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See I think it is always more fun when the enemy is NOT that odvious. It is not the guy running around with some chainsaw, but in fact some store clerk chick who gave us free ice cream a week ago!

As a player I say we really don't need it painted out for us, because it takes a lot of the fun out of it. (in my opinion)

If there has to be a "worse guy" in our games I'd find my players immature. All it really needs for an antagonist is "a guy who works against you". Could be completely evil, could be a minister. But especially in a setting like Vampire I'd certainly require my player to act out their evil.

I agree with Sven that human organisations are good for anything. The more shadowy the better.

Well, fighting for a cause one believes is just isn't really neccessary either.

For an RL example; I know my life (or the existence of humanty) isn't just, but I'm still ready to fight for it.

Ah yes, just objecting to the fighting for a just cause.

But the cause doesn't have to be just.

There is little justice is WOD, just a lot of self-interest that people can identify with to varying degrees.

Take the Camarilla and the Sabbat. The Camarilla are the good guys, right? They believe in the Masquerade and not ruling over mortals as dark gods. Not really. The Camarilla was motivated purely by self-interest. The Camarilla Elders and Methuselahs realized that despite all of their awesome power, they were still vulnerable to both their mortal herds and the ever-increasing number of their Childer and Grandchilder. The Anarch Revolt only made it clear that they needed to cement their power permanently if they were to survive. So the hierarchy of the Camarilla was born. The numbers and makeup of the Inner Circle does not change, nor the pool of vampires who can be named as Justicars and these two are the true power of the Camarilla.

The Sabbat on the other hand is a doomsday cult. They aren't out to save the world so much as to save themselves. They know for a fact that the Antediluvians are real and if they aren't ready, then they will be food for the Third Generation. Most Sabbat are either Path-followers and Good, Evil and Just, don't even factor into their decision making, or they have so little humanity left that they are amoral, sociopathic murderers.


Mage is perhaps the best example of a lack of justice in WOD or even right and wrong. Everyone in Mage not only believes their paradigm is right, they have valid arguments as to why they are right and everyone else is an idiot. The Tradition Mages, who despise each other, want to ascend the human race to...whatever the next mental/physical/spiritual step might be, each according to their own various means. The Technocratic Union wants to save the human race from the evil creatures that exist in the Umbra, so they will make True Magic nearly impossible, kill off all of the Reality Deviants (supernatural creatures) and wrap the human race in a protective cocoon of repetitive, joyless, sterile stasis. Even the Nephandi who are canonically more spiritually twisted than the Baali, Akuma, Black Spiral Dancers and Spectres put together, can rationalize why destroying the Tapestry (and by extension everything that exists) is the best possible course of action to return control of the universe to its rightful masters, the nameless horrors that ruled before.

The short version: Most of the metaplot characters/factions aren't concerned with good or evil, just self-interest. Whether a cause is "just" or not has little bearing in their rationale for what they do so much as what they do benefits them.