Humanity Path (and Others).
Humanity is a Path that the majority of Camarilla members (Vampires) and Anarchs will be on. There are some exceptions with the Sabbat and possibly some other areas but for the most part it is safe to assume the majority of characters that are Vampires are going to be on the Path of Humanity.
Most characters will never learn that there are other Paths and those that do have to work -really hard- to maintain them or they could fall to corruption, because to be on another Path is to surrender your Humanity and admit you are in fact Inhuman. This Path basically shows your rating of how connected to life among humans you are and how much of ‘the monster’ you are. The more you feel you are better and the humans are just rabble around you, the lower your Humanity is likely to be. The more you take life cruelly, with rotten rationality or without a real reason, the less humane you will be. Falling to a 3 Humanity basically makes you along the lines of a serial killer, psychopath and also makes a person dangerously easier to corrupt.
It is also necessary for a character to be Humanity 3 or less to learn a new Path, which if that fails, the character is lost to madness. If the character on another Path falls again to a 3, because they fail that Path, their ending will likely not be pleasant.
You lose or gain points on the Path you are on based off of how you face certain circumstances and what your character attempts to do, particularly when the heat is on them. Your character is measured by the ‘sins’ he does or doesn’t commit that the Path defines (Hierarchy of Sins). This is why the Virtues can be quite important, since most often, if your character does an act that is challenging one of them, the repercussions are what comes next. No one else who can hold you accountable to human law may know your character just massacred 10 people in an elevator, but your character will, and worse yet, sometimes other things you don’t see will too…
Mages and Sorcerers – use Humanity Path as well. Mages do have Arete, which functions similar to a Mummy’s Balance, but isn’t quite the same in terms of meaning. Gaining levels in Arete happens when there is an epiphany of sorts and a Mage has newly awakened herself to it in order to gain some greater knowledge of the universe. It’s not really a rating on how humane they still are, so Mages still use Humanity effectively. Sorcerers are humans that are not fully Awakened.
Ghouls/Kinfolk, etc – These all will use Humanity as well as they are all Human characters with special differences.
Shifters – All Fera including Garou… These will use Virtues and Humanity as well, since they have no real way of measuring it, though their Renown touches upon it, depending.
Orpheus – The people in Orpheus are gifted humans and they too are bound by Humanity Path and Virtues.
Nephalim – These will be bound by Humanity Path and Virtues unless something changes… Pending…
On Others with Equivalents
Mummies/Amenti and Wraiths/Risen have their own versions of Paths, with Mummies using ‘Balance’ as a way of monitoring themselves and Wraiths utilize ‘Angst’, which the higher that is, the more in trouble the Wraith is. Angst works in reverse of Humanity, so if a Wraith has a 6 Angst, the equivalent would be a 4 Humanity. The Mummy’s fall from Ma’at and their duties would make them into Banes. Wraiths that become too full of Angst (level 7) become Spectres. Those who continue to listen to their Shadows and fall further inevitably end up in ‘The Oblivion’. It’s not a very happy place.
Hopefully, this explains why these stats are not just used with the VtM characters, let alone why some other games have relative terms to it, but other venues seemed to avoid it, despite their own ways of dealing with corruption. The ambiance we have here is one where mysterious forces are at play and your character is part of that world. They will experience things that call these Virtues up. Welcome!