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Medium
allen-faulton.medium.com › a-modern-survival-guide-interlude-how-to-walk-through-a-crowd-b468e1f6c383
How to Walk Through a Crowd. You gotta go with the flow, or get… | by Allen Faulton | Medium
February 3, 2019 - Move with the motion of the crowd until you are able to move out of the crowd, or to the edges of the crowd. Use diagonal movement to find gaps as fast as you can to get out and evaluate other options for escape.
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Global Rescue
globalrescue.com › common › blog › detail › stadium-safety-large-crowds
Crowd Control: How To Be Stadium Safe at the World’s Biggest Events
October 23, 2023 - Finally, carefully weave your way diagonally to the outer edge of the stampede, to avoid ending up stuck at a chokepoint (chokepoints are doorways, hallways and other narrow spaces that restrict the flow of the crowd).
Discussions

Walking against the flow in a crowd
I'd like to add, atleast in my experience, people follow car traffic rules,as in people will move together in one lane in one direction. If there's no other opposite direction lane, I've found that starting one helps, as other people will join you. This optimizes the flow of pedestrian traffic tremendously. More on reddit.com
🌐 r/SocialEngineering
16
85
February 7, 2016
Diagonal Movement: Yes or No, and Why?
In order to determine whether or not you should allow diagonal movement, you need to determine what impact this will have on the game. Then you need to determine if you consider the impact positive or negative. Given no one here has any idea how the game actually works, we're not really in a position to advise you on the subtleties of specific, individual decisions bereft of all other context. You could just as well ask if casting a spell should be treated as a steady action or a complex action. More on reddit.com
🌐 r/rpg
38
0
February 2, 2025
Diagonal Motion
Nope. It falls down from surface ledges until it hits something that can support it. Liquid on a tile will flow to the next tile, until that tile has 35-something gramms left. Those last gramms will not flow over, but be left as a puddle. You can make a stair structure to allow liquid to flow diagonally though. More on reddit.com
🌐 r/Oxygennotincluded
4
4
August 24, 2019
movement - What is the logic of 'move_towards_point'? - Game Development Stack Exchange
I think I was using the move_towards_point function incorrectly. I discovered that I could not make the object move down. In the create event, if I include the code move_towards_point(x,y,10);, the More on gamedev.stackexchange.com
🌐 gamedev.stackexchange.com
March 23, 2017
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/gifs › "fluid" dynamics of an overcrowded venue. essentially how crowd crushing happens.
r/gifs on Reddit: "fluid" dynamics of an overcrowded venue. Essentially how crowd crushing happens.
November 8, 2021 - ... I don't even want to imagine how quickly that would turn to shit. ... Aside of being buried alive, this sounds like my most terrifying way to die. Being unable to move, surrounded by people who can't help or don't even notice you.
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Smithsonian Magazine
smithsonianmag.com › science-nature › what-fluid-dynamics-can-teach-us-about-navigating-crowds-180961823
How Fluid Dynamics Can Help You Navigate Crowds
January 17, 2017 - If it’s in an open location and you start to notice stop-and-go waves or feel unsafe for other reasons, you can get out of the crowd. If the area is fenced or walled in, on the other hand, “trying to do so could create more panic.” Helbing underscores that point: “You should avoid going against the flow.
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The Conversation
theconversation.com › ten-tips-for-surviving-a-crowd-crush-112169
Ten tips for surviving a crowd crush
August 28, 2025 - Instead, let yourself be carried by the flow while always retaining your balance. ... The only time when the previous tip does not apply is if you’re next to a wall, fence or other solid object you can’t climb up. The first victims of a crush are often pinned against barriers, as was the case in Turin in 2017 and in Heysel and Hillsborough disasters in the 1980s. If possible, move away from any walls, pillars and fences. High pressure zones (in red) during a crowd crush.
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The Smart Set
thesmartset.com › home › divided, together
Divided, Together | The Smart Set
November 23, 2015 - Closest to me a thick stream of people is headed to the right, toward Gate 34, and beyond that a counterstream has set up headed in the opposite direction toward Gate 1. Drawing on experience in whitewater kayaking, I ease into the flow moving to my right and ferry across the current, crossing diagonally as I move ahead. I hit some crowd turbulence in front of restrooms, and use this to double back, picking up the counterflow, and eventually eddying out in the food court now on my right.
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Paizo
paizo.com › threads › rzs2n3i9
paizo.com - Forums: Beginner Box: Question about diagonal movement
November 7, 2011 - Mon–Fri, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Pacific · customer.service@paizo.com
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MIT News
news.mit.edu › 2025 › mathematicians-uncover-logic-behind-how-crowds-walk-0324
Mathematicians uncover the logic behind how people walk in crowds | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology
If you only care about the global characteristics like, are there lanes or not, then you can make predictions without detailed knowledge of everyone in the crowd.” · Bacik and his colleagues used equations of fluid flow, and applied them to the scenario of pedestrians flowing across a crosswalk. The team tweaked certain parameters in the equation, such as the width of the fluid channel (in this case, the crosswalk), and the angle at which molecules (or people) flowed across, along with various directions that people can “dodge,” or move around each other to avoid colliding.
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Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Crowd_collapses_and_crushes
Crowd collapses and crushes - Wikipedia
1 month ago - A later, more serious, warning is when one feels shock waves travelling through the crowd, due to people at the back pushing forward against people at the front with nowhere to go. Keith Still of the Fire Safety Engineering Group, University of Greenwich, said "Be aware of your surroundings. Look ahead. Listen to the crowd noise. If you start finding yourself in a crowd surge, wait for the surge to come, go with it, and move sideways.
Find elsewhere
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Science News
sciencenews.org › article › dense-crowds-pedestrians-lines-math
Dense crowds can form surprisingly orderly lines. Math explains why
April 10, 2023 - Even if you tell everyone to pass on the right in a misguided attempt to form just two lanes, you will instead get multiple lanes at an oblique angle to the preferred direction of flow. This slows everybody down. Apparently, the best thing you can do to control the traffic is … nothing at all. “Anarchy is enough,” Rogers says. When pedestrians are told to pass on the right, the parallel lanes formed by two groups of people moving in opposite directions become tilted.K. Bacik, B. Bacik, T. Rogers · Rogers and Bacik began working on crowds during the pandemic — ironically, at a time when crowds were scarce.
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/socialengineering › walking against the flow in a crowd
r/SocialEngineering on Reddit: Walking against the flow in a crowd
February 7, 2016 -

Brand-new to this sub, I thought I'd share my favorite. Sorry if it's been done before.

Anyone who has walked in a major city during rush hour knows how hard it is to walk against the flow of other pedestrians. You try to step left and right around people, and twist your body sideways to slip in between them. You probably also know that this is a huge pain in the ass and you don't move very fast.

Well next time, try this:

  • Stand up tall and "project" the direction you are going. Keep your shoulders square in the direction you want to go. This makes it easier for other people to predict your path.

  • Walk slowly but continuously. Carry that momentum. People will be less likely to cut across your path.

  • As you weave, look past the people you're avoiding, not at them directly. Without making eye contact, other people will not assume you are going to avoid them, and may alter their path.

  • Don't snake too much. Don't go straight at people, but don't zig-zag around them too much. If you see a parting in the crowd ahead of you, you're doing it right.

  • Finally, don't be a dick. You're the one going the wrong way so you shouldn't make people have to stop and go around you. Stick to the least-dense part of the crowd if possible.

edit: format

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SciTechDaily
scitechdaily.com › home › science › how a tiny direction shift creates chaos in crosswalks
How a Tiny Direction Shift Creates Chaos in Crosswalks
March 29, 2025 - Next time you walk through a crowded plaza, crosswalk, or airport, pay attention to the pedestrian flow. Are people flowing in neat, organized lanes toward their destinations? Or is it more chaotic, with individuals weaving and dodging in all directions? MIT instructor Karol Bacik and his colleagues set out to understand this behavior. They developed a new method to predict when pedestrian movement shifts from orderly patterns to disorganized, tangled paths.
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Nautilus
nautil.us › the-physics-of-crowds-388020
The Physics of Crowds - Nautilus
March 4, 2026 - For instance, crowd members heading toward different exits in a stadium minimize disruptive interactions by spontaneously forming themselves into unidirectional lanes. NO WAY OUT: This narrow alley in Seoul was where a crowd of revelers celebrating Halloween in October 2022 suddenly transformed from a flowing throng into a dangerous “soft matter” mass, ultimately killing 159 people in a panic-fueled crush.
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Lexaloffle
lexaloffle.com › bbs
Help with diagonal movement.
April 1, 2024 - If your character goes the length of 1 pixel's side, but moving diagonally, then they're destination would land on the edge of a quarter-circle (this is literally part of the definition of a circle).
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Quora
quora.com › What-does-it-mean-to-go-against-the-flow
What does it mean to go against the flow? - Quora
Answer (1 of 3): Going against the flow is essentially to be going against the accepted wisdom and sentiment of the group. Group consensus on an answer to a subject is most often the correct one.
Top answer
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It is unclear, but likely yes

Moving through a creature’s space seems to be mostly about how you can avoid ending up in with 2 creatures in one square:

If you want to move through an unwilling creature’s space, you can Tumble Through that creature’s space using Acrobatics. You can’t end your turn in a square occupied by another creature

When you move diagonally, there is no chance that you finish in their square, so Tumble Through seems unnecessary.

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The rules don't say

The closest rules presented in Movement in Encounters and Running Encounters include things like:

  • Diagonal movement cost
  • Moving through a creatures space (no reference to adjacent enemies)
  • Objects can restrict movement (no reference to how corners affect this)

Each GM will have to make their own determination of how to rule this based on a couple core questions. The crux is deciding if diagonal movement (from one 5-foot area to another) constitutes moving 'through' one or both of the 5-foot squares orthogonal to them. (This could also have implications regarding diagonal movement around an enemy, but that's another ruling entirely.)

  • Allowing the diagonal movement is closest to RAW because there is no specific dis-allowance for moving between enemies, nor any specific reference to moving through any spaces not included in your Movement
  • Dis-allowing the diagonal movement is a potentially more immersive ruling... it doesn't take 8 people to surround someone, it doesn't require special ruling to prevent you from moving through the corner of objects that are pushed together, it makes it possible to block passages that happen to be on a diagonal portion of the map, etc.