Call a Hit Point a Smeerp

As we all know, there are many conventions of video games, like Hit Points, extra lives, high scores, money systems, 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, superheroes don't usually collect loot or use expendable items like healing potions, 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. But what if the genre of game calls for something like that, or the designers want or need such a mechanic for balance?

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.

Note this trope has been around since the days of Dungeons and Dragons, usually by game systems switching up their terminology just to be not-Dungeons-and-Dragons.

Named after the trope "Call a Rabbit a Smeerp", which is when an in-universe concept has a silly name.

Action-Adventure

 * Assassin's Creed has "synchronization" instead of health, as part of the game's framing device -- that is, whether your character's situation matches up with what that character did. This also explains why stabbing random innocents or staying outside the game areas' borders to causes you to desynchronize, and why helping random citizens increases your life bar.
 * Which implies that Altair has never been hit.
 * Fairly likely, considering how deadly even a flesh wound can be without proper treatment, especially if it gets infected.
 * For the sequel, "Synchronization" works a bit differently. Ezio can desynchronize by (directly) killing civilians frequently enough, dying, staying outside the game areas' boundaries or failing missions, he has a conventional health meter; instead, Synchronization refers to how far along you are towards 100% complete synchronization with Ezio's life.
 * Donkey Kong 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, Banjo-Kazooie uses Honeycombs, and Conkers Bad Fur Day uses Anti-Gravity Chocolate.
 * Conker's bad fur day also has dismembered "squirrel's tails" as lives, which hang around at random places on meat hooks. The actual ingame explanation given to you by a grim reaper is that it's "according to the powers that be", and continues implying that he doesn't really know why either.
 * Fear Effect 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.
 * Clasically, the Castlevania games use hearts not as health restoring Power Ups, but as mana points (in that hearts are spent by firing your subweapon). The second game in the series instead uses hearts as currency.
 * In Psychonauts, as most of the gameplay takes place in the form of astrally projecting yourself into the unconscious minds of those around you, mental health is used as HP, "astral projection layers" are extra lives, and mental aggression is ammunition. Strangely, though, these still work like this in the real world, so you lose "mental health" after being slaughtered by a very real cougar or the damned kamikaze rats.
 * As American McGee's Alice takes places inside Alice's mind, it has sanity and will for Health and Mana respectively. Main source of them are the enemies: killing makes her more sane.
 * Makes a bit more sense when you realize the enemies are Anthropomorphic Personifications of her mental issues, with symbolic significance ranging from the obvious to the obscure.
 * In American McGee's Alice's sequel, Alice: Madness Returns, Alice's health is represented by roses. When wearing the DLC Hattress dress, her hitpoints are turned to the game's "currency", which is Teeth.
 * Okami and its sequel, Okamiden, use Solar Discs for hit points, Ink for mana and praise for skill points.
 * Max Payne doesn't actually have a health meter, but a "pain bar" which represents how much pain he is currently in. When his pain reaches maximum level, he's dead. Luckily, popping a few painkillers will make him right as rain.
 * The video game version of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows is basically a third-person shooter, with firearms and bullets replaced by wands and spells, except since you still need to cast each spell several times for it to have its effect, you're still basically firing bullets. Also, since about half the spells all serve the same purpose of knocking enemies out, the main difference is in speed of casting and effect area (analogues to fire rate and bullet spread). This even goes so far as to have Confundus zoom in like a sniper rifle (why Harry is so much more accurate with this particular charm is never explained). Potion bottles also act just like grenades.
 * In the Devil May Cry series the games equivalent of money and experience points (it's used to upgrade equipment, buy new items, and learn new techniques) is called red orbs, which are supposed to be crystalized demon blood. They can be earned both by killing monsters and by just finding them lying around, which is how money is often obtained, but you get more orbs for defeating enemies with more combo points, which makes them sound a bit more like experience points. You can also get red orbs from health pickups if you have max health.

Eastern RPG

 * The Final Fantasy series uses gil for currency, which is meant to call gold (gilt or gilded) to mind.
 * Starting with Final Fantasy IV, characters no longer "die" when they run out of HP, but "swoon" or are "KOed." This was probably because this is where real plot lines became a staple with characters dying. This should remove the question of "Why don't they just use a Phoenix Down?" but many people don't notice the distinction. The fact that the spell to restore KOed characters is still called "Life" probably contributes to this.
 * Final Fantasy in general is very inconsistent with how downed characters are referred as. While Final Fantasy IV had "Swoon", Final Fantasy VI made a bit more sense by referring to characters with 0 HP as "Wounded". Final Fantasy VII literally referred to downed characters as "Dead", which also brought up debate over why Areith can't be brought back with a Phoenix Down. By Final Fantasy VII and later, "KO" is always used to described a downed character rather than being outright dead.
 * Valkyrie Profile calls its hitpoints DME, or Divine Materialize Energy, representing Lenneth's ability to temporarily grant the dead souls accompanying her physical form. Later games in the series have living party members, and so revert to normal HP.
 * This is common in the German adaptions of RPGs since different groups translate the English term "Hit Points" differently. Strangely, the English words "Ability" and "Item" are still used.
 * Which is similar to Spanish translations of video games, which when referring to health usually use either "Puntos de Salud" (Health Points) or "Puntos de Vida" (Life Points), while Final Fantasy translations pretty consistently use the simple term "Vitalidad" (Vitality).
 * 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, soldiers who follow and fight for the them.
 * Anachronox has "NRG" instead of MP. Notably, though, it doesn't make up its own currency: it uses the Canadian Loonie as its inter-planetary currency.
 * Super Mario RPG and the Paper Mario series has "heart points" for hit points, "flower points" for magic points, and "star power" for Limit Break points.
 * The first two games in the Paper Mario series has "star points" for experience, whereas experience points in Super Paper Mario look like the old-fashioned Pointless Points.
 * The obscure NES RPG Legend of the Ghost Lion uses "Hope" to represent the main heroine's Character Level, "courage" for her hit points, and "dreams" in place of magic points (which are primarily used for Summon Magic).
 * The Mother//Earthbound series has PP rather than MP, since the characters are using psychic powers rather than magic spells.
 * The Golden Sun series uses Psynergy in the place of Magic and thus replaces Mana Points (MP) with Psynergy Points (PP).
 * Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey 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 Mobile Base. 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 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 Adam Smith Hates Your Guts.
 * The health stations on the world map don't get an explicit reason why they need macca to run, but a bit of thought points out that they aren't hooked up to anything, so you'd have to charge them yourself - and since you already know that macca can run your ship's batteries...
 * Mario & Luigi games have called Mana different names: Superstar Saga used Bros Points (BP), Partners in Time didn't use mana, and Bowser's Inside Story used SP for Special Points.
 * Beyond the Beyond has a system of "Vitality Points" AND "Life Points" to replace the traditional HP system.

First Person Shooter

 * 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.
 * 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 Hostage Spirit Link problem: you won't take damage for hitting the wrong people, but nobody will trust you enough to hire you as a hitman.
 * 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.
 * Duke Nukem Forever doesn't have a health bar. Instead, Duke's well-being is represented by his massive EGO: getting hit reduces it, doing something awesome (like killing things) restores it, and doing something really awesome (like bench-pressing 600 lb or admiring yourself in the mirror) boosts his ego permanently. Should the ego fall down to zero, Duke dies, unable to cope with himself anymore.
 * Which leads to Unfortunate Implications because Ego, not unlike health in various modern shooters, is also replenished by going out of the harm's way. In other words, Duke regains his Ego also by behaving cowardly. Escapist Magazine called him on that.
 * An alternate way of looking it that Duke was telling himself how awesome he was to work his ego back up.

Massively Multiplayer Online RPG

 * World of Warcraft introduced Holy Power for the Paladin class in 4.0/ Cataclysm. Some people have referred to it as "glorified combo points" (a Rogue resource mechanic) in that it works in very similar ways, albeit a lot less reliable (heavy Random Number Generator usage). So basically, they gave Paladins Combo Points and called it "Holy Power" instead.
 * Cataclysm also brought a new resource mechanic to hunters: Focus (same as their pets). It works roughly the same way as the Rogue's Energy, the main differences being 1) that it's a bit slower to regenerate, 2) it only regenerates while standing still, while Rogues' Energy can regenerate while moving, and 3) that certain attacks restore it instead of depleting it.
 * City of Heroes 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, Hit Points still have their normal name.
 * Rather than influence, villainous characters will trade in infamy, and inhabitants of the morally-gray utopia dimension Praetoria traffic in information. That all three begin with the letters "inf" is entirely intentional.
 * The Lord of the Rings 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.
 * This has the rather amusing side effect that minstrels are the game's healers. Instead of physically curing your wounds, though, a minstrel heals you by singing a really really inspiring melody.
 * Which makes sense, given the "morale" conceit. As does the Captain's words of courage and rallying cries. As does the Runekeeper's pet rocks... wait, what?
 * In addition, parties are known as "fellowships", as per Tolkien tradition. The guild version of this is the "kinship".
 * Toontown Online has a similar approach to hit points. Rather justified--making a cartoon character depressed would certainly take them out of the action.
 * The Matrix Online uses "information" for currency
 * Kingdom of Loathing uses "meat" for currency, 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 giant monsters randomly having currency...
 * 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).
 * 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 game where you beat the snot out of bad guys and pay money to become more spiritually aware.
 * In the sci-fi MMORPG Anarchy Online, nanotechnology is 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.
 * Champions Online uses 'Resources' as currency, with Local, National, and Global Resources for different denominations. Mana is 'Endurance'.
 * Justified as resources can be used to REFER to "money", and since most superheroes aren't magically powered, Mana would not be an appropriate term. Endurance is also the term used by the parent, Tabletop game Champions.
 * In Ever Quest, that stuff you use to cast spells is called Mana. In Ever Quest II, the stuff has been renamed Power. Justified, in that in EQ2 all abilities beyond basic attacks, not just magic spells, have a power cost, but still confusing for players of one game trying the other. Also, in story, magic became very difficult or outright impossible because the gods were the source of much of the world's magic. Only until a faction of Monks discovered a method of using inner power to fuel their abilities did some magic start to return to the world.
 * Battlestar Galactica Online has Hull Points for HP (look ma, same short form!), power for mana and different types of currency. Tylium is used for basic purchases and doubles as fuel for Nitro Boost or FTL jumps, Titanium for repairs, Cubits for high-end purchases (which you can also convert real-world cash into) and Merits are used for the highest-end purchases like nukes.

Mecha

 * Many games based on Humongous Mecha, such as the Gundam vs. Series and Another Century's Episode, use Armor Points.

Platformer

 * Kid Icarus uses hearts as currency, and strangely enough has a credit card as well.
 * Ape Escape has, of all things to measure your health, cookies!

Simulation

 * The Star Trek Starfleet Command 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.
 * Similarly, the later games in the Silent Hunter Series use renown to pay for upgrades, new submarines and rebasing.

Stealth Based Game

 * The Art of Theft: Although Trilby gets money from his various heists, he never actually does anything with it. Instead, in-game skill upgrades are purchased with "Reputation Points," which he earns for particularly impressive exploits.

Turn Based Strategy

 * Yggdra Union has Morale instead of HP, yet one enemy has an ability referred to as "HP Control System".
 * In the Star Control series, your spaceships have "Crew" instead of HP. This is actually used meaningfully in certain cases. The Syreen have the ability to pull crew into space and pick them up (if they're not picked up after a time, they die). The Ur-Quan Dreadnaught launches fighters at their enemies, but these fighters have to be crewed, so they each reduce the crew of the ship by 1. The Druuge have slow energy regeneration, but can transform crew into fuel. In story, this is called "feeding the furnace". And so on.
 * In Sengoku Rance of the Rance series, the number of soldiers under an officer is used as their health, attack power, and defense power.

Western RPG
"Shepard VI: I find the best advanced battlefield strategy is to have more bullets than the other guy. Shepard VI: Technically, it's thermal clips, not bullets. But who says, "I filled him with five detachable heat sinks"?"
 * The Fallout series mostly uses bottle caps (besides direct bartering):
 * In Fallout 1 they are introduced as they are hard to forge and are backed by the Water Merchants, who control the most valued substance in the post-apocalyptic desert.
 * In Fallout 2, caps are replaced by NCR money. There's an ample stack of bottlecaps at one point in the game, but it's of course entirely worthless.
 * Fallout 3, being located in the hard-hit Capital Wasteland, still uses bottlecaps, which seem to be backed by the merchant caravans (and possibly Megaton, Rivet City, Tenpenny Tower and Paradise Falls, the major settlements in the area).
 * In Fallout: New Vegas, bottle caps are reintroduced after the massive devaluation of the NCR money (to about 40% of it's former value). NCR money, as well as Caesar's legion money, are accepted by casinos and can be sold like normal items (but for a fixed value). May or may be not be backed by the Water Merchants, as the Mojave Wasteland has an ample supply of clean water (commonly known as the Colorado). Oddly enough, the more obvious currency, casino chips, are not universally accepted.
 * The Elder Scrolls 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). The word "Septims" and "gold" are used interchangably, similar to how some refer to dollar bills as "Washingtons, Franklins, etc."
 * Mass Effect 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 One Bullet Clips. 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...
 * This is possibly justified by other races' adaptation to Geth weaponry following the events of the first game. The Geth reasoned that with widespread adoption of shields, the weapons with the highest rate of fire would hold the battlefield advantage, thus they invented disposable heatsinks. The other galactic races had to follow suit or risk falling behind.
 * The problem isn't so much that disposable heat-sinks (although personally I think 'Coolant Packs' makes more sense) are a bad idea, its that guns can no longer fire AT ALL without them instead of reverting to the 'Overheat' mechanic which they should do.
 * The real issue presented is that it was explicitly and easily possible to alter your weapon to fire perpetually, with no reduction in rate of fire or damage. In fact, the geth pulse rifle from the previous game was the only group of weapons that was incapable of having this particular setup enacted.
 * Lampshaded in Mass Effect 3:

"Conrad: You might as well be going back to limited ammunition. Shepard: It's not ammunition, Conrad. Conrad: I just don't think it's a very good idea."
 * Additionally, Conrad Verner of all people calls out the thermal clip system.

Tabletop Games

 * 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".
 * 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.
 * Champions Online, on the other hand...
 * The original collectible card game, Magic: The Gathering, 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.
 * Wizards of the Coast has trademarked 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.
 * 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.
 * Lone Wolf has Endurance Points. Grey Star, set in the same world, also has Willpower.
 * 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 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 Power Armor, and spaceships.
 * There's also P.P.E, Palladium's name for Magic Points. P.P.E. stands for Potential Psychic Energy, and is said to be an energy that exists throughout the universe and resides in all living things. In the case of humans, most of a person's P.P.E. is channeled into skills and talents he develops throughout his life, which is essentially their Hand Wave for why it's called that, and not Magic Points.
 * Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40000 use "Wounds" for hit points. Most basic units have only one. Large armoured vehicles in WH40K may have "structure points."
 * Many Follow the Leader tabletop roleplaying games have made use of this trope. The most common and understandable term is calling a Dungeon Master a "Game Master," "Arbiter," "Referee," etc.--either to emphasize one part of the GM's role or just to remind people they're not necessarily dungeon crawling. On the other end, you have extremely out-of-the-way terminology like "forging hecka" for "casting spells," or referring to the Game Master as the "Game Overlord Deity," "Adeile," or "Hollyhock God."
 * Dangerous Journeys is one of the most egregious offenders. After leaving TSR, Gary Gygax wrote a new RPG, and in an attempt to avoid lawsuits he changed around pretty much every game term there was ("K/S Area" instead of "Skill", "Dweomercræfter" instead of "Wizard", "Physical Muscular Power" instead of "Strength"). It didn't help, as Gygax and GDW were still sued by TSR, with the list of things considered infringements including things like "the concept of adjusting stats based on age" and "rolling dice to see if you succeed".
 * Magic: The Gathering simply has life, but your starting life total in a battle in Shandalar is determined by how many "mana links" you have.

Wide Open Sandbox

 * Prototype's experience points are called Evolution Points, or EP, because Alex is ostensibly adapting his body to counter threats more efficiently after every fight. His health bar also technically represents how much biomass he currently has at his disposal - he loses mass when he's injured and gains it by absorbing other living things.
 * The hp/biomass thing is even reflected in the damage of enemy weapons; bullets and small blades, no matter where they hit or how deadly they'd be to a normal person, hardly remove any mass from the target and thus are almost useless against Alex. Meanwhile a punch from a Hunter or an explosive attack would scoop away a lot of mass, and reflect this in their damage.

Other Genres

 * The Professor Layton games don't have hit points, but your score is measured in a unit called "picarats." The number of picarats a puzzle can earn you is based on its difficulty (the more picarats it's worth, the tougher it's going to be). The more times you try a puzzle and get it wrong, the fewer picarats you can earn by getting it right, although after the second incorrect answer it stops lowering the score. They don't affect the outcome of the game as far as winning or losing, but you must earn certain numbers of picarats to unlock bonus material like character profiles.
 * The main character of Touhou 12.8 is a fairy who always revives after dying. As such, it makes little sense for her to have a limited number of lives, so instead they're valled "motivation" and expressed as a percentage (so she'd have 300% motivation instead of three lives, and drop down to 200% if she takes a hit).

Non-games

 * The Order of the Stick 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".
 * In With Strings Attached, experience points are called Stress Experience, or S Ex. This leads to a lot of goofy language, of which the gamers are fully aware.
 * This happens a lot in Problem Sleuth. For example, the durability of armor is represented by the "Treacle Aegis", a candy cane which becomes shorter as the armor takes damage (To be fair, the armor WAS made of candy, but it still counts), the amount of time during which a character can stay in their super-powered candy monster form is represented by the freshness of a pumpkin, and the Limit Break meter is a bird which gets more agitated as a character's Gender Bending alter-ego takes damage.
 * Used in Homestuck, with the seldom appearing Health Vials, which at full health appear as a bar in a background color appropriate to the character, and the bar empties and leaves the rectangle of color as players get hit. Warning, examples used include heavy spoilers.