Points, but Muscle classes use Muscularity Points (for special damaging techniques) and Moxie classes use Mojo Points (for songs and dance moves).

* {{Psychonauts}} uses mental health as HP, astral projection layers as extra lives, and mental aggression as ammunition. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]], as most of the gameplay takes place in the form of astrally projecting yourself into the unconscious minds of those around you, but it gets rather ridiculous when you lose a layer of astral projection after being slaughtered by a pyrokinetic cougar or those ''[[DemonicSpiders goddamn fucking rats.]]''

* [[{{Halo}} Halo:ODST]] continues the series tradition of giving the player character recharging shields to absorb damage...but insists rather forcefully that said shields represent that character's ''stamina'' despite that not making sense on any level.

* ''AssassinsCreed'' has not health, but "synchronization" as part of the game's framing device. This also explains why stabbing random innocents causes you to [[HostageSpiritLink desynchronize]], and why helping random citizens [[HeartContainer increases your life bar]].

** Thermal clips are, however, justified by the fact that the first game established weapon overheating and ammo considerations. Bioware does not like retconning.

** Which implies that [[MemeticBadass Altiar]] has never been hit.

*In KingdomOfLoathing, {{Mana}} Points are called different things for different classes: Mysticality uses Mana Points, but Muscle classes use Muscularity Points (for special damaging techniques) and Moxie classes use Moxie Points (for songs and dance moves).