I think it would be difficult to prove in court how someone could duplicate THAC-0 independently of AD&D. I'm not sure how reverse engineering would work in a game, but for it to be legal in computers the safest thing to do (from a legal perspective) is to black-box it:
1. One person examines and documents how an application works (i.e., when I press "a", "b" happens, only in much more detail than that).
2. Another person, who was not involved with the examination part of the project in any way, programs a new application based on the first person's documentation.
It would be hard to do that for a printed game that has been one of the foundations of RPGs. It would be really hard to prove it in court. That said, not a lawyer, and I might be more paranoid than the situation warrants.
Reverse-enginer AD&D 1st Edition?
I think it would be difficult to prove in court how someone could duplicate THAC-0 independently of AD&D. I'm not sure how reverse engineering would work in a game, but for it to be legal in computers the safest thing to do (from a legal perspective) is to black-box it:
1. One person examines and documents how an application works (i.e., when I press "a", "b" happens, only in much more detail than that).
2. Another person, who was not involved with the examination part of the project in any way, programs a new application based on the first person's documentation.
It would be hard to do that for a printed game that has been one of the foundations of RPGs. It would be really hard to prove it in court. That said, not a lawyer, and I might be more paranoid than the situation warrants.
It'd be cool if they could do it, though.