Solving the 1 HP Goblin
Read the 16 HP Dragon and the 1 HP Dragon again.
Insight #1. The 1 HP goblin is solved the same way as the 1 HP dragon. The tool for the goblin is just the sword that's already on your belt or the trap you lure it into.
Insight #2. As always everything comes down to position (risk) and effect. A sword gives you enough effect to solve a goblin. A safer way to solve one though as everyone knows is to drop a boulder on its head when it's not looking. The tools needed to solve a dragon are generally harder to obtain and require a more complicated plan than pushing a boulder and nothing can ever make a dragon safe.
Insight #3. You might've noticed how I've been saying 'solve'. That's because the 1 HP Goblin is actually an OSR skill check. An OSR skill check is when you convince the GM that fire oil and some extra sticky glue can disable the ice trap if your plan has enough dungeon logic. It's when you're stuck in front of a locked door and every tool you can use to get through comes with a different risk. It's when there's a dragon terrorizing a town and you hear a song about a missing scale and the elven ballistae that caused it so you enlist the local guard in your plan to slay it.
Every obstacle is just armor waiting to be solved and the tools to solve them are only limited by your imagination (within reason and subject to dungeon logic).
What does this mean for you specifically? Idk I think the idea that Acts of Violence can be resolved in the same way as a "skill check" is pretty internalized by now among people running OSR style games. Trick the goblin into getting crushed by a boulder instead of fighting fair and leaving your character's life in the hands of a Combat Resolution System (CRS).
What does this mean for me? The way in which I think about roleplaying games has fundamentally changed over the past few months so I'm publicly contemplating what a system that fits my new preferences would look like.
I'm kind of tired of statblocks so the realization that I can adhere to my McDowallian sensibilities and not have statblocks was huge. Mostly though I'm discovering that the OSR systems that have been such an important of my tabletop hobby over the years don't quite fit the stories I want to tell at the moment. I'm expecting that whatever comes next will be a synthesis of Mythic Bastionland, Blades in the Dark, Dogs in the Vineyard, (Don't) Incentivize Ethical Behavior by Zedeck Siew, Conqueror of Kamelia by Nael and a bunch of discord comments jumbling around in my brain.
Notes & Links
See Red Button Monsters by Playful Void and Puzzle Dragons by Joseph R Lewis for more on monsters as puzzles.
Chris McDowall describes his doctrine of Information, Choice and Impact here brilliantly as usual. See also Difficulty in Bastionland