Popular Mods
Who doesn’t fantasize about how they would do something differently? One of the things that I find exciting about Stardew Valley is how open the creator, Eric Barone is when it comes to fan interaction. Scrape his twitter feed and you’ll see how when he is interacting with his fans that he encourages them to play his game with mods.
The official forums and Nexus Mods are a great source that I go to when I am looking for new mods. The lists are well organized, you can sort by most popular to best rated.
Take this as only one example, there are so many replies op here can’t even get to them all. The best part about posts like this is that plenty the replies come as links to a mod already created that adds a new character that people can play with.
Stardew Valley Expanded
Look at this massive fan made expansion mod. While staying true to the source material, this mod added 27 new NPCs! It includes new locations, events, items, maps, music, quests, and festivals. This creator is also open to being contacted on Twitter and Discord. The link also contains an installation guide and where to find common answers for troubleshooting. I don’t currently have this mod, but once I get a break, I think this will be the first one I try next. I wonder if this works with multiplayer…
Dude is OP
Lance was created in the Stardew Valley Expanded mod, but if you want to get more specific and just want to grab his specific character, there's a mod for that. Lance is slightly overpowered, but I tend to choose mods that make gameplay easier.
Honorable Mentions
Dynamic Night Time
This mod creates a dynamic nighttime and sunrise lighting system. This mod does not alter wake-up time and is not compatible if you are using time speed mods.
SAAT – Stardew Valley Audio API & Toolkit
Allows the player to add custom music to your mods. There are plans to continue updates as this mod was released early due to demand.