Thing is that distro packages rarely conflict with one another, and when they do they're produced by a single organization who has processes to manage the confl

Thing is that distro packages rarely conflict with one another, and when they do they're produced by a single organization who has processes to manage the conflicts. Mods are very often hooking the same functions or editing the same files, so you need patches for many combinations of mods. Mods are usually created by single authors who stop playing the game and there's no organization to take over maintenance or coordinate anything.