This Is How Leveling Gets Interesting – How The Dungeonmaster Of Critical Role Revolutionized DnD

Leveling has always been one of the less enjoyable parts of Dungeons & Dragons, not leveling up itself, but rolling stats and making early choices without having a clear direction for your character yet. To address this, Brennan Lee Mulligan, the Dungeon Master of Critical Role’s latest campaign, came up with a clever idea to make the process more engaging.

When Leveling Up Suddenly Becomes Impactful

With Critical Role being one of the largest live-broadcast DnD groups, it has long served as a source of inspiration for homebrew rules and narrative ideas. The earlier campaigns were led by Matthew Mercer, who stepped down as Dungeon Master in Campaign 4 to join the table as a player.

Anyone familiar with role-playing games knows that every Dungeon Master (DM for short) brings their own habits, preferences, and homebrew rules into a campaign.

In many games, however, leveling up lacks a narrative explanation. A wizard suddenly learns new spells, a cleric becomes a stronger healer, and a rogue seamlessly transitions into a new subclass, emerging as a master assassin, all without much story justification.

And that is exactly where Brennan Lee Mulligan’s idea comes into play: a concept designed to give leveling real narrative weight while also creating a fun and meaningful experience for the players.

It's a fun little way to keep things spicy and to make these level-up moments occur in the midst of adventuring.

Here's How It Works

The players are not required to finalize their level-ups right away. Instead, they are given the opportunity in advance to select a few feats or spells they find interesting.

We're going to prepare for a level-up that actually we don't know when exactly it will occur.

Each player can choose a climactic moment on their own to announce their level-up. This can happen mid-session or even in the middle of combat, whenever it feels right, without any need for approval from Brennan as the DM.

The hit point increase only takes effect once a player decides to level up. From that narrative moment onward, the character gains access to one of the feats or spells they selected beforehand. Even just hearing about this idea immediately sparked countless possibilities for impactful level-up moments for my own character (I'm gonna hit up my DM, one second...).

A cleric, for example, could unlock a new spell in a dire situation when it’s needed most. From a storytelling perspective, it simply makes sense, and it neatly solves a long-standing issue in DnD in a clever and engaging way.

Who knows, this approach might even influence your own DnD group. Viewers of the Critical Role stream certainly seem to appreciate this fresh take on what was once a purely mechanical system.

What do you think about this new rule? Would you use it in your own DnD group? Let us know in the comments!