A tale of Theseus is a philosophical thought experiment - one of many that came from the classic minds of that time. In short, it poses a question - if a ship is entirely rebuilt one plank at a time, after all components are replaced is this the same ship or an entirely different entity? Mendioned first by Plutarch in Life of Theseus, the question boggled endless ranks of philosophers, many of them coming up with various interpretations of the solution to the given question. Every take on the answer simplifies the question to “what makes this object this object and not that object?“. As with every philosphical question, there are no clear answers.
As it turns out, there are many local tales of similar objects in various cultures, from America, though central Europe, India through East Asia. Axes, brooms, temples all have been studied and broken down into their constituent parts. But a recent game experience of mine made me pose a similar question for something less tangible - a video game save file. While playing Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, a standalone DLC for the second part of the game, I caught myself multiple times stuck in a loop of quick save/quick load, hoping that the next attempt of doing something will turn out better.
Many gamers call this practice ‘savescumming’, and games with a lot of ‘predetermined randomness’ 1 are in the middle of this practice. What makes this similar to the ship in question is that, if you save/load a game because you failed at something you set out to do, you cut yourself off from the consequesces of your actions. This has a few consequesces. First and foremost - it encourages more risky playstyle, often out of character for the person you are playing as or you as a player. Another thing - the story that game tells shows only successes - no struggle, no fighting, no hardships. This, in effect, makes the story somewhat flat. Noone likes a movie where everything works out right out of the box for the main character. Why are games different?
But what is most jarring in it all - it takes away the identity from the character. The most interesting stories have a ‘clutch moment’ - where the character makes something work in the last second. This aspect is entirely missing in the timeline of ‘perfect’ saves. One could argue that, in this scenario, the save/load system works as a clutch moment, but it is done independently of the player character’s motivations, abilities and predispositions. Just a repetitive cycle of waiting for a stroke of luck.
I think that the mechanic itself and ability to create a save file with one button is useful. I am not arguing against it, but I think that, for the gamers that want their games to tell a better story, it would be beneficial to deal with the consequences of their actions.
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i.e. games that have some odds on a given action which are different each time a game is loaded. Say, in Skyrim, stealing from people, making potions, etc. have various degrees of success. Ideally, you want to have the best result and thus - savescumming. structure ↩