It's funny, with some TES games I can mod them all to hell and not be bothered, but with others I want to preserve the feeling of vanilla.

My first TES game was Oblivion. I bought Morrowind for my wife in 2002, but never really played it myself. When we got Oblivion, I got svcked in. We both did. Played for a few years vanilla, and then tentatively started looking at mods. I think the first one I installed was the Shadowranger mod. Not long after that, it was Tamriel Immersion Experience. We went a little nuts with player home mods, and then got into Less Annoying Magic Experience and Better Cities --- and on and on.

To this day, our Oblivion install is modded pretty substantially, and we wouldn't think of going back to vanilla.

Morrowind, on the other hand...

I only got really into Morrowind after Skyrim came out. And while there are tons and tons and tons of mods for Morrowind by now, very few of them interest me. We do have the Code Patch and Tamriel Rebuilt - that's it. But the thing about Tamriel Rebuilt is, it's so easy to ignore. If you don't want to go to the mainland, don't. Otherwise, the game is basically vanilla. I see these amazing screenshots and videos of peoples' different Morrowind setups, but for some reason I never had the feeling of "I *need* that mod!"

And Skyrim I find quite playable unmodded. We did start adding some mods to Skyrim after a year or so, but I missed vanilla too much. Now that we have Mod Organizer, I can easily have a vanilla (or very close) install of the game and still feel free to tweak things here and there.

I wonder if others' experience is similar. Do you find some of your TES games are full of mods, while others are relatively untouched? And why do you think that is?

I don't think I have a unique relationship with mods, but maybe an uncommon one. At one point I found myself adding mods simply for the sake of adding mods (especially in Oblivion. Oh, Oblivion.) until it got to the point where I was spending more time fiddling with mods or searching for new ones than I was playing the game. Now, I take more of a minimalist approach and focus on areas in the vanilla game I find lacking.

Now, I say minimalist, but you'd probably look at my load order for any game and laugh at the notion that it's "minimalist". But ultimately, I just like setting up the game so that I can play how I want to play and be adequately challenged and rewarded for it.

I've probably got the smallest amount of mods on Morrowind - with how limited the Construction Set is, gameplay tweaks and overhauls are really limited. I decided to stop fiddling with changing Morrowind's gameplay (particularly combat) into something it's not, and focus on mods that enrich the vanilla gameplay. My ratio of content adding mods is greater, though. I feel like new content (compared to tweaking the gameplay of the existing content) is what Bethesda had in mind when they first put out the Construction Set for Morrowind.

Oblivion is easily my most heavily modded game, mostly out of an effort to get rid of the leveling system and the level scaling.

Skyrim is somewhere in-between, with a lot of smaller tweaks that add up. I prefer having a huge collection of hand-picked little tweaks to one all-encompassing overhaul package.

Morrowind is similar for me. It is hard to "change the game", even graphics-wise. I enjoyed vanilla so much, the experience did not need much improvement. I have tried the Morrowind Overhaul mod set and enjoyed it, but it is not Morrowind to me

Oblivion I never really got into. I have some mods for it, mainly graphics (character) mods, yet still can not get into it.

Skyrim, I have modded a lot. Skyrim needed mods. It screams for them.

Yes, actually. Morrowind is the least modded of all of the games. I guess I just enjoy it the way it is and don't believe changing it will make it "better" for me. Just character models, which is a thing I try to improve for every game since I'm character-centric.

Oblivion and Skyrim, on the other hand, are heavily modded. Oblivion has had several overhauls installed to try out different things; I'm sticking to Maskar's Oblivion Overhaul with the vanilla leveling for now. I don't want to change too much, I just want a better experience than vanilla gives when it comes to leveling. No more bandits in expensive armor, and a slightly more static world on the whole. Plus its modular, so I can install just the things I want. I found Oscuro's Overhaul a bit more rigid in this regard. I also have Craftybits because I wanted cooking. It's more of a gimmick, but a gimmick I like. Better Cities and Better Dungeons, too.

Skyrim has mostly magic overhauls and weapon/spell add-ons and mechanic tweaks to make it more like an RPG. I generally stick to ACE but I also have Requiem installed on some saves as well as Deadly Encounters (Mod Organizer ftw). I also got a ton of cooking recipes. Then there's "The Choice is Yours" to stop getting quests from all over the place and have the ability to turn them down instead of rudely exiting conversation. Wish there was a patch for "The Cutting Room Floor", though. Not two steps near Whiterun and suddenly I have a new quest I don't want. :/ Then there's also the Civil War Overhaul, which is only installed for characters that care for the Civil War (very few). Also Immersive College of Winterhold. Let's just say I have a lot of mods for Skyrim and leave it at that.