Re: Any tips for a new GM?
These may or may not have been covered, consider them being covered more than once how important they are:
1) If a player has an opinion, it's just as valid as yours if they present it without being rude.
2) Taylor your game to your players, don't expect them to conform.
3) When someone says "Age is just a number", remind them that no... age is a word, 3.14 is a number.
4) Make every party member feel needed, or they'll get bored and leave.
5) Make logical rules, enforce them, and follow them yourself.
6) If your grand scheme is defeated easily, then just play it off as an oversight by the person scheming. Reforming your scheme to always be on point is called the Aizen Syndrome. (Aka: "I KNEW you'd turn the stone foundation of my tower to lava, incinerating my first floor, which is why I kept the one magical mcguffin you need to kill me in there! Haha! I win anyway!" ... That's just being mean to the players).
7) Player deaths should always be looked at as failures on the GM's part, or stupid choices and/or BAAAAAD luck on the player's.
8) If you expect your players to post a minimum amount of times per day/week, they expect you to.
9) Don't be afraid of players disagreeing IC, that WILL happen. If however a resolution can't be reached, have an NPC add insight that may sway one or both of them.
10) Add unique elements. We played in a campaign which ran a long time, and after hitting level 15, we had a few weeks where we RPed our character's history. We RPed them as level 0 characters with almost nil ability to defend themselves, carrying on tasks that were pretty much not dangerous, but that visiting the past was an interesting way to flesh out new futures, and gave our GM plenty of time to come up with new stuff.
11) Don't build a world, build modules that can fit in any world with minor tweaking. Players will often change your world making some of your ideas no longer fit.
12) Everyone immune 100% to acid? Change the beast that spits acid to spit lightning. If players feel too powerful they'll grow bored. Even if you REALLY wanted to use acid, if I can't be hurt by it by any means, I'll show off by drinking it right out of the acid trap just to spit in the face of the person trying to use it against me. But if he tries to use acid, sees I'm immune, then changes to lightning, well crap he's too smart for that, time to be serious.
13) Have fun. It's just a game. If you can't have fun, your players WON'T have fun.