On the recommendation of one of my players, I'm watching Misfits, a British TV show about kids (Their ages aren't so far specifically stated; they're old enough to drink and young enough to live at home, so late-teens to early 20s, I guess) serving community-service sentences who get super powers. The recommendation included an explicit desire for me to run a game like this.

I'm watching it and thinking about what system to run it in. I want to ask this question more clearly than my last system-for-setting question, so here are some specific points to consider when answering:

WARNING! Spoilers Below!

If you haven't watched the series but plan to, you might not want to read what follows. I tried to separate setting spoilers from the system requirements, but it just didn't work.


The world is gritty and the power level is relatively low. It reminded me of Wild Cards, with "the storm" as the catalyzing event. Therefore, the system must support fine gradations in power - the scale is pretty low, so a small advantage needs to be representable.
Powers are uncontrollable - at least at first. Alisha's lust-inspiring power is uncontrolled as far as I have watched, and the immortality power (obviously) works without conscious effort. Curtis' time rewind is a power of huge significance, but it's not controlled by the beginning of the second season either. Therefore the system must support uncontrolled and unreliable powers.
The system you recommend must support regular humans as significant combat threats - Sally gave Simon a real fight. Player character death must be a real possibility.
This is also an ensemble drama, like Buffy, and much of the story is about the changing relationships between the characters.


When answering, please include only one system per answer to facilitate voting.

In your answer please address the following:


How that system fits the given criteria
What special or unique features of the system are particularly suited to driving this style of play


I will not accept answers along the lines of, "You can do this (or anything) in any system". They will be downvoted and / or flagged for deletion. This question presupposes that System Does Matter.


Question: Would this work? Using a computer SMPS as a DC-DC converter
Answer: Is cost a factor?  If not, then how about using the batteries in series-parallel to get 24VDC and using a PSU that is made for 24VDC?   I had this setup some time ago when I had 5 machines running in a 19" rack.  Worked quite well as a very efficient UPS.  (Although the 24VDC PSUs are more expensive than standard ones)

I just ran a very simple step-down/rectify/regulate circuit to trickle-charge the batteries.