Off-Colour Mods

After many years, I've finally truly involved myself with Skyrim. Since I'm fairly certain most people have no idea what I'm talking about, I checked The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim when it first came out, but decided it wasn't entirely my cup of tea and left it at that. Still, Morrowind (TES III) is a very dear part of my collection, and Oblivion (TES IV) was fun as well, so when my wife suggested getting it for me when it was on sale, I thankfully accepted the gift.

Since then, it has occupied quite a bit of my free time. I've went ahead after a while and modded it a bit (though I have some issues with a few mods, the ones I've kept are more than fair enough). What interested me the most, however, was that I noticed something... which bothers me, for lack of a better term.

This isn't something I've only seen in Skyrim; the first time I met with it, I think, was with Neverwinter Nights (a D&D game), and then with Knights of the Old Republic (this one's Star Wars), and then again with KotOR II: The Sith Lords — and that is that the modding community hails mods which have gone beyond the intentions of the creators to absurd degrees.

Of course, I must admit, a mod is a mod, and the most express sentiment behind a mod is that it has something to tamper with in the game; I, personally, even got involved with a mod or two, though I must admit that one in particular, which also happens to be the one I felt the most for, actually fell through at some point; as one person put it: “Unfortunately, it has not been released and its current status is apparently in limbo.” So, if anything, I understand that a mod's core principle will always be the modification of the game. That much is perfectly acceptable, obviously.

What's troubling me, instead, is the absurdity in the degree of divergence from the source, especially in terms of lore. Game-balancing mods, for instance, are obviously not inherently wrong, and can, in fact, make a game a lot more enjoyable.

But what about games which alter the themes behind a game? In Star Wars, for instance, there were mods which completely altered the thematic elements as to what the Force is capable of doing; in it, that mod which I speak of granted powers similar to those of mages or wizards in typical western role-playing games, like the ability to conjure a miniature lightning storm out of thin air, or the ability to produce exploding fireballs. The same problem, more or less, is what bothers me with this sort of modding and the enthusiasm behind it: if we accept it as laudable, doesn't that entail that it should be laudable to create any sort of fan-fiction (for the sake of argument) which features similar out-of-line with the original, entirely new material? Such as Gandalf casting Mordenkainen's Disjunction on the One Ring; Picard with a lightsabre; psychic Hobbits and Gimli, the 20th-level Monk/Assassin. These are absurd examples, but they are used to make a point that needs to be made, I think.