Death wasn't even a setback

InTheHat recently lent me a new fantasy RPG called Phoenix:  Dawn Command.  It has a really tight setting where the characters are part of a specific organization of special people with amazing powers who are fighting against encroaching evil.  The most original thing in the system is that there is no advancement system in the normal sense of the word.  Your character cannot acquire new abilities or skills or even get new or better equipment until death claims you.

But death, it turns out, isn't that bad.

The Phoenix in the name gives it away.  You die, you live again, and when you live again you get a bunch of training and come back more powerful.  Everyone gets to Obi Wan and become more powerful as the enemy strikes you down!

I love the idea.  It lets people feel okay about losing, and if everything goes badly and the whole party dies, you just rez up and go kick their asses with your newfound power and abilities!

There are limits, of course, because you only come back seven times and then you are gone forever.  Unlike most levelling systems this also corrects for people who get really unlucky.  Normally getting killed means you are behind everyone else, and often more likely to get killed again.  Not in P:DC though!  You die, you are now the big badass on the team.  Play super cautious and tight?  You are the wimp while your powerful friends smash faces!

The system also uses a randomizer style that revolves around cards in hand rather than dice.  That works fine as far as I am concerned, but it would take some getting used to.  I don't think I would want to play the game over and over though because the classes and abilities don't allow for much in the way of customization.   Of course with any roleplaying game you can make of it what you will, but the highly specific setting and the simply mechanics and limited choices mean the game is almost certainly destined for only a limited play time for me, at least.

But man, dying and coming back, more powerful than before?  That sounds like supervillain level powers to me!  I love that, and I would be happy to give the game a spin just to test that experience out for awhile and see how it works.