Oofta
Legend
If I'm not excited and invested in the campaign world I'm running, I'm not going to do as good a job as DM. I don't see why that's controversial. If the world doesn't make sense to me how can I build on that?It feels like what he's getting at is that he won't run a game where he's not fairly happy with the set-up. Is that a controversial take?
I assume he doesn't expect players to play in one they aren't happy with either, and thus some DMs may choose never to run anything and some players may never find a game they want to play in.
I'm not going to be a good DM for an all evil PC game. It just wouldn't work for me. In the same way, I accept that the DM makes the final call whether I'm playing or DMing. The buck has to stop somewhere.
Paraphrasing the DMG, the DM is in charge but they should always listen to feedback from their players.
When it comes to the thread topic, I have a default setting and assumptions which includes technology level, how much influence magic has, political structures and, yes, what species populate the world.
On the other hand I thought a space fantasy campaign might be a fun break. But when I raised it as an option people weren't interested so I dropped it. So no you can't play a leonin but if you want to be a Goliath we can chat and make them a tall human with Goliath traits.