[MENTION=66434]ExploderWizard[/MENTION], [MENTION=6683099]dd.stevenson[/MENTION]
I don't know that WotC would want a characterisation of "D&D brand" so expansive that someone can be enjoying the D&D brand by running RM for 19 years - although if that person, as in my case, is regularly using D&D story material maybe WotC doesn't care that I'm not using their mechanics.
Also, I think that even in Basic D&D, and certainly AD&D, melee is preeminent (if not necessarily always rational). The fighter - the main warrior class - is focused around melee rather than ranged fighting (eg STR as a prime req, multiple melee attacks, etc). The combat round is focused around melee as the main mode of fighting (for instance, in AD&D there are special "rate of fire" rules to integrate missile fire better into the combat structure). The most common magic weapons are swords, a melee weapon. Most monsters have stronger melee than ranged capabilities. Etc.
I don't know that WotC would want a characterisation of "D&D brand" so expansive that someone can be enjoying the D&D brand by running RM for 19 years - although if that person, as in my case, is regularly using D&D story material maybe WotC doesn't care that I'm not using their mechanics.
Also, I think that even in Basic D&D, and certainly AD&D, melee is preeminent (if not necessarily always rational). The fighter - the main warrior class - is focused around melee rather than ranged fighting (eg STR as a prime req, multiple melee attacks, etc). The combat round is focused around melee as the main mode of fighting (for instance, in AD&D there are special "rate of fire" rules to integrate missile fire better into the combat structure). The most common magic weapons are swords, a melee weapon. Most monsters have stronger melee than ranged capabilities. Etc.
