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• Start off small: things are easier to manage that way, there are fewer nasty surprises, and its harder to find your story derailed by unexpected circumstances.  It's also easier to start off with a short campaign of limited scope, rather than invest yourself into an ambitious epic only to find that the players later want to switch characters and try something new, while you are getting burned out on the epic epicness of your plot and aren't feeling the inspiration any longer.  You can always use the short campaign as a launching point for something more epic later on.
• Use core classes and races at first.  It's perfectly alright to insist that players create characters using only the races and classes found in the core rulebooks until you are comfortable enough to let them play the half-vampire-half-drow-half-were-angel-green-ninja-necromancer-trenchcoat-samurai-psionic-assassins they found in the latest third-party splat-books!
• Don't worry about trying to prepare for every possible eventuality.  Over-preparation and micro-management of the campaign world can sometimes be tempting, but it's much easier and more fun to make a lot of things up as you go along.  Sometimes, inspiration can come to you from strange sources in the middle of the game; leave yourself room to make things up on-the-fly.
• Your players will spring surprises on you, constantly, by doing things you never dreamed of.  Don't let that shake you; roll with it and build on it.  You don't want to discourage fun, creative solutions from players who think outside the box.  Nothing can stifle fun faster than for a player to try something that seems to make sense in the game world, only to be told "you can't do that."  It can be difficult to shift gears when something happens you never counted on, but it is OK to take a break, research the rules, and adjust your story if you need a moment to figure out how to adjust the game to the players trip off the Yellow-Brick-Road or surprise so-crazy-it-might-just-work plan.
• The flavor text and descriptions are not rules, just helpful guides:  don't let them limit you or your players.  If a player wants to play a womanizing Dwarven Monk with a sense of humor, a callous Halfling Paladin with a drinking problem and doubts about her faith, or an Elf ranger with no interest in nature or magic and a fondness for stone carving and Hobgoblin epic poetry, resist the temptation to dismiss the character concepts as impossible, just because they don't fit with the flavor text in the Player's Handbook.  Likewise, Orcs in your world might be degenerate, troglodytic, albino cannibals with a cultural aptitude for building machinery, and a taste for meat looted from savage Dwarven burial grounds.  Meanwhile, one aspect of Garl Glittergold might be his role as the bloodthirsty Goblin deity of death, which demands periodic sacrifices of the fairest Goblin maidens for appeasement, lest he unleash Goblin extinction at the hands of Gnomish Barbarian hordes....

Apr 15, 2011 -- 9:09PM, Stryker_Seraphim wrote:

Thanks alot ill take all this into consideration my main worry is wether or not my aventure and encounters will continue to be up to snuff. My players insist that my sessions are epic but in my own mind they seem to be lackking as i said im a avid adventurer my old Dm was amazingly descriptive but not so much as to tell everything if you know what I mean. I guess im comparing myself to him to much. But I ramble again thanks for the advice im sure that this will be most help full in future sessions.

I think I know what you mean:  it can be tough following in the footsteps of a great DM.

Don't let that shake you:  as long as you and your players are having fun, you're doing things right, and after you find your stride, I think you'll feel a little better.  And it's OK to feel a bit uncertain about whether you are doing well:  I know have my doubts every time I DM, and I'm sure your old DM had his as well - I think it's something that happens with all creative people no matter what medium they express themselves in