Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
Seeing as they were released in English, the original editions are a game of telephone and do not accurately portray the language as it was in the three-digit centuries, and that just ruins it for me.
Yes, information passed down via natural language changes. Sometimes it gets lost or the meaning gets flipped on its head in a particularly stupid way. Are we supposed to be in disagreement?

Quote Originally Posted by Peelee
I mean, that's how we're playing this, right? Completely arbitrary metrics anchored in the past for no real reason?
They aren't completely arbitrary. Each concept, each word comes from somewhere, their genealogy can be traced and their evolution described, at least in theory if not in practice. In D&D's case, the history of this particular thing is recent enough and well-documented enough that we can sometimes name the exact guy who did a thing, their reasons for doing the thing, and then we can, from our perspective, discuss if their reasons were good or not. We can also sometimes show the exact break point when other people stopped paying attention and discuss if their reasons were good, or if they had a reason at all. What about this is supposed to be a problem?