I'm a newblood to Morrowind, and had been waiting to get it ever since I got into the TES series and my dad finally put some money into my Steam account for the second time so I could buy the GOTY edition of Morrowind off Steam. I knew I'd love it, but didn't expect it to be so hard to stop playing. The lack of fast travel, the much funnier reactions to not wearing any clothing or armor(I have some odd habit of running around without armor or clothing in games to see how the NPCs react thanks to Skyrim), self imposed limits being easier to give to myself, and the feeling of it in general is just fantastic. Now to stop gushing.

I'm planning to mod the game a bit in small ways. Is there any mods that allow stuff like a self written journal that can be used with the Steam version? How about any mods in general? I'm more interested in being able to write in the journal or a separate journal in-game, so I'm wanting to mod it in. Problem is, I have no idea how to use mods outside of that Restoration Patch I used for Fallout 2's Steam version. I also am afraid of ruining the game files, and finding out the mod is in a conflict with the DRM or requires a ton of possibly performance reducing tools.

If anyone does know of a journal writing mod that is possible to use with simple stuff, tell me about it, as well. I don't plan to mod much else for now because the game is great without mods, just feel that adding more to the journal interface would be a good idea for me. Thanks for the help in advance.

Don't worry about screwing up the files, you can completely uninstall and reinstall the game and they'll be where they belong if you screw it up. You'll also need to have a look at using mods, as it can be complex (I learnt that the hard way). Look up some tutorials, preferably Steam specific, as there are some differences between a CD and Steam versions of the game. I cannot stress how importanat it is to read about it and go through some tutorials before you even try, because it can save you alot of stress (again, I learnt that the hard way lol).

I haven't heard off a mod like the journal one, but if anyone knows I'd like it too.

Could check out MWE and journal enhanced and writing enhanced:
http://www.mwmythicmods.com/MWE.htm#MWE

NB! MWE can sometimes be difficult to get fully stable,and no quaranties it works perfectly with your hardware & used mods,unfortunately haven′t seen any MWSE counterparts,or for ordinary morrowind for that matter.

You can also ask this question in the Morrowind Mods forum. They're pretty helpful there, and I remember seeing a similar question some time ago, don't remember how long. A search for "journal" might do the trick.

This should be in the mod section.

But to answer your question, it doesn't matter if you have the steam version or not.

The files are just placed in a different spot, that's the only difference.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\morrowind

I actually have used about four mods ever since I made this thread. Thanks for the answers everyone.

If you plan on using MGE, I'd recommend turning off in-game steam (or whatever it's called) before I disabled it, it was having trouble generating distant land. Also MGE v3.8 is more stable with the steam version.

I heard MGE lowers the FPS, so I refuse to use it... Despite having downloaded it.

It depends on what you enable in that program.

Advanced things like distant land, shaders, AA will reduce FPS. How much? It depends on the computer and intnsity of selected effects.
Basic things, like screen capturing, FOV and resolution selecting, key remapping, have no impact on FPS.