sounds great!
i am a bit late, but if you like, you can have some advice from me too...
I love this sort of game, and I know many of my players would as well. The problem is, I'm just not sure that I have the sort of skill to be able to weave that stuff in on the fly. I mean, for one character, maybe; but for a whole party? unlikely.
nobodoy is perfect the first time. all you need is practice and learning by doing. even now and then (being a seasoned GM with around 20 years of experience) after particularly long campaigns or after some "experiments" (strange astral quests in shadowrun and the like), i tend to send my players a questionaire by email with some questions. have they enjoyed it, was it too gruesome, or should it have been more gruesome? where they satisfied with how things were handled, which NPC did they like/dislike, etc. next time we meet we talk it over and i see where i could expand themes or did things which i should not do, because not all enjoyed them.
other advice i can give:
x) be prepared, have a plan, but be ready to improvise as players tend to go their own ways.
x) make handouts of important things you want to give the player (maps, building schematics, pictures of vehicles, etc.)
x) as I enjoy TV shows with a greater story arc than the current hour (babylon 5), i tend to loosely prepare for the next 5 to 7 stories. it gives my players the feeling to be a part of a larger world, when something they encountered a few weeks ago clicks into place.
x) don't be shy to adapt from other sources, but do it wisely and don't get caught. no seriously, steal only from the best. think about what you like in a show, a movie, a novel and then think about how it was done and try to bring that element in your story.
x) apart from one power gamer in my player group no one complains when i put a good story over the rules. my opinion is that rules should not hamper a good story - even my complaining player knows that when his dungeons and dragons priest can't resurrect the fallen NPC hero who stand with them for a while then it's for a greater good. ("but i should be able to resurrect him!" - "yeah, you are sure it should work, but it seems that the goods have cast a shadow upon his sacrifice... " and then he accuses me of using "scripted events"...
)
x) as others already said: when you think as the bad guy: be ruthless - but when you are the GM: be fair
x) sometimes the player will have a better idea than you did have when you were designing a trap or something like that. if they do real creative thinking, let them go with that, and see where it leads. it's something i try to encourage in my group. (but don't let them always know.) sometimes my group did that and the new way they thoght of forced me to improvise but overall improved the whole story and made it more interesting, even for me, as i did not know where it would lead at the moment.
x) i tend to have one or two NPCs who are there for the group, sometimes they are part of the party. i can use them if they really overlooked something. ("mark walks up to you and whispers in your ear: "i am not sure, but i think i saw something back there, would you care to take another look?") but they can also be used as plot hooks, dispensers of cryptic knowledge
a player who RPs like the wallpaper, she never does anything until you start poking at her.
that's alright. some player involve themselves into the game by themselves, others need to be involved by somebody or something else.
