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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sparky McDibben" data-source="post: 9657179" data-attributes="member: 7041430">The PCs are surveyors (pathfinders, you might say), who are trying to find a safe path for the artillery. This is less of a plot hole and more of a "Well, this is screwed; also we need to get off this river before the ice shatters under us!" situation.Alright friends, next up is the adventure New York Occupied, where the PCs get to try to rescue Nathan Hale! "I regret I have only one life to give for my country," Nathan Hale. He's kind of a stubborn idiot in the adventure, but he did get captured in real life, so I can forgive that. The adventure starts with the PCs figuring out a way into British-occupied New York at the direction of Alexander Clough and Ben Tallmadge, the Patriot intel gurus. Basically, Hale's in New York to find valuable intel, and they think he needs extraction. If they have to choose between the intel and Hale, Clough recommends the intel. The PCs have two options for getting into town. These mostly affect what kind of encounter you have on the way in, and (slightly) how much stuff you can try to smuggle in. From there, you meet with Hale at the Fighting Cocks Tavern. Just in case the dirty word filter cuts that out, the Tavern is named after fighting roosters. Anyway, Hale has two pieces of intel he needs help getting. One is a cipher (the encryption key) for a specific Hessian commander. The other is a quartermaster's ledger that has details of supply shipments the undersupplied Patriots could raid for badly needed gear. Hale needs the PCs to go after those while he goes after another letter he's stashed in the city. Both of these are short raid-type scenarios that pit the PCs against a handful of guards and foreshadow characters from later adventures. The real danger is sticking around too long and letting reinforcements box them in. Both are reasonably fun, but the lack of cartography hurts my ability to quickly grok and run this at the table. From there, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_New_York_(1776)" target="_blank">Great Fire of 1776</a> kicks off, and now the PCs are probably cut off from Hale. There are a couple of ways they can try to rescue Hale, but as-written, it's incredibly difficult to do so. There is a really fun set of obstacles and hazards that crop up, but ultimately there are very few choices - the key one is, "Do we rescue Hale or flee the city?"The PCs can rescue Hale, and can get everyone out of town, but there's one additional potential scene: they can break into the Jersey, a prison ship anchored in New York harbor. This is a fun little dungeoncrawl/raid piece, but again - no maps! Guys, come on. Maps are incredibly useful for quickly running a scenario, and FFS, it's really frustrating to not see them. Once they break out of British territory and head for Patriot-controlled ground, the PCs are able to take a break and relax. Briefly. Because on the next adventure, we're crossing the Delaware!</blockquote>

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