Dialpad as a gaming platform: Announcing new TTRPG features [April Fools 2022]

Like many of you, my social life (or what I had that could pass for one) had to move online once the COVID pandemic began. One of those activities? My weekly “Dungeons & Dragons” game. And while there are online platforms specifically designed for tabletop games, it’s hard to replicate the in-person experience with those.

Which is why I was so excited when Dialpad came out with some pretty sweet D&D features.*

(Apparently there was some miscommunication about the difference between “do not disturb” DnD and “Dungeons & Dragons” D&D, which I choose not to question.)

Now, Dialpad is made for business communications, but with its high-quality voice and video conferencing, plus artificial intelligence on every call, it has everything a tabletop gamer needs for an online campaign.

So, excited to test it out, I gathered a few of Dialpad’s fellow nerds and we played a game of D&D&D (Dungeons and Dragons and Dialpad).

How’d it go?

We began the game with me as the Dungeon Master (DM)—essentially the narrator controlling the world that the players’ characters explored. Joining in as players, we had Jordan Marshall (Product Support Representative), Jon Araquistain (Manager, Engineering), Marshall Norman (Senior Product Designer), and Kevin Guillaumond (Senior Software Engineer).

So how was the game?

TL;DR - the players explored the dungeon, gathered treasure, and ultimately… decided to pay off the dragon threatening the village rather than fight it. But beyond the actual game, what awesome tabletop roleplaying game features did Dialpad come with?

HD voice and video for unparalleled teamwork

First of all, this was probably the smoothest online game experience I’ve had yet. The audio and video quality was excellent the whole way through. There were no delays, no voice distortions, and no one got cut-off mid-sentence.

Of course, we were using an Enterprise-grade video platform, so that kind of quality is to be expected.

Custom backgrounds… for full fantasy immersion

This was a nice little touch: Dialpad’s video conferences allow for virtual backgrounds, which you can either select or upload. Many of us went with thematically appropriate backgrounds (such as the iconic “Tomb of Horrors”) to help really bring us into the game.

Real-time note taking (never forget a plot point again)

With Dialpad’s Voice Intelligence (Vi), our entire game was transcribed in real time. For me as the DM, it meant I didn’t have to worry about forgetting a character’s name. For the players, it meant they didn’t have to take notes to remember little details:

In fact, Vi even captured key moments as we played. It recorded important questions, saved positive statements, and even managed to properly transcribe some of the fantasy names. (Fun fact: Dialpad’s transcription is super-accurate.) Considering these were made-up names it had never heard before, that’s some excellent transcribing!

At the end of the game, the players’ final puzzle was to just remember one single piece of information I off-handedly dropped near the start of the adventure (the name of the barkeep’s dog). Normally a piece of information like that would be easily forgotten, but with the automatic transcriptions, they could scroll up through the records to the start of the game and find the name they needed to succeed.

(So, was that cheating? Considering normally my players never take notes and I wanted to try out the transcripts, I’m good with it… this time.)

Happy April Fools (sort of)

Okay, okay. So you might’ve figured out by now that those features aren’t actually “D&D features.” They’re actually just useful business communications features that most of us use every day—and they all come included in every one of Dialpad paid plans.

Was it overkill to use a business communications platform for a tabletop game—kind of like using a race car to go on a grocery run? Maybe. But did it work? Absolutely.

While there are certainly no plans to rebrand Dialpad as a gaming platform, this little experiment was still a fun way to experience Dialpad’s call quality, conferencing features, and AI.

So the (somewhat) brave adventurers Crimix, Ambolt, Fin, and Tordek made their way off into the sunset, but none will ever forget how well the adventure went with the help of the noble Dialpad.

*Happy April Fools Day!