The good ol’ fashioned “You all meet in a tavern, answering a poster offering gold for help…”? The action-scene, “You’re all engaged in mutual mundane task, when suddenly a band of thugs/goblins/whatever bust in looking for the plot coupon and chaos breaks out”? The “Elder Scrolls classic” - all being prisoners thrown in together? Tie it in to a character’s backstory and let them lead the other party members in?
What have you found interesting or successful, and why?
Tried a bunch of things, played a bunch of things.
Best scenario was a number of 1:1 sessions (one player, one DM). They led to situations where characters met in quite realistic situations. Takes a bit of flexibility, though. At one point, my character arrived somewhere, and my DM told me to wait, he had to make a call. After that, I had what I thought was an NPC interaction, when a friend arrived, and took this “NPC” over. It was his character.