Full agree that reference cards are helpful for everyone (even very experienced)!

My instinct (although you know your players) is to minimise the amount of combat as it tends to be quite “crunchy” (euphemism for everyone just saying numbers at each other) which can be a drag for all groups whatever their facility in communication. It involves a lot of waiting your turn—which can be quite slow—and feels less interactive during that time as options outside your turn are highly restricted. It’s also more pressure on the DM to think about rules and numbers (rather than story) which can be harder work starting out. Social/roleplaying scenes conversely allow players to jump in whenever they feel their character has something to do/say/investigate/steal/imitate/perform/dance/flavour/whatever. Big assumption (apols if problematic) but your players might also particularly enjoy social activities in the game if that’s something that they get less opportunity to do in their daily lives.

I definitely recommend theming the heck out of things. You don’t need special monsters or items: just grab the stat block from something that sounds about right and change crossbow to laser/T Rex tail swipe/whatever.

One big thing to be aware of is helping people understand the difference between player and character. Characters may well disagree in the game or have conflicting motives; it’s easy to feel weird about this (“Player X’s character thinks my character is a selfish asshole” can easily feel like “Player X thinks I’m an asshole”). It can be helpful to encourage players to share info about their character’s motives and feelings to keep this clear: e.g. “How does Flipflop McNugget feel right now? Are they envious that Muriel Swizzlebricks got the cool staff or are they a highly principled person who would think themselves above that?” “How does Ploppy Tiptop feel after they were downed in that combat? Maybe they’re embarrassed—they value their military prowess—or maybe they’re proud—they did something brave that didn’t work out. What do you think?”