[Chris is me]

The way games seem to be made now is that a concept is developed and then anywhere from a month to a year is spent thinking of all of the holes in the concept and "patching" those holes with penalties either too subjective to accurately predict or too objective to be flexible.

The problem needs to be dealt with earlier - use the design of the game to incentive the kind of play you wish to see. Don't just make it a penalty to play a certain way - make playing that way a dumb idea for other reasons. Protected zones limit penalties to certain, obvious areas of the field and seem to incentivise offense effectively.

Fouls are going to be a part of any game design at this point, but putting more active thought into them throughout the process and figuring out how to make a game that just doesn't need that many fouls is key.