I think the most important thing is to encourage players to take sides. A dark elf would be harder to play initially in the 'good' aligned realms because he would start out with a bad rep with them, though he would have a good rep with those of his kind and those allied with his kind.
Now make it much harder to reverse your reputation than it is to add more to the direction you're already going in. If a dark elf player kills good aligned players he gains a lot of rep with his kind and loses a great deal with the 'good' races. But if he wants to reverse his rep, making him liked with the 'good' races and disliked by the bad, he has to do a substantially large number of 'good' things to get in the good graces of his former enemies. First, however, and much more quickly than he would gain rep with his former enemies, he would lose rep with his former allies. Making him for a time an outcast of both societies and fair game for one and all.
This would encourage players who started evil chars to stay with that alignment, being simply much easier to stay alive with allies to protect you, but allow those that REALLY wanted to change their alignment and be the 'one' exception to their race. Such a thing would distinguish them for being good enough to survive that long at the very least
Coincidentally this is very much how the original Drizzt stories went. I highly recommend the Dark Elf Trilogy, and the Icewind Dale Trilogy. Those that came later were not nearly as good.
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"Two wrongs do not make a right; it usually takes 3 or more."
Edited by - Ratheous on January 31, 2001 1:02:52 PM