+1
My effects are my fingers and my monster cable.
IMHO, effects are a crutch. My opinion, feel free to disagree.
I freely disagree with you.
I am unashamed of covering up my lack of talent with copious amounts of effects use,...to the point that knob twiddling has become a talent in it's own right. That said I've invest a great deal of playing time before becoming a heavy FX user and I only make the lack of talent comment in jest. I'm pretty awesome and my effects make me more awesome (at least in my over inflated self important headspace).
Telling a noob that FX are a crutch
in an FX forum is uncool. The title of the thread isn't
I'm a noob and should I consider FX a crutch?
I can't endorse the use of an instrument cable from a company with shady marketing tactics and that is a known corporate bully but hey,...if you wanna overpay for some instrument cables be my guest. (anyone interested should google Blue Jeans Cable Company Strikes Back)
To the OP,...I advocate trying out some sort of MultiFX pedal. It may not have the best sounding effects available but it will save you a lot of time in figureing out what you can use and what you like. Then you can move on to single stomps.
I started out with a Compressor,...an Overdrive,...and octaver,...and envelope filter,...then moved onto Fuzzes and synths.
For more bat**** insano FX look into ring modulators,...fuzzes with voltage starves or that do some sort of crazy oscillations IE
Earthbound Audio Supercollider Beast. Also sample rate reducers and bit crushers,...random arpeggio generators and delays.