i\'m sure i said this before, but what about a \"magical noob shield\" that shields noobs from PK and PvP. this option would be by default on and would last until the noob reaches a certain level, but the noob could turn this option off if (s)he wanted to - probably the best idea would be to have it in the character creation.
this would solve the noobie problem, but there remains the ordinary player who doesn\'t want to have PvP or PK enabled.
if there will be any assassinations and thefts, there\'s no way a player could turn off PK for him/herself - the problem is that then these players that weren\'t killable could kill without being scratched - _a_ solution (maybe not the best) would be that if a player turned off PvP/PK for him it would work in both ways: he couldn\'t be killed, and he couldn\'t kill.
...but then there we still have more wicked assassinations like poison and traps - these could prove to be a (i\'ll say peanut, because everytime i type b**tch i get peanut out!!) to make them like direct attacks - maybe it would work if there was a \"ownership\" on them, this way if a trap/poison was owned by a non PvP/PK character, the trap/poison wouldn\'t work on other players, but if a trap was deactivated or the object was given to someone, then it would change its ownership, so it was owned by the player that gained it without any harm, or disabled it. ...but this would really be a peanut to implement IMHO
the best way would be (IMO) PK (no PvP) combined with the \"magical noobie shield\" and the reputation idea with the guards