The Art of Modded Speedrunning

     Most speedrunning sites will tell you that modding is against the rules and disqualifies any official run you do.  One only has to take a look at Speedrun.com to discover that.  To be sure, there are mods out there that absolutely should be avoided for speedrunning- anything that changes the speed of the game or messes with the gameplay shouldn't really be in use because you'd be giving yourself an unfair advantage over other speedrunners who are getting times on a level playing ground.  This could include things like Smash Ultimate gameplay mods or difficulty adjusters/damage reduction for Dark Souls.  These do change things up and allow different experiences, but that experience also changes the core of the game to a degree and therefore would be and is something that disqualifies official speedruns (These rules even apply to things like Games Done Quick and other big events), though it makes very little sense to file cosmetic mods under the same umbrella since they change nothing in terms of gameplay. 

   

    I agree with the principal idea that comparing modded speedruns with unmodded runs would be unfair and non comparable, however, I disagree with the idea that modded runs should be thrown out entirely.  I believe that a new speedrunning category should be made- the modded run category.  Now, I know that sounds like a crazy overhaul considering that we already separate PC and console runs, but hear me out.  The reason most places like Speedrun.com ban the use of mods in official runs is because of potential unfair advantages against a player who isn't using them- how do we compare a time from a non modded run to one that was modded?  The answer is that we don't!  Instead, we solve the problem of unfairness (which isn't unfounded honestly) by making things fair again.

    As someone who mods games a lot, one could easily say I'm only making the argument here for myself, but That isn't true.  I simply believe in the idea that modded runs should still be accepted and viable, even if they need their own category to be fair to non modded runs.  I feel like this is a decently fair solution here, and one that definitely ups the creativity we could see in future speedruns.