Active Exploits

Active Exploits is a Universal System that uses no dice. Every time your character does something difficult, it takes some points of "Effort". Appropriate skills give you some points of Effort for free; if you need more than that, you have to get Extra Effort from other sources. Extra Effort is a limited resource; if you level a skill past level 3, each successive level gives you a point of Extra Effort that you can spend exactly once, and then it's gone forever. But you can get Extra Effort from other sources, such as the help of other characters, Luck Points that represent nothing in particular, and Discipline Points that represent being a Badass—spend too many of those at once, though, and you'll take fatigue damage. The Game Master is not supposed to tell you exactly how much Effort is required for a given task, so there's still luck involved.

Active Exploits is published by Precis Intermedia. It is cross-compatible with their other systems, Genre Diversion and Impresa (the system used by Iron Gauntlets). They have been nice enough to post the official core rules on Scribd.