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In recent years the kinetic Fokker-Planck approach for modeling gas flows has become increasingly popular. In the Fokker-Planck ansatz the collision integral of the Boltzmann equation is approximated by a Fokker-Planck operator in velocity space. Instead of solving the resulting Fokker-Planck equation directly, the underlying random process is modeled, which leads to an efficient stochastic solution algorithm. Despite the attention to the Fokker-Planck ansatz, the modeling of polyatomic gases has been addressed only in a few works. In this paper a scheme is presented to extend arbitrary monatomic Fokker-Planck models to model polyatomic species. A master equation approach is used to model internal energy relaxation, but instead of solving the master equation directly, the underlying random process is simulated. Three different models are suggested to describe internal particle energies as continuous scalars or as a set of discrete energy levels. The proposed models are applied on different test cases to demonstrate their accuracy. Within the bounds of expectations, a very good agreement with reference DSMC simulations is achieved. • A Master equation approach is applied to model internal energy relaxation. • Three models of varying fidelity are constructed to describe internal energy states. • Prediction of vibrational energy levels consistent with the Larsen-Borgnakke model. • Test cases show very good agreement with reference DSMC simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]