One Million Goblins and Three GM Roles

Let's say you have an encounter of One Million Goblins against a party of four in an elfgame of your choice. the party's The Wizard has an anti-goblin amulet that can eliminate 999999 of those goblins. The goblins proceed to ignore three-fourths of the heroes' party and stab that The Wizard as many times as goblinly possible before that amulet can be used.

This was the most tactically advantageous option for the goblins, that is, it was optimized to secure their win condition. This was the most in-character option for the goblins, that is, it accurately reflected their emotional response to the anti-goblin amulet. From both of these perspectives, the GM played the goblins correctly. However, our hypothetical The Wizard player does not appreciate this fine alignment of ludonarrative incentives. They're upset, because they feel like the GM decided their character was overpowered and singled them out to die. From their perspective, the GM has failed their most important role: making the game fun.

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(This is an expanded version of a Cohost post of mine from a few months ago. It's also available on my Neocities.)