I'm really enjoying this game, but I think my biggest issue is the RP system. I understand that doing quests and making certain decisions will increase your reputation with people.... but I feel that should be the ONLY way to increase/decrease RP.

I understand that spending time with characters unlocks new perks and increases RP, but I feel this promotes save scumming very much. Especially with the RP increases depending on decisions. I can't help but load when I see only 1 arrow pointing up from a dialogue decision I made. This is my only peeve and I wish this was done slightly differently.

Am I the only one that does this?

Part of the fun of this game is making decisions and living with them.

You fail in a dialogue, you wonder why, you learn, you do better next time.

The game is forgiving enough to leave you room for mistakes and then learn about them. That is what most of the storylines talk about: learning after failing.

The best points to save, though, is at the very beginning of each chapter. You might want to go back if you ever fail to complete the quests assigned to you. As you know, you need to plan ahead in the last chapters (but the first ones, again, will leave you room for learning the ropes of the game and what you like and do not like.

Have fun.

You can roleplay on Normal difficulty and make deadlines just fine, but you might want to maximize RP on Nightmare just to be safe. It's a pain, yes. There are tons of choices and it's hard to remember all of them.