In the original writeup, the Camarilla was all there was, and all the vampire clans that existed were part of it. Except that there were some non-Camarilla vampires that were either bad (Sabbat) or neutral (Inconnu). That lasted almost a year. We had both sect creep and clan creep. Sometimes independently, and sometimes together. By the end, we had:
- Camarilla
- Sabbat
- Anarchs
- Setites
- Assamites
- Ashirra
- Giovanni
- Laibon
- Inconnu
- Kuei-Jin
- True Hand
- Gangrel
- Infernalists
But we also have to look at what a sect means. In the original book, sect wasn't really an option, there were just some vampires who were on different sides in the Jyhad and if you were a player character you were automatically Camarilla (or Anarch if you found the Camarilla too annoying). Eventually, being a sect determined what kind of sorcery you had available. If you were in the Setites you could learn Akhu, if you joined the Baali you could learn Dark Thaumaturgy, if you joined the Laibon you could learn magic negro necromancy, and if you joined the Assamites you could learn Dur-an-Ki and so on and so forth. This was a total repudiation of the original concept where the Tremere were the wizard clan and other people didn't get to do wizarding, but everyone was basically happier with it like that. Of course, by the end Vampire had at least 16 flavors of thaumaturgy, but I think we can safely combine Abombo and Voodoo Necromancy into a single set of powers for the Laibon and probably drop Lithuanian Thaumaturgy altogether.
So what it comes down to is that the number of sects you end up with is actually just the number of flavors of magic you want to bother with. And which sects you choose is to be decided by which sects can't be easily substituted and meet one of the following conditions:
- The sect has a lot of traction among WoD players (for example: The Camarilla is the name of the actual World of Darkness fan society which still exists even though White Wolf does not).
- The sect fills a needed void in the world as a whole (for example: the Laibon deliver the Blackulas needs which would otherwise be under exposed)
- The magic the sect uses has enough traction that the sect needs to exist (for example: Dark Thaumaturgy is rather important to a lot of people, so the Infernalists need a seat at the table for that magic to exist).
-Username17