Save Scum

 The debate of a generation

Given the meteoric rise of Baldur's Gate as a topic worth talking about in general pop culture, and the subsequent blossoming of CRPGs to the scene, a great surge of ideas and debates our little niche thought unique to us have exploded to the forefront of common thought. Concepts that no one outside of tradtional RPG games have really considered to the scope of how we look at them, beside maybe the turn-based tactical games such as X-Com because of the largely similar design philosophies. That of the act of 'save scumming'. Does it ruin the game? Should people be prevented from utilising it? It is up to the developer to create systems that block the meat of 'save scumming' in order to create a balanced gameplay experience or should that be left up to the discretion of the player to decided the rules by which they want to play the game?

First, a definition. Save scumming is the act of creating a save point and then reloading from it when a decision, action or just a computer-simulated probability roll doesn't go your way. It's essentially a 'mulligan' in golf to quickly say 'let's do that again'. Perhaps even over and over again until you get the circumstance that you want. Certain games, like Baldur's Gate 3 or X-Com, present situations wherein the player, depending on their stats, have a percentage chance to succeed a task. A way to 'Save Scum' this would be to save beforehand, go for the action, have it fail and then reload and try it again until the action goes through. (Which, in X-Com's case, would require first moving the character slightly because the game secretly performs all possible dice rolls the second the player's turn starts so you have to move in order to force the engine to recalculate. Scumming tip Number 345!)

It's considered something of a circumvention of a key gameplay mechanic, that of probability, in order to go this route. Typically such games are not actually designed in the manner of your everyday action shooter or beat 'em up; failure is not the end of the line and is actually encouraged as a roadblock you need to work around. Particularly in Baldur's Gate 3, wherein almost every speech check in conversation has the potential to open up a whole new procession of events that challenges the player in different ways. If your Charisma stat is piss-poor, you may very well find yourself spending much more time trading blows in seemingly slam-dunk dialogue encounters- that isn't the wrong way to play a game, it's just a different way to handle things and save scummers deny themselves the possibility of treading these 'undiscovered waters', if you will.

If you won't, however, we can instead walk the route of 'justification', and here's a point I don't think many people often bring up. If any of these games are shallow enough that removing probability form the equation totally infantilises the challenge then perhaps the gameplay is not the robust to being with. 'Tactics' and 'forethought' should run much deeper than a backroom decision about whatever way the wind is blowing, and if save scumming totally crumbles the foundation of a game then that game needed to be built on sterner stuff! To this point, Baldur's Gate and X-Com would still offer a good degree of tactical challenge if you removed chance as a variable. You would still need to figure the right spells to cast or shots to take, put positioning to mind, equip the right gear, level for the proper fights. Probability just enriches the risk-reward of these actions, and is, therefore, entirely optional.

But could it not be somehow cheating, some have said, to take advantage of the save system in order to circumvent challenge that the developers intended for the player to face? How is this any different from accessing console commands in order to summon in tools for yourself, or circumvent a problem objective of a game? Are the achievements one earns from a game they played skirting around the consequences of their failures just as valid as the plaudits of those who stubbornly refuse to sink to such 'lows'? Shouldn't the developers put in safe guards to prevent exploitation the same way they would try and prevent mods from counting in leaderboards were this an online game? Or at least disable achievements so they aren't considered in the same calibre?

Well, in answer to that theoretical, save scumming actually is not considered cheating, but rather just an alternative way to play the game. X-Com, specifically, presents it's own dedicated alternative mode called 'Iron Man' which disables manual saving altogether, but outside of Iron Man you're free to save wherever and whenever. In the middle of missions, between each shot, go nuts! Baldur's Gate spent a long time nailing the mid-conversation quick save specifically to accommodate those who wanted to make a decision and then go back on it, because in the long run it's better to tell the player they can do the thing they want rather than block them under some twisted ideal of 'integrity'. I think this debate actually ties back into another popular one, that of difficulty modes.

Because save scumming is definitely a technique to relieve on game difficulty, and those who are dead-set against it tend to similarly be 'purists' when it comes to game difficulty. Just as some games don't engender themselves to differing difficulty scales, others don't benefit from locking themselves as 'too hardcore' for the general audience. Imagine if X-Com did block off save scumming altogether and Iron Man Mode was the default way to play? The game would develop a reputation for being unforgivingly punishing and it's appeal to the average player would be stunted. Making such measures a bonus feature reaches a 'best of both worlds' scenario in a game that shakes hands with everyone- those that want to enjoy the game without the pressure and those looking for that 'ultimate challenge' thrill.

Personally, I think Save Scumming is a personal choice like any way one might play the game. Maybe if you find a sword of technique that is stronger than anything else in the game you'll exploit that to power through the game, or maybe you'll try other tactics and abilities because you like the game enough to experiment. I tend to try and avoid it in most cases unless I end up in a situation that feels unfair, such as an 'Alien Boss' encounter in X-Com 2. (Going into the ways that Save Scumming them is valid would be a whole other blog.) Individual challenges were once the back-bone of replayability and I see a shade of them represented in the sides of this 'rift issue'. At the end of the day, chalk this one up to 'no harm, no foul'.