To mod, or not to mod?

Vallmyr

So I've been having a dilemma in whether I should mod games or not.
This means The Elder Scrolls, Baldur's Gate, and other such games that have a heavy modding community. The more I game the less mods I seem to be installing because I feel as though mods alter the original experience. My normal take on things has been my first playthrough to be vanilla with the exception of graphical and UI mods and then on subsequent playthroughs to use mods that sound cool.

What is you all on the forums take on modding games?

Edit: Reason I ask is because when I do my eventual run of Baldur's Gate I and Baldur's Gate II all the way through ToB (I've never finished ToB >_>) I'm not sure how many mods I should use and such.

I figured I'd need to finish ToB so when I write my Alora NPC/Romance mod for BGII I won't spoil anything that's in ToB >_>.

Dee

I usually go without until I absolutely can't take it anymore. With Baldur's Gate, that typically means I start installing mods somewhere around the time I see the first green-clothed Tutor, I've played it so many times.

iKrivetko

Depends on the game and on the mod. Some mods actually make games that much more enjoyable.

Belanos

With the Infinity Engine games, I don't feel there's much of a need for mods. All I use are some of the convenience tweaks from BG2 Tweaks and some AI scripts.

jjstraka34

The NPC mod for BG1, Wheels of Prophecy and Ascension for BG2, and SCS and/or Randomzier if you really want to spice things up.

I've tried modding with added content in both Elder Scrolls and Infinity Engine games, and for my personal taste I've decided it's just not worth it with my backlog of games. It's not like any of them are lacking content or replay value as it is. I typically now only apply mods/patches/fixes that have essentially become canon or are needed to make the game more stable or playable.

jackjack

9/10 I will play vanilla first. If something really irks me, I'll search for a fix. There are also the cases such as ToEE that need a mod to be playable, so those are a no-brainer. Other times, such as the lovely Pops of Darkness mod for Victoria II, you have a fun, fully playable game, (after patches of course), but can't go back to vanilla after playing a supermod that makes everything better. In the end, like the rest of life, it's a series of experiments.