Well, personally, i do believe a GM could be there, to "push" somethings. However, the server is somehow static, there is little dynamic "things" in game. So the game remains very simillar each day.
A town cannot be destroyed, they cannot grow. (They never change, TC in Modoc on friday, is same as TC in Modoc on tuesday)
There are little combat scenarios, as the tactics are pretty limited. (most often there are maybe 1-4 possible ways to attack, and even less to defend)
The battles overally are instant in practise, becouse of lack of firinig delay for weapons (as one of the things i believe causes this). The best fights last for maybe 20-30 minutes most of the times, and that is very seldom, and even then the acual fight takes few seconds (what takes most time is the organization parts).
Overally, in my opinion, a game CAN be made to have elements of "RP AND PVP" together in one, without GMs manipulating the world in real time towards the "RP PVP scenarios". But, the game must include this "seed" of RP in many elements of the game.
What i mean with that is, is if the players are very limited (not limited if compared to other games, but limited towards a perfect state then a lot for sure) in how they can manipulate the world, then there is little happening in the world, meaning the world doesint interact back at you (Peacekeepers take all towns, and what? nothing, North Bandits take them back, and what?). North Bandits attack NCR, and what? some guards die, 20 min later they respawn and nothing happend. What could be dynamic here, would be if each town had few states of economy (good, average,bad) and it would be affected by player actions, for exemple, as we now have wipes every once in a while, so one wipe maybe NCR would be very poor, (in poor state it would loose some buildings perhaps, and a lot beggards running around, and less guards etc), another wipe maybe it would become strong (and even take part in TC? if NCR player faction was to be included). Maybe epidemy strikes though some towns? Enclave air drop at Gecko? A bit too much, but the purpose is same.
The most RP-PVP elements we have are acually community based, but as we have learned, it is not possible to keep a town, unless peace with everyone (which eliminates the PVP from the RP-PVP). Also we have APK and PK, but after you kill same person 20 times in TC over and over it becomes pointless to find a reason behind killing this person. We got base looting, which is RP indeed in my opinion, mostly becouse some player DONT do it becouse of a choice they have made (however, in this decision is where the RP part in this ends here in my opinion), most of those things are very based on community and then game, not the otherway around. Another small thing we have is ability to kill merchants (merc merchants) and town leaders, which is good exemple on how the game can create scenarios (by player actions that effects the world which in turn affects him/another player back) for RP-PVP.
That counts also in random encounters (the caravans are way better then at first, when they pick up loot for exemple, a small thing, but interacts with player a lot more), random encounters could be even quests, some special mobs that are connected to other players (like, in one encounter, a player finds something, and in another encounter a diffrent player get asked by a npc he encounters to find the item the first player found)
A little of both, wouldint hurt
