I have a hard time speaking about it using your terms (not that I disapprove of them, just that I’m still getting my head around them) — but I will say this, which I think is relevant:

One of the reasons I’m often good in freeform RPGs is that I put a lot of thought and effort into aligning/setting up my desired outcomes of the game — in terms of my emotions, desired outcomes, and cool moments along the way — with what I can read/understand of the same for other players.

This may be aligned to go along with, aligned to oppose, etc., in many different ways, and possible very differently between different players. (For example, if we’re playing a bronze age warriors game, I’m going to spend a lot of time setting myself up to be brutally murdered by Ralph Mazza’s character. If we’re playing a Victorian Romance Emma game, I’m going to spend a lot of time trying to set my character up so that she is trying to get Adam D’s character to fall in love with her, while OOC making sure that never happens, so that Ralph Mazza get jealous, etc.)

Doing this does require a bit of thinking in different terms about internal vs. external goals, implicit vs. explicit structure, and a lot of different positions and ongoing re-positioning between players, fiction, outcome, and effect.

… which may just be a long way of saying, “Yes. I think so?”