Not every game is a struggle. In many situations the players want the same thing and the only difficulty is agreeing on which version of it, or on how to divide the winnings.
Wanting to match
Two drivers meet on a narrow road, and each wants to pass safely. Both keeping left works; both keeping right works; the mismatches are disasters. There are two equilibria, both equally good, and reasoning alone cannot pick between them.
Such coordination games are settled not by logic but by convention. Which side a country drives on is arbitrary, historically contingent, and absolutely worth conforming to once established. A great deal of social life, from language to currency to file formats, is a coordination game that history has already solved, and the answer is stable because nobody gains by deviating alone.
Focal points
Thomas Schelling asked people where they would go to meet a stranger in New York with no way to communicate, on a day with no time agreed. Answers clustered strongly: the clock at Grand Central, at noon.
Nothing in the payoffs makes noon better than . It is a focal point: an option that stands out, and that everyone can see stands out. Coordination often runs on such shared salience, which is why round numbers, prominent landmarks, and precedent do so much work in negotiation and why "split it down the middle" settles disputes that no argument could.
When agreement conflicts with interest
Bargaining mixes the two. A buyer and seller both prefer a deal to no deal, so they are allies; but every pound of price moved is a pound taken from one and given to the other, so they are opponents. The pie must be made before it is divided, and the same conversation does both.
That mixture produces the distinctive tactics of negotiation: refusing to open, walking out, insisting on principle. All are attempts to shift the split without losing the deal.
The power of tying your hands
Schelling's most counter-intuitive point is that in such games, options can be a liability. A negotiator who cannot concede is stronger than one who can. If I publish my final offer and stake my reputation on it, I have destroyed my own flexibility, and thereby made my threat believable. The concession must come from you, because I have arranged to be unable to make it.
Hence the strategic value of binding contracts, of delegating to an agent with no authority to go further, and of the general who burns the bridge behind his army. A commitment is worth having precisely because it removes a choice, which is a fitting note to end on: in a world of interdependent decisions, freedom of action is not always an advantage.