World information follows so shield your eyes if you're super into discovering the splendid wonders of Andunor for yourself.
For those who are still reading and somehow unaware, Andunor has an area devoted to slave keeping, taming, housing, and selling. In the area is the infamous Andunor cage fighting arena where a character can earn money fighting caged slaves or betting on the fights of others. There's ten fights, each increasing with difficulty and stakes but if you win you get some pretty awesome rewards. Unique rewards that can't be obtained anywhere else and translate directly to prestige of winning the fights. It's a cool detail, an attractive way for characters to prove themselves, and great way for others to make money watching. Nice job designers.
The obstacles.
Interestingly there are snags. As above, the rewards can't be obtained anywhere else; characters have no choice but to earn them by going to the underdark and into the designated city of evil, monsters, and slavery. Which can really be hampered by things like alignment or enemy status (Not really but we'll get to that soon). Makes it difficult or distasteful for many characters to access this content. If these factors are ignored or casually bypassed though it can hurt the roleplay of others playing nearby.
Good characters who see the arena will understand (unless their Wisdom score is like 6 or something) that participating means murdering slaves for money. That the slaves in question are essentially doomed to an existence where they are perpetually killed and resurrected for the entertainment of Andunor. When that entertainment isn't wanted they live publicly exposed in a 5'x5' cage under the sadistic eye of the arena master. Those good characters will understand that if they want even a single one of their ten links of victory they're going to have to become professional slave executioners. To willingly play a part in the eternal suffering of miserable souls sentenced to that awful fate by the city of evil.
The other part of the difficulty is location. Andunor's a tough place right? The city of evil, ruled by to rather aloof drow houses and filled with all manner of wicked beasties. One does not simply walk into Andunor. Spies are hunted for and surfacer lambs are captured and enslaved. Your holy symbol of Tyr is best hidden away in a pocket. If someone isn't welcome in the city, makes it difficult to go there and get those fights done even if they're okay with the part with murdering slaves.
But...
Those two big factors are easily bypassed, ignored. With little to no consequences.
There's no alignment check for the cage matches. No shift towards evil when you participate in or complete matches. This is partly because there's a very prominent Find Out In Game reason for particular good-aligned characters to compete but it also serves as a convenient blind eye for good or neutral aligned characters to participate without consequences. The arena master won't stop them. The Peacekeepers won't stop them. There's no dialogue or warnings for the situation. If nobody sees you go, nobody can give you crap about it right? Besides it's all about sticking it to Andunor isn't it? Murdering slaves isn't the point.
The difficulty of getting to the little arena also happens to be an easily bypassed one. One actually does simply walk into Andunor. Despite (or because of ) the fact that Andunor just isn't defensible there's nobody to patrol the wet city, no players rabidly watching the combat scroll to scry on random logging-on surfacers who're probably just going to Cordor. Andunor itself is extremely centralized which means that no players are going to be "just walking by" the arena when it's two long area transitions away from the hub and not on the way to anywhere populated. Even beyond that there are two non-restricted planar portal destinations within the city (think about that) and one is practically adjacent to the arena. With most underdarker players reflexively teleporting to the Hub it can actually be waaay faster for surfacers with the attunement to get to the cage fights than actual citizens. If you log on during low-activity hours? There's no way anybody's going to notice your fights.
Combine the two above details and you get surface characters who see the opening and are tempted to breach their own characters' morals and behaviors to snag the rewards. Good aligned citizens of Cordor, mayors of hin villages, Frostblades, all feeling confident enough to hustle on down and participate in fights. In some cases the characters gained their portal attunements during large raids and were responsible for the deaths and destruction of Andunoran PC's, NPC's, fixtures, and resources. Raid one day, duck in and make a tidy profit at the arena the next. The mechanics of the server won't punish you. The NPCs that you murdered won't bother you because they aren't programmed to. It's the perfect crime. Beyond town criers announcing the deed, what's done is done. If you want to keep it a secret don't tell anyone about your visit and don't add the (in)famous consequences to your character description.
Why that's a problem.
In-Character participation in the Andunor cage matches is evil, one way or another. It's a unique blood sport sanctioned solely by the city of evil, a never-ending humiliating death sentence for the slaves that are trapped there. Participating for money, fame, magical items, the mysterious FOIG reasons, or just to give Andunor a middle finger all means your character is perpetuating a someone else's private hell for your own profit. This should be an important factor in any character's involvement but it isn't implemented at all. Yes characters can roleplay uncertainty or regret after participating. Yes characters can react with horror upon seeing someone else holding a champion's ten links. But character's don't. There's no reason to, no culture for it.
This easily turns into Out-Of-Character frustration for players who perceive the above as metagaming and betrayal of a character's true nature. If the mayor of Bendir can waltz into Andunor (mere days after destroying half of the Sharps district), go ten-for-ten in the arena, and then make her way back up to her quiet peaceful village like nothing happened then what's keeping our underdark characters from doing similar opposite things (Hint: the fact that there aren't un-secured planar portals in any other settlement borders)? We're supposed to be the evil ones. What's even the point of playing in Andunor if we could just start somewhere else and do all of the same things and still be allowed on the surface? Then that frustration comes out in negative ways that impacts player fun and immersion. It's not fair to anyone involved - not to the underdark players who feel cheated and marginalized, not to the mayor of Bendir's player who knows that the only way to get those rewards is by applying metagaming, and not to anyone whose characters interact with said mayor and have trouble doing so now that they know that the tiny wolf mum is also a Champion of Andunor and professional slave murderer (and wears the chains to prove it).
Suggestions(finally).
There's a few different actions that maybe could be taken and here's a few suggestions! I don't know Arelith mechanics super well and this is spitballing but hopefully it inspires some change that improves the community.
- Alignment Review: Have a DM alter a participating character's alignment one step towards evil unless some obvious factor would call for an exception. Like the aforementioned Wisdom score of 6.
- Restrict Participants by Citizenship: It's possible to restrict other things by citizenship, why not this? It would be a major barrier to fly-by-night gladiators without setting a hard no to anyone, not even by race or alignment. If a character is a citizen of the Devils Table or the Sharps then they ought to be known to the cagemaster and allowed to participate.
- Restrict Participants by Alignment: Prince of all Thayans' suggestion. It would take a truly dense individual to not realize if cage fights don't fit your religious dogma. Nip the problem in the bud right there and keep good-aligned characters from being able to participate. Not my favorite option but here it is!
- A New Arena: Another not-favorite option would be the creation of some similar opportunity designed so that surfacers could access it and receive similar rewards. It'll take away some of the already small exclusivity that is underdark roleplay, fail to answer the question "what's the point?" and certainly won't keep characters from just doing both, but there's an idea.
- Add Unrestricted Planar Portals to Surface Settlements: Okay I admit this isn't something that'll bring joy and happiness and it moves in the opposite direction that the previous bullet point would. But hey - Andunor's got exclusive things that surfacers use and exploit. Turnabout might be fair play if a leyline destination is added to a quiet disused corner within the walls of Brogestein or Cordor or some other surface settlement. Seriously. Anyone can just instantly travel to Andunor any time they want. With all their combat-warded friends. Straight from both the C&P and Surface servers. How is that fair? Imagine a drow war party doing that to Cordor. There'd be a riot.
- Remove Unrestricted Portal Destinations from Andunor: The opposite and more reasonable suggestion of the above bullet point. Seems odd but Andunor has newbies too. There's even a low-level dungeon adjacent to the cage arena where they go to hunt. Seriously. Anyone can just instantly travel to Andunor any time they want. With all their combat-warded friends. Straight from both the C&P and Surface servers. How is that fair? Imagine a drow war party doing that to Cordor. There'd be a riot.