Goodman Games

The death rules state:
A 0-level character that reaches 0 hit points is irrevocably killed, but a 1st-level character that reaches 0 hit points collapses and begins bleeding out.

Later though, under Recovering the Body, it says you can "flip over the body" to discover them alive (on a successful save). My take in running this was that "irrevocably" meant just that, and you could not discover a 0-level person alive later. I don't want to be too harsh, though, if that isn't what was intended.

R.U.

The intent of the rule is that 0-level dudes die quickly and they aren't intended to come back, but for regular characters they might seem "dead" but can be revived.

The idea is that 0-level characters are part of the funnel but no single character is important enough to worry about after death. We just discard them and move on.

But characters of level 1 and above are growing into the "hero" mode and should have a few extra chances at life before they are written out of the story.