I'm a new dm and i have never made a Champaign that has gone long term the longest i made ended abruptly by the party getting eaten by a plant. So recently i tried to do another Champaign with some friends i had told them to begin with that i intended on using homebrew as to make the world more unique as well as i alr had an idea of what i wanted to do and a world i had several years' worth of lore i would like to use. when the first few npcs the party meets are homebrew, they got very unconfutable and decided to scrap the Champaign and do one with no homebrew. i could tell that me using a lot of homebrews off put them and i want to try the Champaign again but do in a way that doesn't off put the party. any tips for how to make a homebrew as well as story heavy Champaign without overwhelming the party.

First up it's important to remember it's only champaign if it comes from the champaign region of France, otherwise it's just sparkling role play (only joking but I couldn't resist)

Second, and more on topic, do you know why your players were uncomfortable with a homebrew world? I've heard a lot of D&D horror stories over the years but "my DM had put in a lot of work to create their own world" has never been one of them. Especially if you'd already told them before hand you were running a home brew world it seems like a strange thing to react badly to unless you've deliberately created a world that crosses all their personal boundries.

Third is some advice on delivering it and that's to try and avoid lore dumps. Whether home brew or pre-written players in my experience rarely care about the world as much as the DM so don't try and persuade them to love it by spending hours at a time telling them about every little thing you've dreamt up. Only share the bits of lore that are relevant to what they're doing or that directly answers questions they have and just resign yourself to the fact about 70% of your world will never see the light of day. It's frustrating but sadly that's what you're most likely to encounter

love the Champaign joke idk my auto correct did that. and second i asked a friend who was in that group, and they said it was because the map looked too boarding (it was my first time making a map and yes it didn't look good) and that they went into it not know anything about the world since it was almost all homebrew which they didn't like. I will say i believe that not giving them much info on the world was my fault i think i just got to caught up in wanting the party to explore the world to figure out the lore, and since the map looked bad i they didn't want to explore the map. thanks for the info it really helps i will try to keep lore drops to a minimum.

i do agree that their reaction was strange as they never even got the names of the first group of npcs before quitting. i can give you a summary of what happened to see if you know why they reacted badly. *Prologue on how the party ended up capsizing their boat etc* they wake up surrounded by 6 lycan who seem to be talking amongst themselves about the party and what to do with them. i ask the party what the wish to do. no joke they say idk there's nothing to do. after me going over the scene again in greater detail. one says yeah can i just Dm instead and the rest of the party agreed.

i asked a friend who was also confused by their actions. Still thank you for the feedback i appreciate it.

That does seem very weird, what you’ve described there sounds like a perfectly serviceable plot hook for the start of a campaign so I’m sorry you got that reaction, especially as you’re only just starting out. I’m afraid to say it sounds like the players had already made up their minds before they got there that they were t going to enjoy it and wanted the other guy to DM which is not fair on you 

Edit to add suggestion: If they’re willing to give it another go (and you’re willing to give them another go) it might be worth picking up either Lost Mines of Phandelver or Dragon of Icespire Peaks from the starter set and essentials kits. They’re both short campaigns set in the Forgotten Realms but more importantly they’re set in a small village and its surrounding area so you can easily just drop it into your world. Once they’ve had the experience of a prewritten campaign they’re asking for and you’ve had some practice DMing you can expand from that one village to the nearest city and start building your world from there. Even Critical Role started in a village with no idea of the bigger world and now’s there’s whole books on Exandria 

thank you i will consider looking into a prewritten campaigns as for the group after that im not to thrilled about doing a campaign with them again if i don't things exactly as the like they just are going to quit. Any good places to find some people ( i like small parties 3-4 people)

There’s a find a group thread on these forums that’s worth a go, or try your local game store or board game cafe if you’ve got any near you. There’s normally more players than DMs in an area so someone willing to give it a go doesn’t have much trouble filling a table 

I think not knowing alot about the world is a great thing as it gets people wanting to explore more. How many first army in war game or first player race in a role playing game was because of cool factor alone? Was I the only one that picked dark elves because I wondered into a mall Games Workshop and saw knights riding murder lizard? No?

This all sounds off. 1. You are a new at this. 2. Even experianced DMs are making it up as they go. 3. Most of the stuff we do, even when working with the Forgotten Realms, is still going to be made up as you go along. 

Maybe give them some hints or say this or that about the world, but otherwise, I am not sure what your pllayers were expecting.

Generally speaking players do not care about your world - and they want the mechanics to fit in the established D&D meta so they can plan their classes, actions, gear progression etc. 

If you have a whole new magic system it has to be documented and distributed to the players ahead of time so they understand what the rules are, what are they jumping into? 

You can not ask people to play basketball and the spring a hockey game on them - it just does not work. 

Trying to see it from your players' perspective, maybe they thought they were supposed to fight the six werewolves and thought you were just setting them up for a TPK?

When you say the werewolves were discussing "what to do" with the players, was it more like "we should bring these strangers to the chief" or more like "I prefer leg to breast meat"? What level were your players?  Your players might've just felt powerless in that moment and unsure how they'd be able to win? If so, that's something you can work around. If you see that happening, you can simply take off your "game hat" and say something along the lines of "these guys aren't meant to kill you right now, this is building to something later and you'll have an opportunity to escape" just to let them know generally what you have in mind. 

As for aversion to playing in a homebrew world, yeah idk never heard that one before. Maybe try to give them a summary guide to the world that would give them the info their characters would just know being from there, but not so much that they lose interest. Just email it all to them in a word doc or something. 

One last thing to mention here: if you're using a lot of homebrew that the group doesn't know, then it might feel to them like you're just making things up to stop whatever they try to do - even if you have legitimate reasons or stories/etc for it. 

If you're going to use homebrew in a world, you should have a session zero to discuss exactly what kind of homebrew will be in the world.