Thus Spake Zaranephilpal/IrrationalVirtues
People are correct about Virtues. They are there to drive characters into quandaries that are frustrating for the character and generate plot for the game. At high levels, Virtues aren't about playing real personalities in an unreal setting. Instead, they are about playing larger-than-life characters in a larger-than-life setting whose personality extremes simultaneously empower and handicap.
It is intended to suck when you know the the best answer is killing off the bad guy, but your Compassion is telling you not to do that. At that point, you grit your teeth and fail the roll or spend the Willpower -- or secretly hope your less Compassionate circlemate will step up and insert his sword in the villain before you can react.
To get Virtues with different leeway, you need Charms that give your Virtues more leeway.
As any narrativist worth his salt will tell you, a good story needs tension and drama. Moreover, the most powerful conflicts are internal conflicts. Taking traits that sabotage your character's goals to create internal conflict on your own terms means that much of the story has already been written. All the Storyteller has to do is steer the character toward a conflict between "what I want to do" and "what my morals compel me to do" and you have plot. Sweet, sticky, awesome plot.
By contrast, gamists looking to win the game (make optimal play decisions and triumph as a result) can be frustrated by stuff like Virtue mechanics because they are set up to make a character simultaneously more and less competent. They are also traits that partially surrender free will (in that you can be compelled to adhere to Virtues when out of Willpower even when you know it's a bad plan, tactically speaking). Free will is akin to the holy grail for many gamists, so it's not surprising that Virtues don't always appeal.
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If the system lets you play conflicted mythic heroes with gaping personality flaws as well as ruthlessly-effective pragmatists, but rewards you for going with the former, then I'd say it's working just as intended.
More from the above discussion.
When answering a challenge would be suicide as you have reason to understand it, the unacceptable order rule pops up and saves your overly-Valorous ass.
So basically, "lolno."
Virtues have some subjectivity. They don't have much subjectivity. They are intended to give people package-deal flaws that frustrate characters and ideally won't frustrate players. Some players looking to simulate the complexities of human psyches rather than larger-than-life characters in a myth will be frustrated by these limits. They are welcome to house rule all they want (and ought to do so to produce a superior play experience), but that's not how the system works.
Whether it should work in the "I define my Virtues as I want" way is another matter entirely. I don't think so, personally, and in my position, I'm likely to keep it the way I want it. That said, I can certainly see where the other side is coming from.
