A: There’s a big difference between a Fracture and an Assignment. An Assignment is meant to give you a bonus, whether or not you have the specified items. Think of it has having two levels of reward. Playing an Assignment without the special items just gets you the lesser reward: you draw two cards and the Assignment goes in the discard. A Fracture, on the other hand, if it can’t be placed on the timeline, is just sort of a “dud” and is just discarded.