Yeah. I'd have to say that forcing never really solves anything. Convince a man against his will, be of the same opinion still. However, I agree with Monala. Seems to me that the problem is less the character type and more the conflict resolution choice. Not every offense is punishable with death. You can even get into fights and violence with it resulting in death or maiming. Black eyes, broken arms and broken jaws all still hurt and catch people's attention. I think the problem is turning to the easy out too often. That, and in my opinion, using it when there is a an option that would be more "good". Fortunately, in most cases people don't try to kill someone for spilling the milk, but good guys always killing the bad guy because they are "bad" is over simplifying the moral situation of killing even when the bad guy is a complete monster. With a slight retelling a lot of "good" actions can be seen as "bad" and could change the story entirely.
Also, I'd say it kinda doesn't matter how in settings individual characters are, if they get into a group and are basically ready to murder and use mob law at the drop of a hat when there is a government, that has laws, courts, guards and according to settings will act. No government tolerates a lot of mob action for long within it's jurisdiction. It's as much of a danger to the government's control as it is to the control of a murder. And the NPC government is pretty regularly overlooked even though they are so much a part of settings that they have some representation in game even where many settings aspects don't.
I have to agree that the settings truly are all over the place at the moment, but some things have never changed. Mundane character's death is possible but it's not the kind of thing you jump back and forth across a lot and the settings never changed on that count. It was not supposed to be common, no need for an extensive DR to keep players occupied otherwise. It's not like everyone was portrayed as knowing someone that made it. But that is more a break between settings and gameplay. The death realm was meant to be as vast as the living world and contain more confounding features. The ability to just walking in and out or find someone and get them out fairly quickly is an OOC issue. Further, it actually is possible to avoid dying ICly if you are careful, but you have to see it as worth avoiding and not treating it as something you can just come back from, this is another OOC issue.
Overall, I think the solution would be working to come to a rough common consensus on where the boundaries lie. Obviously it is no easier now than before but it would create a baseline for everyone to build off and provides a common ground for varying RPs to exist on.
