it motivates player behavior ot be more creative, more engaged.

From my experience, it only makes the players more aggressive with their dice hunting and a lot more assertive when it comes to roll timing.

i think the system would service L5R really well, because rokugan is ALL ABOUT the stories.

The problem with the narrative dice system is that the games are not about THE story but about dice results. As a GM, you have to be extremely lucky to hammer out a consistent story arc, because literally every roll a player makes can do something mind-blowingly crazy that throws the plot right into the trash bin.

yeah, this sounds like a problem of disconnect between players and system, not a problem with system. your players aren't engaging with the story, they're abusing the dice mechanic to gain leverage over the story. those are SUPER different. minmaxers are gonna hunt that mechanical edge no matter what system they play, and thats fine, thats a legit way to game, but its not the fault of the narrative system that they aren't buying into the fundamental philosophy.

The problem with the narrative dice system is that the games are not about THE story but about dice results. As a GM, you have to be extremely lucky to hammer out a consistent story arc, because literally every roll a player makes can do something mind-blowingly crazy that throws the plot right into the trash bin.

Then you're playing your narrative RPG systems wrong. If the playgroup is married 100% to dice results in any system you're going to have weird story arcs, because the dice don't care about your story. Good players (including GMs) in narrative systems know when to ignore the dice and when to enjoy them.

But if you are up to ignoring the dice results then what's the point of having them in the first place? Just roll a D10, 6 or higher is a success, the GM will tell you the rest. A good GM won't need all sorts of different dice results to tell his/her story.

your players aren't engaging with the story, they're abusing the dice mechanic to gain leverage over the story

I'm actually a player. And yeah, it is hard to focus on the story over the dice mechanics when the latter has overwhelming influence over the former. The dice tells you the story, so if you don't have the dice, then you can most likely kiss your story goodbye too (especially if the weather at the table is raining Despair).

The problem with the narrative dice system is that the games are not about THE story but about dice results. As a GM, you have to be extremely lucky to hammer out a consistent story arc, because literally every roll a player makes can do something mind-blowingly crazy that throws the plot right into the trash bin.

Then you're playing your narrative RPG systems wrong. If the playgroup is married 100% to dice results in any system you're going to have weird story arcs, because the dice don't care about your story . [emphasis added]

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I LOVE ABOUT RPGs.

And what's even more unpredictable than dice? PLAYERS.

Of course I think it's worthwhile to think about story pacing, and we can certainly draw inspiration for RPG stories from the story arcs of other media, but at the end of the day they're other media. RPGs allow us to play pretend without knowing the outcome of the story before it begins, and I embrace that wholeheartedly.

Look at me, getting all off topic all over the place again.

I do hear you @AtoMaki, about the wackiness that narrative dice system might impose on L5R, and I've been thinking about it a lot in the last few days. Which I kinda hate to admit, because you previously cited AngryGM.

The problem with the narrative dice system is that the games are not about THE story but about dice results. As a GM, you have to be extremely lucky to hammer out a consistent story arc, because literally every roll a player makes can do something mind-blowingly crazy that throws the plot right into the trash bin.

Then you're playing your narrative RPG systems wrong. If the playgroup is married 100% to dice results in any system you're going to have weird story arcs, because the dice don't care about your story. Good players (including GMs) in narrative systems know when to ignore the dice and when to enjoy them.

The same goes with good players (including Storyteller) in the current dice system... It's no different there. For me, the main problem about the narrative system is that the players knows the result right after the roll, before even the Storyteller tells the information. Of course the R&K can have these kind of moment, specially when a die explosed several time, but that's rare.

In my gains, most of the time, they don't even know if the result is good or bad, they just get an answer, which is really hard to do with narrative dice without doing some "meta-gaming". Of course, any good player will make abstraction of the rolled dice, but it's really hard to do it all the way through. On the other hand, when a player is doing an interrogation and rolled a 28 and gets an answer to his questions, it may be hard to know if the interrogation was a success. Maybe the person interrogated had a 43 roll and simply decided to say some believable bad information. I prefer my games to be like that.

And to give you an idea on my type of games, usually, there's 2 to 4 rolls in the entire game session, which are at least 4 hours. So I think that I can say that my games aren't based on dice rolling. Of course, there's more when there's a combat, but there's one major combat 1 each 3 game sessions. There's a few minor combat, which are mainly narrated. Based on this and based on the fact that the dice forces the hand of Storyteller, I am not interested in the narrative dice.

Then comes the "advantage" problems of the system... Sometime, there's situation where an advantage may be a headache to give. I don't have any example right now, but you know the kind of situation where you succeed or you fail, nothing between them and where the "advantage" is really meaningless. Some other time, it's where you forget these advantages. For example, let's say there's a battle and each players got 1 or 2 advantages each rolls (succeeding or failing their roll). After a while, it's pretty hard to track how many advantages are left and some people might get angry because the Storyteller forgot about X advantages for him. Sure, it is interesting to have some advantages (or disadvantage) once in a while, but, for me, it's easier when it's handled by the Storyteller, hidden from the players. This way, players are more interested in the campaign and knows the quality of the Storyteller, that's basically one thing that my players like about the way I'm storytelling, because I bring fun stuffs and it's not predictable and each rolls as a different meaning.

So yeah, everything that the narrative dice can bring is doable with the current system. On a very subjective point of view, I would even tell that it can bring it on a better level, but that's very subjective. But the narrative dice cannot bring everything of the current system, as said earlier in my post.

But if you are up to ignoring the dice results then what's the point of having them in the first place?

To have them influence the story, of course. You seem to have this weird belief that it has to be a binary all-in or nothing relationship between you and your dice at the RPG table. Like everything else, they're a tool. No matter what the game system, if the story doesn't make sense with what the dice give you, ignore the dice. Otherwise, use them. The dice are a mechanic, but you are not a computer. You're playing this game with your friends to have fun. If you want predetermined plotlines, computer RPGs are always available. They're entirely deterministic.

The same goes with good players (including Storyteller) in the current dice system... It's no different there. For me, the main problem about the narrative system is that the players knows the result right after the roll, before even the Storyteller tells the information.

Wait, you have a problem with your players being able to figure out the resolution of a die roll without GM intervention? Really?

Do you allow your players any input into your stories, or are they just there to walk through your interactive fanfiction novel?

But if you are up to ignoring the dice results then what's the point of having them in the first place?

To have them influence the story, of course.

But... they do regardless of whether they will get me a yes/no result or a yes/no/maybe/cancel/stop/YOLO/itsogre/whatever result. The difference being that the former leaves a lot more space for actual storytelling, while with the latter things can quickly deteriorate to the point where the game plays me (this was actually my exact player experience with the SW narrative dice system).

Example of what I'm talking about:

- R&K: My bushi strikes a bandit with his katana. I make a pretty good Attack roll, and it is just a bandit, so after the GM checks the numbers he tells me that the bandit is ded. I jump up from my chair, mimicking a wide sword swing, and declare that I cut down the bandit's head with one fell swoop. Hell yeah!

- Narrative Dice: My bushi strikes a bandit with his katana. I make a pretty good Attack roll, scoring 3 Successes, and it is just a bandit, but oh! There is a Threat in the result! The GM still tells me that the bandit is a goner, but I can't just jump up from my chair and tell my story, because there is something iffy going on, so I have to look into it first (and probably have an argument with the GM about what the Threat should represent), and tell the story as the dice demands it, not as I imagined it. In the end I become all sour about having that stupid Threat, and start playing with my Boost Dice, slowly but surely falling for the evil of Boost Dice Hunting.

The same goes with good players (including Storyteller) in the current dice system... It's no different there. For me, the main problem about the narrative system is that the players knows the result right after the roll, before even the Storyteller tells the information.

Wait, you have a problem with your players being able to figure out the resolution of a die roll without GM intervention? Really?

Do you allow your players any input into your stories, or are they just there to walk through your interactive fanfiction novel?

Yes, I do have a problem with the fact that my players knows directly the resolution of a dice roll. I've said an example with the interrogation which is a perfect example for that kind of situation. I mean, if the narrative system tells that the player failed with some disadvantage, it could mean that yes, the NPC under interrogation is tricking the players to believe what he says is true and it is really hard to believe that from the player's perspective, when you see the dice result in your face. While, when you roll a number and you don't know the TN, it's hard to know the result, because you have no idea if it's a success or not, if there's some raises taken or not. So yes I do have a problem when my players are able to figure out the resolution of a dice roll.

As for the way or storytelling, there's a lot of way to storytell a game. And yes, every action of my players has an impact on my stories and most of those don't even require any dice roll, so that's very off topic. You're almost talking as if the narrative dice is needed at all cost and you don't need to prepare anything. Any RP campaign is a fanfiction novel to a certain degree, because it needs a purpose, a goal. So based on your point, are you rolling a dice to prepare a bandit hidout and the dice will tell which rooms has trap in it? Geez, are you really sticked to dice that much?

As I've said, there's barely dice rolls in my game sessions so yes, I want to keep this kind of stuffs to my discretion. As you've said, a game is to have fun with friends, but if only the players have fun... These kind of stuffs is most of my fun during a game session, the rest of the fun is when I prepare the game, but that's alone. So yeah, I do prefer a system where the players don't know the resolution right away.

I am surely biased because I do not like the system, but you have to admit that you are biased to because you love it. However, I do agree that the R&K system isn't perfect and it does have flaws. But you seems to ignore the flaws of the Narrative System. As I've said in other topic about R&K VS Narrative Dice, if the 5th edition is with narrative dice, I will simply stick to the 4th edition since I have almost every book. However, of the 5th is R&K, I will have to look at it by at least buying the corebook, then see. That's how simple as it is for me and I will not lose much if it will go narrative dice, because the story will move on and, if there's new interesting mechanism (like schools), it's not hard to convert when you have a whole and almost complet system. As simple as that for me.

Edit:

AtoMaki example is exactly in the same direction of what I am saying, the dice is telling the player that there's something fishy. Something that can be done by the Storyteller itself without the players know about it, or force the Storyteller to keep with that situation even though this was a closure fight of a quest that lasted too long... It kinda feels like Iuchiban's story has been written with Narrative Dice... He's dead, yet he's not because of the threat! Fun? Not!

Or, you know, the character suffers the usual one strain that results from a threat. You guys are taking the mechanics entirely out of context.

And if it's a despair, and not a threat, that needs to be reconciled, your sword (or whatever weapon you are using) breaks. Not every result needs to be game-shattering. Like all RPGS, those results are going to be rare.

EDIT: Forgot there was more I wanted to say. Why is the result of the threat being argued? There are clear guidelines for what threats can entail, and if a player rolls a threat, it is for the GM to determine what that means. The narrative system used for Star Wars does rely on cooperation between GM and player suss out what happens with each roll of the dice, but it doesn't need to - and shouldn't - drag down the game. If you know the rules, if you know what each symbol means, this can be done off the cuff.

Adjusting to this sort of system if you'really used to keeping results a secret from your players is tough, but I think people tend to underestimate their players' ability to suspend meta game knowledge in service to telling an awesome story.

But if you are up to ignoring the dice results then what's the point of having them in the first place?

To have them influence the story, of course.

But... they do regardless of whether they will get me a yes/no result or a yes/no/maybe/cancel/stop/YOLO/itsogre/whatever result. The difference being that the former leaves a lot more space for actual storytelling, while with the latter things can quickly deteriorate to the point where the game plays me (this was actually my exact player experience with the SW narrative dice system).

Example of what I'm talking about:

- R&K: My bushi strikes a bandit with his katana. I make a pretty good Attack roll, and it is just a bandit, so after the GM checks the numbers he tells me that the bandit is ded. I jump up from my chair, mimicking a wide sword swing, and declare that I cut down the bandit's head with one fell swoop. Hell yeah!

- Narrative Dice: My bushi strikes a bandit with his katana. I make a pretty good Attack roll, scoring 3 Successes, and it is just a bandit, but oh! There is a Threat in the result! The GM still tells me that the bandit is a goner, but I can't just jump up from my chair and tell my story, because there is something iffy going on, so I have to look into it first (and probably have an argument with the GM about what the Threat should represent), and tell the story as the dice demands it, not as I imagined it. In the end I become all sour about having that stupid Threat, and start playing with my Boost Dice, slowly but surely falling for the evil of Boost Dice Hunting.

this is legit not how the system works. you're flat out misrepresenting it. your R&K example is just as valid in the star wars system. you roll a threat. great. you do something epic, you sit down, then you decide "from the bushes, someone watches me, and swear revenge for the death of his friend!". thats more epic! or maybe you just want to move on, so you hand it to GM to deal with next time he/she rolls. or as deraforia said you take the strain.

and that all said, you're presenting it like delaying your instant gratification moment of jumping out of the chair is somehow the failing of the game. again, its not. thats not the game's problem, thats yours. thats you not wanting to play that kind of game. which is FINE, but don't act like narrative games have some kind of innate failure because they don't fit your playstyle.

this is legit not how the system works. you're flat out misrepresenting it. your R&K example is just as valid in the star wars system. you roll a threat. great. you do something epic, you sit down, then you decide "from the bushes, someone watches me, and swear revenge for the death of his friend!".

Uhm... according to the rulebook, Threats are worked out by the GM and not by the player. I'm not exactly sure if I can even steal the chance with Destiny.

And yeah, we have been at the "Threat = Strain" stage, it ended with "Why do we need narrative dice for this?" and lots of confusion (and my Bounty Hunter incapacitating himself from the thrill of slaughtering stormtroopers), so we danced back to figure out specific effects for Threats.

this is legit not how the system works. you're flat out misrepresenting it. your R&K example is just as valid in the star wars system. you roll a threat. great. you do something epic, you sit down, then you decide "from the bushes, someone watches me, and swear revenge for the death of his friend!".

Uhm... according to the rulebook, Threats are worked out by the GM and not by the player. I'm not exactly sure if I can even steal the chance with Destiny.

And yeah, we have been at the "Threat = Strain" stage, it ended with "Why do we need narrative dice for this?" and lots of confusion (and my Bounty Hunter incapacitating himself from the thrill of slaughtering stormtroopers), so we danced back to figure out specific effects for Threats.

its a GM call who resolves threats, technically, so i guess yes, the GM would have a moment there, but the point stands. the GM could make that moment epic, or you could mutually decide on it. The point is, thaty threat isn't some kind of buzzkill, its an opportunity for successful moments to lay the seeds for future complications, just like failures can give you advantages that can be mechanical or can setup future successes.

the fact that you focused immediately on a technicality, then moved on to "threat=strain" and ignored the rest of my comment just kind of serves to reinforce the point i'm trying to make here. this system obvious just isn't your cup of tea. which is fine, but thats not the fault of the system. you're crunchy, and R&K is hella crunchy, so that makes sense why you love it so much, but don't act like that means narrative type games are flawed because they don't fit your style.

its a GM call who resolves threats, technically, so i guess yes, the GM would have a moment there, but the point stands. the GM could make that moment epic, or you could mutually decide on it. The point is, thaty threat isn't some kind of buzzkill, its an opportunity for successful moments to lay the seeds for future complications, just like failures can give you advantages that can be mechanical or can setup future successes.

It isn't a buzzkill, it just slows down the game and shifts focus from the story to the dice results. I'm not arguing that this is inherently wrong, only that this isn't inherently better either. At which point the question is whether we want the shift and why we want it.

the fact that you focused immediately on a technicality

Yeah, because my problem with the SW system boils down to the excess amount of technicality it has under its thin layer of narrative mechanics. It is, like, you can't do it right: you either get bogged down with the details or kill the narrative nature with endless amount of fixed (and boring) results.

Kinda married to R&K for actually a thematic reason. A big theme in Chambara and Jidaigeki stories and a lot of Japanese mythology is that the best laid plans can be brought low by the lowest of things, something completely random, or Fate simply hating you (this does show up a bit in Chinese and Korean myth too) and things go wrong. The Film Sword of Doom actual does this near it's end to get the point across. R&K handles this fairly well. The Star Wars system.....does not and many of my players who play L5R as well as Star Wars DO NOT like the symbols/degree of success system and would likely not pick up the new edition if it used this. FFG is much better served by keeping R&K, cleaning it up a bit, and putting out clan themed d10 dice, which would sell.

Okay guys, hear me out! I mentioned this discussion in my club, and one of the GMs (not the one I've played SW with) was, like, "YOLO, let's do this!" So it looks like I'm going to try out L5R with the SW special dice system. For the time being we decided to just copy-paste the basics (traits, skills, etc) from R&K to special dice, with the following changes:

- Destiny obviously gets the cut. Void Points are the new Light Side Points, while Dark Side Points are gone for good (we dislike adversary GM dice anyway).

- +1k0 bonus translates to added dice. +0k1 bonus translates to upgraded dice. Free Raise is now a Free Advantage (and generally, Raise = Advantage).

- Rings upgrade Trait checks. Insight upgrades Ring checks.

- School Skills = Career Skills. No Talents, We calculate Insight normally as per in R&K.

- 200 starting xp because of the higher number of Traits and Skills. Characters can upgrade Traits in-game as per during character creation.

Wish me luck .

Okay guys, hear me out! I mentioned this discussion in my club, and one of the GMs (not the one I've played SW with) was, like, "YOLO, let's do this!" So it looks like I'm going to try out L5R with the SW special dice system. For the time being we decided to just copy-paste the basics (traits, skills, etc) from R&K to special dice, with the following changes:

- Destiny obviously gets the cut. Void Points are the new Light Side Points, while Dark Side Points are gone for good (we dislike adversary GM dice anyway).

- +1k0 bonus translates to added dice. +0k1 bonus translates to upgraded dice. Free Raise is now a Free Advantage (and generally, Raise = Advantage).

- Rings upgrade Trait checks. Insight upgrades Ring checks.

- School Skills = Career Skills. No Talents, We calculate Insight normally as per in R&K.

- 200 starting xp because of the higher number of Traits and Skills. Characters can upgrade Traits in-game as per during character creation.

Wish me luck .

Good luck, for what it's worth. I think you guys are making some mistakes in your conversion, but it's your game. If you don't have fun, please don't hold it against the system. You're butchering it, and considering what you've already said about how you used the dice results, I don't even trust that the dice system itself will be used correctly.

Seriously, though. Good luck. I hope you prove me wrong and have a blast!

Okay guys, hear me out! I mentioned this discussion in my club, and one of the GMs (not the one I've played SW with) was, like, "YOLO, let's do this!" So it looks like I'm going to try out L5R with the SW special dice system. For the time being we decided to just copy-paste the basics (traits, skills, etc) from R&K to special dice, with the following changes:

- Destiny obviously gets the cut. Void Points are the new Light Side Points, while Dark Side Points are gone for good (we dislike adversary GM dice anyway).

- +1k0 bonus translates to added dice. +0k1 bonus translates to upgraded dice. Free Raise is now a Free Advantage (and generally, Raise = Advantage).

- Rings upgrade Trait checks. Insight upgrades Ring checks.

- School Skills = Career Skills. No Talents, We calculate Insight normally as per in R&K.

- 200 starting xp because of the higher number of Traits and Skills. Characters can upgrade Traits in-game as per during character creation.

Wish me luck .

out of curiosity: in star wars, you recover light side points when the GM flips them from dark side. what mechanic are you gonna use to recover void points when they are spent?

Good luck, for what it's worth. I think you guys are making some mistakes in your conversion, but it's your game. If you don't have fun, please don't hold it against the system. You're butchering it, and considering what you've already said about how you used the dice results, I don't even trust that the dice system itself will be used correctly.

We are open to suggestions, the game is still two days away! And again, we are going to have a different GM this time who is completely new to the system (not to narrative dice, though you don't want to hear about his Blood&Honor game), so things might turn out quite differently this time.

out of curiosity: in star wars, you recover light side points when the GM flips them from dark side. what mechanic are you gonna use to recover void points when they are spent?

The exact same as in R&K: rest, Meditation, or Tea Ceremony. So Void Points essentially work the exact same way as R&K Void Points (I even plan to roll up a Shiba Bushi and try out Void Nuking with narrative), but give the benefits of Light Side Points.

Good luck, for what it's worth. I think you guys are making some mistakes in your conversion, but it's your game. If you don't have fun, please don't hold it against the system. You're butchering it, and considering what you've already said about how you used the dice results, I don't even trust that the dice system itself will be used correctly.

We are open to suggestions, the game is still two days away! And again, we are going to have a different GM this time who is completely new to the system (not to narrative dice, though you don't want to hear about his Blood&Honor game), so things might turn out quite differently this time.

Also depends on what kind of game you're doing, I suppose. Is there going to be combat? If so, have you guys worked out weapon stats, including special qualities? You wouldn't have to figure out every weapon in the book, obviously, just the ones being used.

I'd like to encourage you to use the destiny pool as is, but I don't know how that can play with the mechanics for void points.

My best advice is to get comfortable with the symbols and what they mean. Keep a cheat sheet (or GM screen) ready with what each result can do. Not to say don't get creative, especially with Triumph and Despair, just have a good idea what the baseline is to extrapolate from. I also suggest that whoever rolls the dice determines advantages but not threats. All rolls should be open. So if the GM rolls a threat, the players should get to decide what that means. So long as you can come up with that quickly.

Honestly, I'm really happy you're giving the dice another shot, even if I'm nervous about the circumstances.

Edit: boy I sure do like to say "honestly"

Trying to jam a different resolution mechanic into a completely different system just seems like you're headed for trouble.

I don't think it is such a big deal at all. Traits are Characteristics, Skills are Skills, you don't really need much else. The biggest problem we had was the more esoteric SW Skills like Cool and Resilience in the classic L5R setup, but Resilience is essentially Stamina and Cool is essentially Willpower, so there is that. Obviously, as a narrative dice system, SW is very mechanics-light and thus you can't really screw over or "butcher" it with simple thematic changes (like Destiny vs Void, or number of Characteristics/Skills).

And yeah, I guess the adventure is going to be combat heavy because we have 3 bushi and 1 ninja so far (1 bushi is thinking about being a courtier instead). For weapons we have the katana (dam +2, crit 3, vicious 1), the wakizashi (dam +2, crit 3, defensive 1), the naginata (dam +3, crit 3), the ono (dam +3, crit 2, cumbersome 4, pierce 1, vicious 1), the yari (dam +2, crit 3, pierce 1), and shurikens (dam 2, crit 4, short).

Good luck, for what it's worth. I think you guys are making some mistakes in your conversion, but it's your game. If you don't have fun, please don't hold it against the system. You're butchering it, and considering what you've already said about how you used the dice results, I don't even trust that the dice system itself will be used correctly.

We are open to suggestions, the game is still two days away! And again, we are going to have a different GM this time who is completely new to the system (not to narrative dice, though you don't want to hear about his Blood&Honor game), so things might turn out quite differently this time.

out of curiosity: in star wars, you recover light side points when the GM flips them from dark side. what mechanic are you gonna use to recover void points when they are spent?

The exact same as in R&K: rest, Meditation, or Tea Ceremony. So Void Points essentially work the exact same way as R&K Void Points (I even plan to roll up a Shiba Bushi and try out Void Nuking with narrative), but give the benefits of Light Side Points.

Try asking him if being HONORABLE! could restore your Void Side Points. We switched to that in our R&K L5R and it works wonders at providing a carrot for roleplaying Honorable Samurai.

So, we had the game. It was good, I enjoyed it, but... After roughly two hours and 10 checks into the game the GM worked himself up so hard on the dice he asked us to roll our dice on his side of the table - then he proceeded to modify our dice results at whim, usually turning Threats to Blank, turning Advantages to Success, or removing Despairs (really, out of the ~10 Despairs we rolled through the session I think only one or two were actually resolved). This solved something, like, 90% of the problems I have with the system, but I'm fairly sure this isn't how it is meant to be played. Also, I found it somewhat disappointing that the general feel around the table after the game was "the story is good, let's continue it, but we should really go back to R&K" - the GM was pretty 'meh' about the special dice system (leaning more towards a negative opinion), one player absolutely hated it, another player felt uneasy about it, while me and the fourth player were ok (common point: our characters were highly competent in one way (Void nuking) or another (overspecialization)).

Overall, while I see the light at the end of the tunnel, I'm also having this feeling that there might be no reason to change R&K for special dice. In fact, I'm having this feeling that the special dice system is a thinly veiled binary resolution system with a twist (in a way that it is binary on 2+1 axis) rather than a true narrative resolution system. At which point I truly has to ask the question of what unique mechanic the special dice can offer over R&K... so far, I could find nothing.

Let's start from the beginning:
Roll & Keep is the mechanical soul of the game system and changing the structure of rolling and keeping dice would change the game way too much.
It wouldn't feel like L5R.

Want to see what L5R looks like with a different rule system? Check "Oriental Adventures" for D&D 3.X.
It feels wrong.

Let's talk about narrative dice.
I personally hate them for a passion and they killed one of my favorite games (Warhammer Fantasy) with that crap. You enjoy the Star Wars RPG? Good for you. Here's my argument against it:

1) It would be a poor substitute to roll and keep.
The mechanical structure of the game is about rolling and keeping dice, different numerical tiers tie to narrative effects already. Narrative dice would HAMPER the narrative you can create with the system not improve it like I saw some people arguing. We already have a system that is simple, intuitive and it's all about the narrative without some stupid specialty dice throw into the mix.
2) It would be a complete nightmare to play it online.
Which may seem like a small problem when you realize there's a huge community for this online including a big bi yearly event in the Winter Court.

tl;dr
Why change what already works? Refine it, improve on it, but do not scrap the soul of the game. And by the love of everything that is sacred keep that narrative dice to Star Wars or something.

a couple of broad points:

1) i generally reject the notion that you can't have an l5r rpg without R&K. R&K is deeply invested in supporting the setting, but theres nothing to say another system wouldn't do so better, and i can make an argument that the frequently aggressive crunch is counterproductive, but thats another conversation. my point is i don't think its impossible to imagine something else also working as well or better.

2) i think the "narrative dice suck!" vs "l5r should have narrative dice!" conversation is probably futile. i don't know for sure, but i'm guessing that star wars' dice system, from the symbols all the way down to the actual mechanics probably, are locked into the star wars game. while i do personally think the l5r rpg, should FFG do one, is in for a big and likely narrative overhaul, i would guess that the specifically star wars style dice are more or less copyrighted to that setting.

Why change something that works and it's beloved?
FFG track record with systems that use narrative dice so far is 50/50.