It's possible to balance an RPG. How much work you want to spend doing it, or how important you think it is, is up to you.
The thing to remember about balancing an RPG is that you're working with a mechanical rules system. In order to achieve game balance, codify the rules, as if it were an ordinary board game, and figure out how each power or character build plays out. Most RPG authors are so interested in the theme of the game that they don't spend a lot of time thinking about the nitty, gritty mechanics of the system.
I would strongly recommend looking to video game balance as a model. My experience is that competitive online games are almost universally better balanced than tabletop RPGs. This is because the nature of the medium makes balance more important, and imbalance more glaringly obvious. You can play 4-8 League of Legends matches, each one consisting of dozens of individual battles, in the time it takes to have one battle in D&D. Consequently, it's a safe bet that LoL is better balance-tested, even if D&D has been around for years.
An article on gamasutra that might be of use to you:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2843/applying_risk_analysis_to_.php
A couple of important points:
- Players don't like it when you take away their stuff. Rather than banning powers, you should find ways to tune them, and bring them in line with the existing metagame.
- Come up with hard numbers, and stick to them. No player should be able to do more than X damage per turn at level Y.
- Most competitive games have some sort of rock-paper-scissors feel. Ensure that every character build has a counter. In Magic: The Gathering, and similarly balanced games like Guild Wars, each color (character class) is given a certain subset of the different power mechanics the game has to offer. The more a particular deck (character) diversifies their powers across colors, the less power they have in a specific area.
One of the tricky things about RPGs is that the game encourages you to bend the rules. If you want a truly balanced game, you have to curb this tendency, and let the characters' powers dictate how well they fare in an encounter. If you introduce things like movable scenery, hazards, et cetera, make sure they have codified rules, and they're considered in the game balance. Since there's no way to simulate everything out there in the world under one rules system, you'll have to make judgment calls about fairness versus freedom to improvise.
"A practical man can always make what he wants to do look like a noble sacrifice of personal inclinations to the welfare of the community. I've decided that I've got to be practical myself, and that's one of the rules. How about breakfast?" The Pirates of Ersatz, Murray Leinster
From your question I noticed a few things. Nominally, I completely agree with @mxyzplk's answer, so this should be in the way of an addendum.
It sucks to be the leader
In a RPG, it just completely sucks to be the leader. Most players when confronted with a plan, remember about fifteen percent of it for the first fifteen minutes. But they'll certainly remember when you deviate. Leaders get no additional responsibility and no perquisites, but they get all the blame.
In the military this is mitigated with the clear distinction between commissioned and non-commissioned officers. Not least because the isolation provides both support structures and necessary emotional distance (to a degree, of course). Being "elected" leader, especially with the pack dynamics of typical werewolf games is an extremely dubious honour that I'd flatly reject.
The fact that while you may be leader in character but not dominant over the player group makes things even stickier. You need to assert authority within the realm of the narrative without actually having that authority in reality. Again, something that will cause friction and resentment any way you cut it.
Depressing environments bleed emotions into play
The world of darkness does what it says on the tin. Having played in a horror game myself recently, the iconic themes of the world of darkness do not make for "happy" or, for that matter, validating game experiences in the main. (And, if they do, it's a violation of genre.) When you are faced with the stresses of being "leader" which are compounded by the stressors of the philosophies baked into the setting, no wonder you're having a rough time.
Some solutions:
On leadership:
Fundamentally, a gaming group is a relationship. Bad relationships that do not provide validation are a drain on mental and emotional resources. When they don't work, cut them off or change them. In your case, I'd play a game that's a bit lighter in tone and focus: a nice traditional dungeon crawl or similar heroic fantasy.
I'd also reject the leader role for all the reasons I outlined above. Or, if they force it upon you, demand the perquisites and authority that is concomitant with it: they can't have it both ways.
On the group:
I've found that group character creation creates a far more cohesive group. By having entangled backstories, the group can draw upon a deeper understanding of each others' characters, creating the basis for empathy and respect within the characters, instead of the necessary simulacrum imposed by players.
By articulating desired tropes, a "palette" (as Microscope) calls it, before the game begins, you'll be able to shape the narrative of the group in directions that you want to play. This allows you to avoid the nominally depressive tropes that come default with the setting (not limited to world of darkness) and describe a source for future characters to connect with the current group. Replacement characters, if they tie into the shared narrative, will continue to maintain the tropes and social trust.
Be practical:
As players, we shape our narratives to an amazing degree. Emulate Bron Hoddan in the Pirates of Ersatz. While playing, you will be aware of the desired practical outcome that will provide validation and satisfy your personal goals. With that outcome in mind, you then frame it in terms that suit both your character's narrative and the expected narratives of the other players such that they will act to reinforce your framing and thereby your outcome. If you fight their narrative control by "being a loner," it is difficult to achieve your own goals. If you help them work as a team and appear to sacrifice nobly on their behalf while executing your own goals... the entire process is smoother and more effective.
Note that I am not saying to lie. Instead, consider the causal constructions of your actions, the explanations for those actions to be an aspect of the role * separate* from the actions themselves. By manipulating the framing as well as the actions, you can provide the necessary hooks for the other players to support your version of reality, rather than rejecting it and, by extension, you.
Postscript
Looking at your comments to other questions, you should absolutely give this group two last tries. In the first trial (of one or two games), try a heroic romp where you can be "Big Damn Heroes." Require the players who need the spotlight be leader. In the second trial (again of one or two games), try a game where players can intrigue against each other (I'd recommend Ars Magica, but then again I recommend it for most things. Most games support PvP intrigue quite ably.) If neither game provides the validation you need and the spotlight the other players need, move on. Before you do anything, take a month break, sit down, relax, and try to game with some strangers. I'm pretty sure that if you go looking for games in the chat section of this site... someone will oblige. For more on the framing problem, I'd quite recommend Rule 34 by Stross, as it describes it in a delicious narrative context.
Best Answer
Get A Spokesman
Have someone come to town who wants to speak to a spokesman for the area. You could use a few different things, such as a merchant wanting to speak to someone about setting up trade, or a leader of a nearby tribe who just saw these Elves and wants to negotiate with them, or even a bad guy coming in to issue threats.
No matter what you use, the NPC in question should make it clear that talking to an entire committee is too cumbersome or beneath him (depending on who it is). He is only interested in speaking to a representative who can talk for the entire PC settlement. If they want to deal with the NPC at all, the PCs will have to pick someone to speak for them.
From there, you can let the situation organically grow and see if that turns into a leadership position. If it does, your job is done. If not...
Force The Issue
If you can't coax them, you can act more forcefully. You can try this a couple of different ways:
But Do You Really Want To?
Is this actually a problem for the PCs, or is it just a problem for you? I mean, if they enjoy doing things by committee and the disagreements that come from that, why do you want to force them out of it?
In my experience LARPing, leaders would appear naturally in groups when they were wanted/needed. If one never did, it was usually because the people involved were pretty content not having one, and trying to impose a leader on them was a great way to create resentment. That can be fine itself, if you want them to try to undermine that leader. But it doesn't sound like you want to create more infighting.
In the worst case scenario, this can cross boundaries and turn into out of character hostility. I've seen it happen: the people running a game pick a PC as leader who the other PCs don't think deserves it, and that leadership position comes with some kind of in game power. The next thing you know, rumors are flying about that person being the favorite of someone that runs the game, and that's why they were chosen. That's the kind of stuff that can lead to people quitting a LARP, even if there's no truth to it at all. On this stuff, perception is reality.
It's really best to just run the game and let the leadership issue sort itself out amongst the players. If they start failing to complete plot lines due to disorganization, you can point out that the problem was disorganization and that leadership would help them, but you should leave the actual appointing of leaders up to them whenever possible. When it's the group deciding to follow someone, the group is a lot more likely to accept it.
In the end, they're really the only ones who can make a leadership position work. It doesn't matter how much you want there to be a leader if there is nobody they're willing to follow.