The reason I think that PK is often considered the best option to end conflict is:
1. It really can absolutely just end the fucking conflict.
2. Beating your foe to the dirt means nothing in the long term code wise - you can't really maim someone code wise short of whipping them.
3. People tend to not roleplay fear completely accurately. Since they know that as long as they survive, they can come back, they do, instead of just cowering for the rest of their lives.
This is one of the main reasons I'd love options for forced maiming to varying degrees. It's a lot like the argument for giving mages more options to inspire fear. Having code enforce consequences makes them mean so much more.
Things like hitting negative HP should be an auto-maim of some sort. They can be tiny things. Things like a few hp/stun/move lost. Things like an horrendous wound to your hand taking you to negative HP could mean decreased disarm ability, while the same to the head might lower stun permanently. If a person has you subdued and decides to chop off your hand, he should be able to actually remove that wear slot from your list. Things like this would allow the more powerful person ways to end immediate conflict and instill the proper fear in you all at the same time.
I'm with Bebop in saying that I would love PVP to end in many ways aside from death. I wouldn't want anything to change, rule wise, except for coded bad things to be able to be dealt to people aside from death.
By the way, Bebop, I'd say yeah, this got derailed a bit, but it had been dead for like ... two months by the time the derail happened. We're just tagging on!
