So, I've recently become interested in modding, seeing as pretty much everything from Half-Life to Crusader Kings 2 to ArmA to even things like Master of Orion 3 (not sure about the other ones) can be modded.

I mean, for some games, it's just little things I'd like to tweak, and for others, I'd love to try a more complete conversion.

Is it one of those things you just have to dive into? I know a lot of people that end up making games start by trying to mod something, and gain a lot of the necessary skills through modding rather than for modding.

Thanks in advance.

Well, the only modding I've fiddled with was UT2004. It's actually pretty easy, provided you know some sort of object oriented programming language already. The game comes with a full set of modding tools, including a level editor, a complete IDE, and its own programming language. I'm sure you can also find a ton of tutorials for it online.

So I don't really have anything to compare it with, but it might be a good place to start.

UT3 is the same, by the way, as far as I know.

Modding Oblivion is pretty easy enough. The Construction Set is quite powerful and it allows you a lot of flexibility. Also, it doesn't require scripting for the basic stuff.

Legend of Grimrock's Editor will be out in a few weeks. It should also be very easy to use, you could try that one first. Very, very easy, actually, judging by the YouTube teaser video.

You want to make mods or simply start using them?

If the former I'd recommend TorchED, in a couple weeks TL2 will be out and you can make mods for one of the most anticipated and moddable games around.

How is TorchED?

And I don't have a lot of programming experience. Mostly it's GML. Also, I am no artist, so it wouldn't be graphical modding.

Well, depends how deep you want to go.

Neverwinter Nights has a very powerful editor.

If you really want to change the nature of the game, some games have released their source code (like notably Freespace 2 I believe) so you could definitely get your hands dirty there.

However, if you can't program, what you'll be able to do will always be very limited no matter how you look at it.

If the editor they provide with the game is weak, you have to get your hands in the code.

If the editor they provide with the game is powerful and sophisticated, it will most likely involve some scripting.

If you really want to get into that stuff, pick an open-source game you want to mod, look what language they used (most likely C/C++) and pick a good book.

Unfortunately, games don't tend to be made into more accessible languages like Python so the learning curve is rather steep unfortunately.

I'm not saying I could never program, or that I don't want to go into the code at all. I'm just saying that at this point, I don't have much experience with coding.

Modding Paradox grand strategy games seems to be relatively easy, being in an understandable scripting language. I just imagine it takes a lot of time.

Others, I really don't know much about. I'm looking to see if there's a good place to get my feet wet.

Well, in this case, you'll probably find many games that have scripting languages that you can leverage (as previously mentioned, Neverwinter Night has a fairly powerful on in its editor).

However, if you don't mind spending more time on it and you feel up for a challenge, you could leverage your experience more by learning the full fledged programming language that an open source game is coded in and mod that.

It really depends on how deep you want to go and how ambitious you are about doing something more down the line with the experience you will have gathered modding a game.

There is no best way to get into modding, but a good way is to pick a game with a fairly common engine. Like for example Unreal Tournament, Half-Life 2, Fallout 3/New Vegas/Skyrim.
It won't be easier that way but at least the skills you pick up can be used for different games (with a little adjustment of course) and there will be plenty of documentation around.
And if you pick a game you own and like to play it'll be more fun to fool around with it.
Further, start small.
Create a little house/level and perhaps modify or add an item.
Then move onto adding switches that do things to your level and so on.
But don't kid yourself, the idea of modding is a lot more fun than actually learning and doing it.

I think you should try with Battle for Wesnoth. That game really shows how much you can do with very little resources.

Start a war!

TorchED is what the Runic developers used to make Torchlight. Maybe head over here to get started (or at least get an idea) http://www.runicgamesfansite.com/downloads.php/