Leroux: Anyway, I just completed a game with a curious death mechanic that was the complete opposite. When you die in
Prey (2006), you get sent to the spirit world in which you have a limited time to shoot red souls (to replenish physical health) and blue souls (to replenish spiritual health) with your bow and arrow, before you get drawn to the physical world again. In the physical world you respawn right where you died (or close to it if you fell into a chasm) and can continue as if nothing happened, meaning you aren't punished at all, unless you count having to play that shooting gallery minigame for a few seconds as punishment, but you might actually gain more health from it than you had before, so in a way it could even be considered a reward, like a short bonus level. Nothing gets reset in the physical world when you get back, enemies don't respawn and don't heal, and if you die during a boss fight, you get dropped back right into it and can continue chipping away at his partially depleted health (unless the boss has a means to heal himself, but they rarely have).
I found this concept quite interesting since it essentially removed any need to quicksave (which is still possible) or even savescum, so that you could just concentrate on the game without any meta worries. But on the other hand, it also removed any sense of challenge and achievement from the game. It didn't even count your deaths to praise or mock you for it at some point, it just didn't really matter whether you died and how many times.
I quite enjoyed Prey and beat it about half-a-dozen times or so but the thing I disliked about the death system was there was no risk of failure. You could literally just stand and not shoot the spirits time would run out and you'd be put back in the game. I'd have liked it more if you were actually competing to save your life... not just playing a shooting gallery to restore health.
I hear the cancelled Prey 2 had a similar idea. Incoming spoilers for a game that will never see the light of day... apparently the plan for Prey 2 was that you'd wake up in a clinic or apartment after death but at the end of the game you'd find a warehouse full of cloned bodies and the # of bodies would be the # of times you'd died during the game.
Another game that used player death as a mechanic is The Swapper, though I never got around to playing it. Sounds like it was similar to the cancelled Prey 2 with clones of the player that die in your place.
tinyE: Also the more gold you have on you (not in a safe or piggy bank but actually on you) when you die, the nicer the tomb stone. If you are broke you get a little rickety cross, and if you are loaded you get a nice gold monolith.
Fatal Labyrinth on the Genesis did something similar with more and more townsfolk mourning at your gravesite depending on how well you did.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_Labyrinth "Like many role-playing games, gold is present, though the only role it serves is to provide the player with a better funeral service upon death."
Telika: Not quite the same thing but : 
