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At my FLGS many people have been kicking around the idea of playing a Malifaux RP game. I have thus taken it upon myself to construct the rules and game myself. Can anyone offer any suggestions?

right now im at war on the following topics

-Do you play a naked character, building it and its story from the ground up, or do you play a master/henchmen attempting to achive certain goals.
-If building a character from base up, how? what are the options? what are the abilities, triggers, ect.?
-if starting with a master/henchman character, how does it become a RP game? are you stuck in your previously set abilities, just playing through a certain sotry in that characters life?

feedback and ideas would help alot.

I'd suggest playing a naked character, part of what has always appealed to me about RP gaming is the freedom to create an interesting and unique character. While I can see playing one of the current masters as being a laugh for a one off game, if you're running a campaign I can see it being more cohesive and believable to have a set of freshly generated characters.

I think the Dark Heresy model would work well for a Malifaux Roleplaying game. A group of allied characters working for a big boss man with one of the characters taking the lead, depending on the task at hand. As it's an RPG then it's fairly reasonable to expect the characters to be pretty special people, so perhaps they all get the ability to use Soul Stones.

As an example, you could have a group allied to the M&SU.

A Union Miner : Can raise an angry mob / Dynamite / Melee
An apprentice Steamfitter : limited magical attacks / spider creation
A Gunsmith : Equilibriumesque Shooting
A Doorman from The Star : Contacts / Melee / intimidation
And a Ronin mercenary : Contacts / Melee / Shooting

They are working for Ramos, or an underling of his and have a Cache of Stones to use in the completion of their task. The leader (Henchman) of the group is chosen depending on what they're doing in that scene or session, so if they are conducting an investigation, maybe they select the Doorman to head up these efforts, and he doles out the SS at the start of the session. Maybe they can spend a stone to guarantee a sucessful roll, or to make a trigger happen, or if you're sticking with cards to add to the original flip.

It's a pretty interesting concept to roll about in your head though

Any RPG with a decent mix of melee and technology would work fine.

I'd add a soulstone magic item, with some sort of prereqs or specialist skill to use it.

There have been the vaguest of rumors of a Mali RPG, but that could be wishful thinking.

Alrighty then. I'll keep everyone informed about the groups progress and how I'm running the RPG. I think I'm going to follow Kitt's idea but put a few spins on it. At the start you'll be able to pick a minion level humanoid character from outcasts, arcanists, or guild. The character will initally be an "Apprentice" level character with only one or two of his/her abilities. At certain points through the campaing your group will fight "boss" level characters (henchmen and masters depending on level) to "level." Upon leveling, you will be able to uncover a number of your abilities (Chosen by the Fate Master to keep balance). Once you have mastered your entire card you can spend your next level to enlist the help of another ally. This ally need not be humanoid but must be from your original faction. The group will start working for a mob boss attempting to exploit the M&Su and eventually naviagate their way to allying with the mercs against their former boss.

How does it sound?

For the fun of it as well, I guess try to incorporate the fate deck in place of usual dice rolls.

Black joker is complete failure, possibly leading to death or injuring others depending on the situation.
Weak is failure.
Moderate is well moderate.
Severe is success.
Red joker is great success.

Perhaps complicate it more by breaking it down into the ranges of each category, but the basic idea should be there.

That'll get your characters killed or stall out combat...

Just modify a scale proportionally, for instance, converting a D20:
Joker=1
weak=2-8
Moderate=9-13
Severe=14-19
Joker=20

and pick averages from that set.

Though, I feel like you should only utilise cards if you utilise hands (maybe one per player, per encounter), otherwise you're just arbitrarily converting one form of chance for another.

Yep
I'm actually thinking fo using the same combat system as malifaux so that shouldnt change much.

Always a good thing

Justin?