You don't really need to play the native campaign, I learned the basics playing The Last Days mount and blade mod and then got warband for this I think, dunno was looking mods up on some site, looking for cool mods. All you really need to do is trial and error things, I use cheat menus infinite camp and do things with that then reload when I figure it out. That and reading some things on the forums you wonder about and using the search function to find it, or quick questions if you have a question.
You don't really need to play for real on your first play through if you find it hard you can use the occult it is friendly as long as you use it as intended. I wouldn't really suggest making changes that only affect you though because that makes the game lame, if your gonna make yourself strong you want your enemies to be stronger.