When a man dies, what's left is a ghost. The process of creating a goblin is different and explained by the intro lines (object + intense sentiments). The sword was charged with all those tangled deaths, anger and need for revenge and somehow transformed into a goblin. I guess it carries some reflex of his master personality / sentiments. It has to atone for the deaths it brought (hence immortality and endless pain). It tried to revenge his master.
Actually I don't think it's very clearly differentianted in the show. Main hero is just not a ghost, for the sake of diversity I suppose. (He should also eat liver and not steak and probably be less human looking and uglier, but I doubt anyone will complain here).
In Arang and the Magistrate /possible spoilers/ goblin was created by means of the dark magic, by mixing and compressing several human souls. He had no resamblance to, uhm, source material. That was one of the scaries shits I saw in a kdrama so far, Jack Nicolson peeking out of the door level of scary.