Any highlights? I don't watch videos.
1:00 - Mearls talks about the problem with bonus actions slowing down combat
2:56 - On how games could have multiple action economies for different character types, influenced by magic the gathering
5:20 - on the lack of tension in 5e fights, and how they are boring. “Spreadsheet design gone wrong.” He describes how he fixes this problem and makes fights more tense
6:57 - World of Warcraft and 4e. The diminishing sales of 3.x and looking to WoW to see what they could learn, and marketing to new audience
9:09 - on games on average ending at 7th-ish level. How most people don’t play very long campaigns, they play until 7th level and start a new campaign. On how high level dnd is not as much fun.
11:15 - Professor DM (the host) talks about how designers don’t often follow the official rules
12:23 - Mearls responds to how TTRPGs speak to a desire for customization
13:33 - Mearls talks about his Patreon and his new game design
I think a theme is that he feels 5e combat takes too long and has stakes that are too low (because it is assumed that the PCs survive).