Occams Razor

“By My Voice, Short Root and Grant Protection to Blue
Collar.”

means

By My Voice, Short Root to all
and
“By My Voice, Grant Protection to Blue
Collar.”

right ?

It comes across to me that you are rooting and granting to blue collar, I'd recommend two separate BMV calls.

Generally when there is a "Bane" delivory mechanic attatched to a stated effect (In this case the "To Blue-Collar") the stated effect ONLY hits someone with that trait. Thus In this case The Short root & Grant Protection would only apply to those who have the Blue-Collar trait. Because it is in the same attack it has to go along with the delivory (The Bane towards Blue-Collar).

Otherwise its needlessly difficult to distinguish who takes what and it would be better suited as two seperate delivored attacks (attacks not always being harmful/bad). Such as "By My Voice Short Root" followed by "By My Voice Grant Protection to Blue Collar". As they are two seperate attacks it is clear that the first is everyone who hears it, and the second has the Bane delivory method hitting only Blue Collar.

Thank you for elaborating for me Adam!

This isn't really an acceptable answer.

The rules tell you what you are supposed to say. As players, we are not allowed to improvise and split a call into two separate calls. For one, there are times (such as with resists) that it has an impact. But mostly we just should not have a mindset that we can rewrite the rules on the fly for the gms.

So either the skill is re-written, or clarified as to what it should mean with the call that goes with the skill. This is mostly moot as I do not think there is anyone with the skill in game, but suggesting that we break the rules isn't the best plan.

I'm reasonably certain no one was suggesting that anyone break the rules. The message here is that if you have two abilities, one that applies a Short Root to all and one that Grants Protection to Blue Collar, you shouldn't combine then into a single call. If you have a single skill that applies a Short Root to Blue Collar and Grants Protection to Blue Collar, then obviously you need to say both in the one call.

So to clarify a bit, “By My Voice, Short Root and Grant Protection to Blue Collar.” is the Foreman skill "Picket Fence" so this discussion is less philosophical and more a question of "Hey I saw this skill. Does it do this or that?"

The overall message I'd take away from this is that when we made the rulebook, we put the calls in as we meant them to be uttered. If the rulebook says “By My Voice, Short Root and Grant Protection to Blue Collar.” then that's what should be said. Any further discussion from this thread should probably be treated as how you should parse effects that you see in the rulebook or hear in game.

A point I should probably stress is that PCs don't really have leeway in re-configuring effects calls. Ya gotta call what your character sheet says because otherwise you're using abilities you don't have and that's bad, m'kaaaay? You can't combine two "By My Voice"s for convenience and you can't split one "By My Voice" into two because those aren't abilities that you have.

"By My Voice, Short Root to all", "By My Voice Grant Protection to Blue Collar" is a much different effect than the above because that Roots everyone within earshot and if we wanted Foremen to have that ability, that's what the rulebook would say. As written, you're applying both effects to Blue Collars within earshot, you're making them hold the line.. not stopping all roaming combat.

Some other skills with combined BMV effects that will hopefully clarify the issue include:
The Howling: "By My Voice, Heal and Cure Fear to (Pack Trait)." (You're healing your pack, not everyone)
Drone Strike: "By My Voice, Ten Damage and Slam to Painted." (that's not ten damage to everyone. That'd be a skill called "Murder Everyone in Town")

Hopefully this clears up any confusion on anyone's part and if I'm wrong, hopefully somebody can correct me, but I think we're all talking about the same thing just in different terms with a hint of "oh, this was a real skill?" mixed in.

<a round of applause for Deeg, who beat me to the punch>

Thank you Deeg, I did not make the connection to Picket Fence, I was misunderstood.