Save scumming is disgusting! Buut....

Save scumming is natural, and normal, and nothing to be ashamed of.
It does make hair grow on your palms, though.
- Oh no! I'll be nothing but hair by the end! (ｰдｰ)

Is it save scumming if I periodically shoot Volo through the heart then reload?
- Nice another basedscummer, in Morrowind I and everyone else I knew had a "kill Vivec" save just for when you want to kill Vivec.
  
  Frankly I feel like if we didn't kill Vivec in 686,432 alternate realities then there would have just been trouble. Man was already getting too big for his britches before the playable part of Morrowind even opens. If he was just left to his own devices without the Nerevarine to interfere probably nobody would have ever lived a peaceful life again. Last thing we need is an immutable God that also can't keep it in his pants and has nobody to answer to that is a credible threat to him.
  Only reason Vivec didn't cross the sea to be known in Skyrim is that he knows damn well the Nerevarine took his ass out 686,432 times in alternate realities and that Nevvie is still lurking in the shadows staring him down from the safety of the Creation Kit. He makes one wrong move and I'll fuckin delete his UID, erase all evidence of his ever existing, 'cause Vivec is not the only one that learned what CHIM was, motherfucker.
  
  It's entirely possible to kill Vivec and still beat the game, it just requires a bit of a detour.
- I'm pretty sure every single conversation I've had with that man has started with an audible IRL "Ah, God, just fuck off, Volo"
  I don't hate him enough to murder him but I do definitely hate him enough to make snide comments and minimize his conversations as much as humanly possible. Maybe I should just heave him in the ocean and call it a day. Is he useful for anything later?
  
  He is a bit much, buy it's also kinda funny to see him annoy in-game characters like the bear he is questioning in the grove
  
  Me in my two good playthroughs: BOO! GET OFF THE STAGE!
  Me in my evil playthrough: prolongs the suffering of his goblin audience

So do people who despise save scumming just create a new character and start over if their party dies?
- So there are different degrees of save scumming.
  For example let's say you go to disarm a trap, and fail. The trap probably goes off and you take some damage. It you load and reroll on the trap, that's one version of save scumming.
  Maybe you have a particularly hard battle. You enter the battle and a specific character doesn't roll high enough initiative or maybe their first attack/debuff fails. You load until a certain character or debuff hits, that's save scumming.
  Maybe you have a few different dialogue choices. You want to ensure a specific reaction/outcome. Maybe you need to roll to make that happen. You load until that happens.
  Maybe you're given a dialogue choice. You think your character is being snarky. You think you're being playful with your characters. Turns out you're wrong. You load and pick a different option.
  Maybe you're mid battle. You realize you're going to lose. Maybe you'll survive with one character, but realistically you'll all die. It's not worth playing another 20 minutes just to die. You call it and load an old save.
  Maybe you know you're going to win a fight. You only have enough resources for one fight. Maybe a character will die that you can't revive without going on a long adventure. You can do it. It's going to be easy. But it's going to take a bunch of time. You figure you aren't that far into the battle. Reload.
  It's ultimately a single player game (yes, you can play with friends). If you're having fun, save scum all you want. If you think the game is "too easy" maybe save scum less.
  Consider it you do save scum, you might be missing out on something. A character who always succeeds might not be fun. A character should have flaws. Going into a battle under prepared could make things more interesting.
  Long story short, no, people who despise save scumming still reload an old save. Unless you're playing "hardcore" (you die, you die) you go back in time. You save scum.
  Do what's fun.
  
  Yeah, your last 3 examples are the ones I usually reload for and don't feel bad about. I try to avoid save scumming just to redo rolls, but in particular, some dialogue choices are really poorly explained. I don't feel guilty reloading for those because I don't think they would happen with a human DM, where I get to actually word what I say and can get clarification if needed.
  There was one battle against a blatant evil character where they tried to negotiate when they were close to death. The dialogue choices were confusing and I accidentally somehow chose an option that would have let them go. I ended up reloading and doing the whole battle again just so I could kill them, as intended.
- The difference is that if you lose in battle the game can't go on, your only choice is to reload or start a new game. Making a choice in a dialouge is not the same thing at all and will never force you to reload. I always try to live with my choices even if the outcome is bad, it's all part of my own story.
  
  Making a choice in a dialouge is not the same thing at all and will never force you to reload.
  I can think of four cases off the top of my head where this is untrue in BG3
- I load when I enter fights I don't want to take. This is not because of the fight or it's outcomes, it's because it takes 5+ minutes to conclude the engagement and often times your party gets owned.
  I don't have much time to play so I prefer to load out and make a marker and just deal with that at some point later.

It would be nice if the party members would voice a "Hey wait" more often instead of just silently disapproving.
- Often enough the game gives you hints on time what companions think about certain topics. I rarely run into situations my party disapproves.
- That's a great idea. I'd probably reconsider some choices if the right party member asked me to. And if Astarion disapproves, then I know I must be doing something right lol.
- Also a chance to reconsider/appease/apologize before being attacked for a comment. Sometimes I don't get the exact meaning of what my character is saying until it's too late.

Save scumming is a term made up by people who can't to denigrate people who can.
I'm in this for the body count, not for your weird extra-rules.

I already have to live with my choices in real life, let me play the damn game (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻)

In act two I went back and respecced two characters so I could pass a DC 30. No ragrets.

Or like me, and suddenly everyone in Last Light Inn gets decimated but I didn't understand the ramifications of that lol.
Let's rewind the last 5 hours lol
- did you try to steal the idol to buy time?
  
  No. There's an idol?
  Aw shit. Here we go again.
- Happened to me too. No idea wtf was going on and as of today I have no clue. I feel like I just skipped everything of act 2 (?). Gonna fix it on my second run somewhere in the future.
  
  Yep! I thought it was supposed to happen and give you a mission to save her. I stumbled apon a spoiler thread by accident and went, "Aw shit. Here we go again." Had to respec Karlach and Lae'zel again lol. Luckily, my first go at it I won initiative and beat his ass quick. Only lost one Harper to the fight.
- I did the same thing. I was so happy with my destruction until I started realizing who I had killed.
  
  I wasn't destroying anything lol. I just talked to the cleric, cut scene started, homey won initiative and proceeded to beat the shit out of her. It was over in like 3-4 turns

Now manage your save files with GitHub!
- I do have file versioning on my save game folders. Hourly backup. Have saved my ass a couple of times when a game has limited number of save slots. Like BG3 has. 😅 Dont judge me, i easily do 25 quicksaves in less than 15 min sometimes.
  
  mind.setStatus(BLOWN);
  Not only did I not know this was a thing I also just realized I have only 6 hours worth of saves. 😱
  Edit: Whew. Only applies to auto saves. I manually saved on the beach (still missed the flaming sword but might as well start from scratch).
  
  Why is the quick save count limited to 50 at most (25 is the default IIRC)? I'd rather increase that considerably, since I also quick save very frequently. Disk usage isn't really a big concern (a save on the scale of 1 MB is nothing when games these days are on the scale of 50-100 GB).
  Though with less frequent auto saves and manual saves at notable times, I think there's pretty good coverage for saves even without any form of backup.

Everything for our bestest girl

Trying to get through Nere's shit without this was brutal.
- Was it? I got it on my first try because i convinced half the duegar to work with me, then forced them to go away haha
  
  Yeah, it has one of those annoying ones where "do nothing" earns you a hit. And if you didn't manage to flip the chief it's a double hit to get the fight anywhere near manageable.

Not heard this term before, but presume it's to do with people saving often? So this must refer to single player games, no? Who cares enough about how people play their games on their own to comment on it, let alone coin a term for it? Seems a bit sad to me.
- I mean, I use the term to describe the action to others when I do it. I don't actually hold some elitist view that it's wrong, rather, I'm being ironic to make fun of those who do. It's a useful term in an of itself, without having to be exclusively for elitist use. It's convenient short-hand for something like "I save-scummed my way past that boss", or "I save-scummed every time I failed stealth" when simply describing how you played something to someone else.
  And save scumming is absolutely and an intended mechanic in games like BG3, preventing it would be the easiest thing ever, but lots of games even go out of their way to make managing multiple saves convenient. Immersims go even further, in Deus Ex there are hotkeys to let you instantly set a save point at any time so you can load back to it when things don't go your way, or you want to try multiple approaches before committing to one.
  It's even taken into consideration as a max difficulty option in some games, were the game will prevent you from backing up your save, and delete it upon getting a game-over.

[Minor spoilers for the very beginning of act 3]
"I'm not keen to blow up a whole building full of people to take out a nasty system"
*Karlach disapproves"
Hold on, what?