player driven pvp policies

The guards on the Isle of Quel'danas are severe in punishing pvp within their territory, but they could be more severe in policing: they could punish all the participants of the pvp action - both attacker and attacked. The only way to remain safe would be to not flag at all. (Incidentally, this will also get rid of the asshats that flag and stand on top of the NPCs.)

Such a determined design would be immediately decried by players: some would say it's too harsh (and should be softened), some would say it's too carebear (and made even harsher), and some would say it was fine before so why change it. There's no satisfying the mob.

Consider though if the devs put their effort into designing self-balancing systems, where players can, through their influence and reputation with the local government, determine what the security policies are for the area. Some servers might drift towards a harsh anything-goes climate, while others would reflect a prevailing carebear attitude.

If the world was big enough to support multiple towns/villages acting as alternatives to each other, rather than the token civilisation centers along a linear progression path (a la WoW), then you might well have different policies evolving on the same server. One town might drift towards a carebear crafting utopia, while another might be a lawless den of iniquity, home of the quick and the dead.

Will simply flagging bring down the the wrath of the constabulary, or even entering town with your pvp flag already on? Maybe the guards will take action if you've recently done pvp outside of the town. On the other hand, maybe the local warlord is a sadist and hands out candy and gold to everyone that does pvp .. if you can stay alive long enough to talk to the NPC, that is.

As to game mechanics, consider if PvP deaths result in two tokens dropping – one into the killer's inventory, one into the dead player's inventory – either of which could be handed in to various NPCs to influence the local policy (or just trashed if the player doesn't care). Different NPCs, and different options at the same NPC, would determine which local policy gets voted on.

If each town/village had it's own reputation faction then your vote could also be weighted by your current faction standing, which would make it difficult for an outsider guild to zerg the vote.

Would such a design make open free-for-all pvp viable, or at least tolerable?