So I put together a one-shot game using a homebrew game system and used Mumble for it! Quick review of my first use of Mumble in the game: I asked the players several days ahead of the game if they were willing to install Mumble for the game. I explained why and linked to this thread to boot. Everyone agreed. One had had issues with Mumble in the past but was willing to try again. I ran my own Mumble server (this is actually called Murmur) on my home machine. After opening my firewall to the mumble port this was very easy. I then simply put up the IP and server password on the campaign's login site. Out of 5 players, one had issues with connecting at all. He had to reinstall mumble completely (we are not sure why this was), but after that it worked fine. I started by assigning whisper keys to all players and instructing them to do the same back at me. I also started up with two channels and added a third during the game (inspired by Lifer4700 above I named the main one "Livingroom", the second "Kitchen" and the third "Veranda"). This particular scenario is one which I've GM:ed several times IRL. It has pre-made characters who hide a lot of secrets from each other and a reason to not reveal it openly. So the group ended up splitting more than once - occationally because they were literally apart but occationally because one person was discussing something about their character with me and it was easiest to just "step aside" to a separate channel to chat. Most of the time I managed to make it so that there was at least two people together in each channel. Since it's a very mystery-heavy game I encouraged them to actively discuss what was going on between them while I was away (and checking in on them it seems they really did). One time the players actually suggested their scene be resolved in a way so that they could discuss in private before I switched to the other one. Interestingly enough the players reported the splits worth the occational no-GM time (at least this is what they said with me asking them about it). The fact that they could see the rolls happening in roll20 without knowing what they were actually for also made them imagine all sorts of nasty things happening to their friends in that other channel. The fact that I occationally toyed with the music for one group (which also the other could hear) also let them picture nasty things happening - a sort of meta gaming by all means but which they claimed did made things pretty intense also for the players not currently GM:ed. I can also honestly say that some events most definitely would not have happened if everyone had been listening in at the same table. A memorable moment had the rest of the group completely forgetting a character planned to sneak out from their room during the night to scout around. They came back, found their room empty and started to worry for her. It resulted in them sending out people to look for her and getting a lot of good RP out of it. Another situation had the groups running into each other in a panic and punching each other, since each group was really not sure if what they ran into was an enemy or the other group, and chose to err on the safe side. You can of course say that all these things is possible with a single channel - just have Players separate player-knowledge from character-knowledge. This is true, but the players reported afterwards that this real-life insecurity increased the enjoyment and tension for them. In some scenes I did end up with one player in a single channel, which I don't think is ideal. It is hard to avoid without railroading though. I tried to switch between them as often as made sense but still I fear that despite them saying "that it was worth it for the total effect", sitting alone is nevertheless a drag. Mumble's whisper functionality was also very useful since it allowed me to sometimes interject results of wits rolls or various things a character would probably know without having to interrupt the ongoing discussion - the player would sometimes fluidly interject with this insight without dropping a beat, which was really nice! The priority mike was great, but also had some downfalls. It made me audible and able to easily chip into any Player discussion as things happened (this muffles the others). For some time my pickup sensitivity was set too low though, and also my occational chuckle or sigh would be picked up and suddenly muffle everyone despite me not actually saying anything. I guess I could use press-to-speak, but I tend to forget that damn button and I speak SO much during a game ... after I adjusted the pickup sensitivity people reported that things worked better - and I eventually took to muting myself (assigning a keyboard shortcut for this is essential) when players were discussing and I was just listening in. Overall I found the use of Mumble really helped me to play this scenario the way it was meant to be played. It would certainly not have been possible to reproduce in Skype or Google Hangouts. (ventrillo/teamspeak would probably work but the first doesn't support Linux and both are proprietary. I like to support open-source). I will definitely try to use Mumble for my GM:ing in the future, it answers all the questions I posed at the top of this thread, and at least this group of players were definitely willing to install and set it up, even for a one-shot. . Griatch