Thanks, Jack, flabort, and esp. Persus, that was very helpful. And DarkStar about the blue.
Spruce: What stage of your strategy are you in right now?
I said "Strategery", not, "strategy", if it really matters. It's a SNL reference regarding a Bush/Gore presidential debate parody from 2000 (season 26). You demanded, "In a single word, describe what you believe what the most important aspect of Mafia is." The form of the 'question' humourously reminded me of SNL and slogans those in every presidential debate, where there's a simplistic expectation to define a campaign with capsules like, "Hope", "Yes, America Can", "Country First", or "Ross for Boss".
In mafia it's indeed strategy, whether it's "mistrust", as cheesecake answered, "information", as Jack suggested, "discussion", proffered by flabort, "investigation", from Peradon, "voting", for DarkStar, "communication", from EPenguin, linky "Trustnoone", from ToonyMan, "Backstabbery", for OSG, "Winning", from Teneb, "Enjoyment", of Persus, or "play", as DA elucidated. Others gave similarly humourous responses of "magma", or "dying", but they're all defined by strategy - one's approach to the game. Those are all strategies. That's what's "most important", and from my reading everyone agrees. Mafia or werewolf or whatever is a game of strategy.
You said you meant it as an "ice-breaker", which I took as a sort of check-in question to foster discussion. Yeah, it's good to get things started, but I'm not sure you answered it yourself. You seemed to get most everyone's attention though.
As for "stage"es, I'm still trying to get used to the new place and what to me is a weird format. I'm used to faster 24/12 games in a casual conversational style where one isn't distracted by bells and whistles of particular formatting. I thought the game was gonna start a day earlier than it did and the first day last 72 hours, so I'm still trying to adjust to that change too, with other larger games I'm involved with elsewhere. That is, scheduling playtime is critical to how my participation unfolds. I'm also American East coast, if that matters. LOL, I still haven't figured out the 'lurker' thingy someone mentioned, or even how to iso player posts. I'm sure I'll figure it out, but it looks to be a long Day 1 (for me anyway), so I've been in no rush.