Originally posted by Triggerd_Noob:

The argument that I should be able to play the game the way I want has always perplexed me. Games are designed with a set of rules that you follow. period. All games...football, monopoly, baseball, poker, Tball, RIsk, volleyball, Clue, Chutes and Ladders, Every game that has ever been made. Somehow with video games, people are entitled to think that breaking the rules is OK, Mods that add to a game without changing the core rules of the game I feel are ok. Mods that change core gameplay mechanics that give you a shortcut are cheating.

Practically every example you gave has people make "house rules" for those things. You know, like small modifications of the previously established rules for the sole purpose of increasing the amount of fun if they find any of the rules un-enjoyable.

It's your game. You play it because you want to have fun. If you want to mod it or change the rules in some way to make it more fun, then do that. Having to "follow the rules the creators made" just because is silly, and calling the modification of those rules "cheating" in your personal game is even more silly.

Do whatever you want. Play vanilla or mod it, but have fun in the end.