Gaming

Dozens. Hundreds. Buuut if it's your first time you're gonna be fine. Enjoy it, be happy, be annoyed. Especially with anniversary or special edition it's going to be fine.

Second playthrough then go nuts with mods.

Just play it as is first time through. I wish I could go back and replay it for the first time again. I've dumped so many hours into this game. My biggest suggestions are just run around and have fun. Talk to everyone, explore everywhere. Don't fast travel! Travel by foot everywhere, the things you'll run into and random people you'll meet are part of what makes the game so rich. Save often. You never know when you might have to go back and reload your game in the case of a needed NPC getting killed. Enjoy yourself!

I would first play it a bit unmodded before adding a ton of mods. You're gonna want to experience the game in its natural state before changing it. I do this for any game I mod. Makes you appreciate it all more.

Along with SkyUI, these are a must have for me

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/1428

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/1429

Holy shit, I thought I was alone in the big gaming world!

The reason I never played it is because at the time the game was out, my PC couldn't handle it, so I gave up after my sad attempts to sit through the unplayable frames. And by the time I upgraded, there were simply too many games to steal my attention entirely - that's how it been ever since.

I want to play it, though. I never considered it boring - I liked it even when I wasn't that interested in fantasy, and now I'm gravitating even more towards it. Hope to get my hands down to it one day, but with Starfield (hopefully) coming out this year, and with The Outer Worlds to beat before that happens, I think I'm not slaying any dragons any time soon.

For a first playthrough I'd just play the game stock. In fact I still usually play the game stock. Mods can be great fun, but they alter the gameplay experience and the base game is still excellent.

If you're having some trouble getting into it, for a first playthrough try playing a stealthy archer. It's so satisfying in a way melee and magic just isn't, and it doesn't interfere with the roleplaying elements.

I have spent probably hundreds of hours in Skyrim at this point, but I would say the most fun playthrough I did was actually on the Nintendo Switch. I think that I enjoyed it because I didn't stop every hour to install a bunch more mods, since that wasn't an option (and I guess having it anywhere was nice too...).

If you want a bit of a smoother experience, I would recommend SkiUI on PC and Alternate Start, but I would also suggest trying it vanilla too as it can be a bit prickly to get SKSE (requirement for SkyUI) set up if you've never done it before.

I don't recommend doing what I did and installing 200 mods, finally getting it all working and then not actually going back to the game. Do we really need 12 million K textures?

I would not do mods your first play-through. However, what I would recommend, is just doing whatever it is you feel like doing when you play. See a cave you want to walk into? Do it. Did you get assigned a new quest that looks more interesting than the one you're doing? Hop on it. Don't let certain storylines drag you down if you don't enjoy them.

If it's your first playthrough the only Mods I'd recommend is bug-fixes and such.

Ok, everyone telling you no mods isn't wrong, BUT...I kind of find a few mods to be all but essential. Specifically, making your horse invincible but also unable to do damage will really save you a headache. You want both because if he's invincible then he'll just start kicking dragons to death. And then SkyUI because the default UI is awful.

You can check on Nexus Mods for some general bug fixes, but I 'd say just open up the game and give it a shot. There's just so many mods for Skyrim-- imagine a feature you'd like in the game, and there's probably a mod for it. To keep the vanilla experience, maybe stick to UI mods and QOL stuff. If graphics are important to you, there's a bunch of visual mods that are subtle but bring the game up to speed. Enjoy! I've put so many hours into that game over the years.

If you never modded skyrim I would suggest following a modding guide like this one: https://dragonbornsfate.moddinglinked.com/intro.html

I'm generally in agreement with trying it unmodded... except that I would suggest getting the SkyUI mod. I'm not a big fan of the stock interface.

There are countless such mods, but I recommend not going down the rabbit hole. It's very playable as is.

My biggest mistake is that I played my first time with the Kenny Loggins mod that changes combat music to "Danger Zone" and now I'll never be able to play without it.

Ah man, I'm in the same boat. Picked up Skyrim special edition a while back but never got into it. I plan on setting aside some time and delving deep into it. I put a fair amount of hours into Oblivion, and that was a blast.

If you're on PC, get an inventory/crafting interface makeover mod. The PC interface is a direct port of the console one, so the navigation buttons are just like they'd be on a console, which means it's horrible for PC.

Maybe look into a Wabbajack list for an easier experience getting the modding part over with so you can get to the gaming. I'd look for something very close to vanilla on your first playthrough, but I wouldn't play with no mods though cause many of them fix issues and improve the game's graphical fidelity and stability.