should hit points be called health points

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Stinking Kevin

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Jul 19, 2006
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They are called hit points in D&D, video games borrowed the term from there. There are no health bars in pen-and-paper RPGs, except for the granola ones that hippies eat.

Gary Gygax could have called them "health points," but he didn't -- probably because D&D evolved from tabletop war games, which are generally more concerned with how many hits a unit can take (as opposed to how much health a hero has).
 

CrazyCapnMorgan

Is not insane, just crazy >:)
Jan 5, 2011
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Wolfram01 said:
Hit Points... how many hits you can take? Makes sense if you're talking about armour.

But yeah, for actual character health, then health points...
I guess, then, the only character ever to have TRUE "Hit Points" is Kirby, huh?
 

Caligulove

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Sep 25, 2008
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Goes back to the classic table-top games of yore, like D&D.

A lot of the analogues crossed over for easy coding/nomenclature? maybe? That's my best guess. Either way, the abbreviation of HP is well established enough that it doesn't entirely matter what it's actually abbreviating.
 

Alfador_VII

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Nov 2, 2009
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It does indeed come from D&D, and yeah the wargame reference is valid. It's just the amount of hits you can take before you fall over.

If you think about it Health isn't very accurate either. If you're on 1% health in a game you're generally just as capable as when you're at 100%, ok so some games do cause you to move slower or something, but most don't.

If it was realistic you'd be bleeding out on the ground with your arms and legs scattered everywhere.

Not quite sure what you should call it, Life? Stamina? HP works for me.
 

Da_Schwartz

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Jul 15, 2008
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I've heard both used regularly for the same thing. Especially in RPG's guess it all depends on which instruction manual you read.