Broke: The first time your party encounters legendary resistances is in a fight against the BBEG.

Woke: The first time your party encounters legendary resistances is when they try to use suggestion on a random NPC.

You should try to run a game that both you and all of your players want to play in. If your players want to play in a noblebright sword and sandals world while you’re building a dark fantasy pirate setting, some compromises are going to be necessary for everyone to have a good time.

Stealing content from your favorite media is possibly the oldest and most widespread tradition amongst DMs. Always fine to do, just so long as you don’t make your inspirations too obvious.

The phrase “no DnD is better than bad DnD” applies to individual sessions as well as campaigns. It’s often better to cancel a session that you’re not feeling good about, rather than ending up with a mediocre session that you’re stuck having to build off of.

Though this will depend a lot on your party, your ability as a DM to say “No, but…” is often just as important as your ability to say “Yes, and…”

I have found no better advice on how to DM than this quote from Dwight D. Eisenhower:

"I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable"

You cannot plan for everything your players might do, but it is vital to have plans in place to improvise off of.