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this can always be the hardest part of any new game. what do people think of this one? help and ideas welcome.
a yearly public party. a city get together to commemorate the super heroes and new people. a chance for old and new alike to meet and mingle.
a chance for the public to meet their heroes, (and villains to have some immunity for a day)
also a chance for tech companies to show of new wares. a party and expo rolled into one.
then skies darken, clouds roll, magic erupts, and a ley line emerges!

I don't usually have one central starting point. A lot of the time I have players pick a starting point for each of their characters and then create a central crisis which will pull them together. It does not always work, though, as some players are not as easily baited. But overall it works okay.
You can also have a crisis center around one of the players' characters to which the others will respond.

Sounds like a trade show...I like it! Similar to the AUSA Conference or the SHOT Show. It needs a cool name though.

-STS

nathanyoung wrote:this can always be the hardest part of any new game. what do people think of this one? help and ideas welcome.

A character with Clairvoyance could make the introductions.

There are the...
...Bar Fight
...Jail Cell
...got sent (or invited) to a location to meet someone and they meet each other
...they got sent to "Hero School" and were all/mostly in the same class so they know each other already.
...get caught in the same room during something


to put most of that into context with the OP....

The chars are all from different parts of the country (world?) and have been sent tot he conference/convention to represent they local hero group. They are all in a live taking session when X happens to trap them (and maybe others) in that room/floor. Maybe it was the newbs party that is going on during the main confab party attended by the well know and established heros. The chars meet each other during the party (maybe a language barrier that nudges them together cause they are the only ones speaking english and the con's translators are all at the party for the established heros)
And something happens to incapacitate/ kill off/ disappear the established heros and the newbs are what are left to fight off the "whatever".
Which might leave the player chars drunk and they will hampered by the appropriate rules.

The problem with "Magic erupting" is that it does not really effect just one leyline. Maybe the convention center was built on a LL Nexus and there is a secret underground level to it where there is a guild that...ahhh just had a magic mishap or it was purposefully made. (or somewhere in-between).

Maybe it was a dual conference with the mages/magi holding their in the secret level only accessible by magic/magic abilities.

After the initial event you can have Portals to other worlds open up as side effects (or are they the main effects cause this is part of the minion war?) and bring in any of the multitude of monsters or foes from the other settings.

And at the end of that story arc they wake up to find themselves in a holding tank at the police station or the government agency that police the supers. And they have now been filmed and named as a group by ...that reporter that was following them around??? So for good and/or ill they are stuck together for the foreseeable future. move on to the next story arc.

Super Hero Flash Mob...

Thought I responded to this. You could have the convention hire them as security. Or have the mayor's office or city, hire them as new team of municipal defenders. Make each of them come up with a description of their character that is what the other PCs will know . One or two sentences, can be said in under five seconds.

I strongly recommend avoiding the issue entirely. The formation of the team is less important than the rest of the adventure and necessary for the adventure to happen. Just declare that the player characters know each other and are familiar enough with each other to set aside any differences they may have long enough to address the threat. Emphasize that alignment/personality conflicts may still occur, but skip past stuff that's more or less pointless.

Sometimes the easiest is the best:
"Somehow you all know each other"

If I wanted ideas for the campaign, I did this instead:
"Tell me how you know each other"

Bars and/or jails can work but for places like Century Station, or another powerful organization could just simply hire the heroes in question (as per the VU supplement) and assign them to assist a given city or a sector of the city. That's been the most effective in my campaigns so far.