Hello fellow castaways. According to one of the reviews on the game page, there's a quest called "Patty wants to leave town" that must be finished before starting chapter 2 or else you will get stuck and unable to continue later. I would like to ask if this still the case or was solved at some point. And if it is, there will be enough warning that the chapter is coming to an end so I can take care of pending quests? Or is it better to just deal with this quest as soon as possible? (At this moment I don't even know who Patty is).

Are there any other potentially game-breaking situations I should be aware of?

Thanks in advance.

Thank you for the useful information and for minimazing spoilers. :) I will keep an eye on this quest names Thanks as well. Will I receive some indication that the chapter is ending? If I just don't join any factions until I've cleared these quests, will I be safe?

The first chapter ends when you complete a ritual after answering some questions you will understand what I mean. You will have to join a faction at chapter 1 so if you don't pick the bandits in the swamp try and finish their quest first before going to harbor town so go to the Bandit's camp in the swamp first and do all the quests until they let you enter the Don's house (find the 5 sword fragments, win against Brogar). After that the Don sends you to the Harbor town.
Before you do any quests in harbor town, decide whether you want to join the bandits, mages or inqusition later and fulfil the quests accordingly.

.Also here is a nice guide that has some interesting information about the game
https://www.gog.com/forum/risen_series/any_generic_advice_for_a_newbie_when_playing_risen/post3 there is some interesting information on that thread that will help you without spoiling anything
(Direct link for the guide here http://www.mediafire.com/?tqqojgt2mzt )

Also don't forget to save often...When I say often I mean every 5 minutes...In this game it is very easy to die...There is a quicksave and quickload button I believe it is F7,F8 or F9

And if you don't want to join the monastery faction (Inquisition faction) be sure not to get caught before joining the Bandit faction or the mages faction (to join mages you have to complete carlos quest in the harbor town

Thanks for your tips!

Welp, I managed to "break" Patty wants to leave town without even advancing to chapter 2, by getting stuck in its pre-requisite The Lost Father. What happened was, I didn't loot the shack's key from Erikson after beating him in the brothel (I don't know how I missed it). This fight can't be repeated so, according to a Google search, I'd have to pickpocket the key from him. The problem: I don't have the pickpocket ability and, after some additional googling, it turns out that in Harbor Town I can only learn it from Delgado after joining the bandits. Since I didn't want to decide what faction to join because of this (and I'm leaning towards the mages anyways), another Google result thankfully gave me another solution: you can give the key yoursel with a console command. Under these circumstances, and not wanting to replay the last 3 hours of my game, I considered it fair and I could complete the quest.

Getting the console to work on a Spanish lawout keyboard was another story... The key that displays the console window is º (the one at the left of the 1), as opposed to the information found anywhere else, which I suppose is correct for English layout keyboards.