Yeah it’s a “read the room” kind of thing.
There’s a group that would be annoyed by immersion-breaking 4th wall jokes, and there’s another group that would be relieved by the tension and pressure to perform being broken. Everyone’s going to have slightly different comfort levels so there’s always some compromise on the tone of a campaign.
You’ve had villain protagonist, and you’ve had relatable villain, but only in deathnote do you get relatable villain protagonist. Usually gotta read a century-old russian novel for that kind of stuff.