Fascistlemming explained it well.
Also:
- After dying, you have an opportunity to recover all that you'd lost when you died - one chance.
In Bloodborne, a pool of blood will appear where you died, and a green light will be glowing above it (which is a rather helpful visual cue). If you can return to your pool of blood -- and make contact with it -- without getting killed, you've successfully recovered your losses.
This function also occurs in Nioh and the Dark Souls series, with different representations: in Nioh, your guardian spirit waits at an ethereal tombstone; your remains appear as a hovering incandescent soul in the Dark Souls series.
- Bloodborne, however, adds a bit of "spice" to it: If there are enemies near where you died, there is a chance one of them may have consumed your blood; their brightly-glowing eyes will make such enemies stand out among any other enemies present. In this case, defeating that enemy will recover all that you had lost before dying.
When I refer to anything lost upon death, it actually is just one thing -- these blood pools, ethereal tombstones, and incandescent soul masses all represent the experience points you'd been holding on to since you last spent any (e.g., gaining levels).
That's all that is lost. You keep any items you found before dying, regardless -- and you don't lose levels at all.
- To add: none of these games troll you by forcing cheap or gimmicky deaths upon you. You don't die because you got ran through by sudden fire bolts the game never warned you about; you die because you didn't notice that the different-looking tile that you stepped on activated a trap which shot fire bolts into your back. Being observant and on remaining on guard are meaningful.
When and if you encounter a particularly difficult boss, you can grind for more levels.** To me, that was never a problem; when the in-game atmosphere and environment are intense and foreboding, and the combat system is polished to perfection, that's not "grinding" to me: it's playing and enjoying the game.
Alternately: it's only "grinding" if the game in question isn't really enjoyable to play in the first place.
That's what I go by, anyway.
( ** - Or you can not grind, and instead try alternate strategies to defeat the difficult bosses. Levels help, but strategy is often the key to victory.)
