Dexter, like... um...
The Mentalist and
The Glades (only the latter of which I watch), is a One-man Band (OMB) show. You have a single PC and the world revolves exclusively around
that PC. That makes it hard to simulate with a game that encourages
all PCs to be awesome, or, at least, important.
Even
Burn Notice (an arguable OMB) has Fi and Sam as PCs; they've just accepted that, y'know, every other session will focus on the GC's boyfriend because, y'know, they're all friends and, "Whatever, we'll go play Xbox until you're done."
The only games that I know of that suitably simulate high-powered PCs interacting with low-powered NPCs are...
- The Buffy the Vampire Role-playing Game: High-powered PCs are vastly more unlucky than low-powered PCs. Sure, you can play Buffy... and you can beat the crap out of anything, but bad things happen to you all the damn time, while Willow and Xander can sit back and become magical gods and Nick Fury in your shadow.
- Villains and Vigilantes: You play the actual you. Roll your powers. Talk to the GM. Make both parties happy. Begin fighting crime. Old school system. What you bring to the table is what you bring to the table. Yeah, the Wasp leads Thor into battle. Deal. She's better at tactics than, "Hit things with hammer!" So you listen. It works.
Few other things do. Even my favorite game,
Spycraft. It's just not built that way. Unless you're lucky enough to have just one dedicated player who can stare you in the face for hours on end.
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