My Modding Mentors

It's almost 3am and I have a streaming event in a few hours. So naturally, this feels like exactly the right time to write something I've been meaning to write for a long time.

This is for the people without whom I would not be modding. Full stop.

King
Gath

King Gath: KingGath is the author of Sim Settlements 2 among many other mods, and is now the founder of KingGath Creations, a Bethesda Verified Creator team.

It started with Sim Settlements 1. Not just playing it, though that was game changing enough. It was his downloadable tutorials on how to make city plans that put me in the world of modding for the first time and made me believe I could actually learn this stuff. That single decision to share his knowledge so generously changed the trajectory of my creative life. I don't say that lightly.

But what KingGath has given me goes so far beyond tutorials.

His best and most recent advice: Be careful when you're deep in the least exciting parts of your project, because that's exactly when your brain will try to seduce you into something more fun. New ideas. Shiny things. "It's your brain," he said. Ha ha. He's not wrong. That advice has already saved me from being neck deep in five new projects.

He also told me he never sits down to work unless he knows it's something he can finish in minutes. Must be nice! But I've translated that into what I now call my One-Trello-Card-at-a-time theory. Drill down until you find something you can finish, check it off, feel good, then do the next one. It works.

But more than tactics, KingGath has taught me how to be a responsible modder. To be generous of heart but take no guff. To stay connected to the community that brought you and never think you're above it. To act like a professional, share what you know, and never just create a thing and leave it by the curb.

Without his advice at the eleventh hour, Fred, the quest giver in my SS2 plot, would never have landed in his chair. Eight full days. Two other genius-level papyrus coders. None of us could figure it out. One conversation with KingGath and it was done.

But the advice I carry with me every single day is this: When you find a group of people who are in line with your vision, treat them like family. That's what he does. And that's what I try to do.

MunkySpunk

MunkySpunk is the author of 47 mods available on Nexus Mods, but his most notable and recent work is Fens Sheriff's Department, a beloved quest mod in the Fallout 4 community.

About three years ago I reached out to MunkySpunk (completely randomly) and asked him a modding question. He took the time to answer. And over the years he's helped me with just about anything I've asked, implementation, approach, all of it.

Forget that I want to be him when I grow up. Smart, witty, classical guitarist, artist, general nice guy. He also lets modders learn from his assets, and if you want a genuine education in modding, try taking apart his stained glass lamps or fish tanks. What can be learned from implementing someone else's work into your own mod (with permissions) is truly shocking. It is not a lazy endeavor, I assure you.

But there's one day in particular that I'm especially grateful for. It's not what he did for me. It's how he kicked me in the ass.

I was still new-ish to modding and trying to get people to just tell me how to do things. And MunkySpunk said something like, "Wait. You don't know that? I can't help you if you don't know at least some of these things."

That was exactly what I needed to hear. I realized I needed to go get some of the basics down just to have the vocabulary I needed to ask for help. And I also understood that asking for help without having a list of what I tried already wasn’t cool.

So if you are new to modding and wanting to ask for help? Google it. Watch the tutorial. Attempt the thing. Then go ask for help if you dare.

A lot of people tell beginners to just crack open someone's mod and see how they did it. And while that's true, without context it's meaningless. It’s a bit like being handed a map in a language you don't speak. So it’s important to have some context.

Aside from kicking my ass, Munky has offered some incredibly sage advice and kind conversations over the years. I’ll always be grateful. I consider him a friend.

Glitchfinder

Glitchfinder is responsible for an incredible assortment of mods (109 and counting) that fix the things Bethesda left behind in Fallout 4, as well as many beloved creations including You and What Army, and so very many more.

Coding is the hardest thing for my brain. I'm a storyteller. Coding feels like math. My brain hates math.

If you've ever tried to learn Papyrus scripting, you've probably ended up on the Bethesda wiki staring at a function definition that assumes you already know what a function is. It's sort of like asking how create sausage and receiving the word, ‘hot dog’ with no context. For me, it felt like being asked to learn Spanish in order to understand Greek. My brain just doesn't make that connection.

And so I turned to Glitchfinder. Their patience in explaining how a simple line of code actually works was a game changer.

I keep a document called, Papyrus for Dummies, and there are dozens of ‘Glitchfinder’ entries in it. Their advice over the last couple of years has made it possible for me to write my own code. I genuinely want to PM them after each small success and shout, "Master, I have done it! I have written a piece of code!"

I know it’s hard for folks who have the Math Brain to understand us mere mortals. But Glitchfinder has the patience of a saint.

Beyond explaining the basics, what has been universally beyond useful is this: Whenever I reach out and describe how I'm thinking about approaching a problem, Glitchfinder will say, "That could work, but..." and then offer a couple of alternatives. More often than not, they’ll point me to the place(s) in the vanilla game where Bethesda has done something similar that I can use as a reference. That is an extraordinary skill. And an extraordinary act of generosity.

I'm so grateful for their incredible patience and kindness in answering my often very, silly questions.

If Fallout 4 is a house, Glitchfinder is the one who made sure the walls didn't fall down, and then went ahead and redecorated while they were at it.

My sincere thanks…

These three people represent something I didn't expect to find when I started modding. Generosity. Real, genuine, no strings attached generosity. They didn't have to answer my questions. They didn't have to share their knowledge or their time or their patience. They chose to. And because they did, Shadows of the Old World exists. Not as a distant dream on a notepad, but as a real mod, with real locations, real characters, and real stories. Without KingGath, MunkySpunk, and GlitchFinder, I would have quit. I know that in my bones. So if you've ever played anything I've made and felt something, even a small something, know that it traces back to these three people who believed, before I did, that I could do this.

Now go play their mods.

MysticRogue