Photo of Stephen Dinehart

Stephen Erin Dinehart IV

He’ll have you believe he is the original narrative designer, the man who brought the notion of narrative design to video games through the somewhat overlooked but rather successful game Company of Heroes (2006)… well the expansion to it, Opposing Fronts (2007)… as a junior doing his first job in a major studio. He has numerous arguments for this, such as that he apparently wrote the position description after having talked to the lead, but there are three major problems with his claim.

  1. The aspects of the role were not really what we consider Narrative Design by the modern definitions – it was more of a secondary writer position.
  2. The role of actual narrative design is widely recognized as having being practiced by different individuals under different titles and the official title only came about as game design expanded to the point where more and more specialist roles are required.
  3. Matthew Toner was credited as the Narrative Designer for RIFTS: Promise of Power (2005)

This trend of self-mythologizing and over promising to an almost comical degree has come to define Dinehart’s behaviour throughout the entire saga. Since this entry is used as a reference, and the sagas continue – this entry will be updated as necessary, with information being shuffled around for easier parsing.

Background

It is difficult to be sure of a lot about Stephen’s background due to his tendency to stretch truth or just outright fabricate information as park of marketing, but there do appear to be some clear details.

He spent his youth in a variety of locations including Chicago, Lake Geneva, Florida and an unspecified Cherokee reservation. In his youth he developed a passion for games, particularly Gamma World and he did study them formally (and was a David Lynch Scholarship student) before getting jobs on the Constantine game (unpaid internship with a thank you credit) and eventually broke into the video game industry.

Since then he has shifted around a lot, claiming participation on many projects with unclear credentials to it and shifted from games to theme parks to tabletop games to now teaching Film and Animation as an Assistant Professor at University of Tampa.1Meet Stephen Dinehart, Assistant Professor, University of Tampa https://www.ut.edu/directory/dinehart-stephen

Wonderfilled Inc

A company established in Wisconsin by Stephen Dinehart, it is the successor to Wonderfilled Limited – a Florida company established by the same for his contracting on theme park and related gigs. It maintains two web sites.

The corporate site presents it as a folio for consulting services though seems to mix in Dinehart’s salary work at Evermore Park, some unspecified and uncredited work of Rovio and the publishing of GiantLands as three equal projects.

The store page, WFD Games, which uses the framework originally created for TSR Games (archive), is used primarily to sell GiantLands and provide promises of big things to come. The site was in fact, so closely matched that at the time of the changeover, TSR branding remained.2My Twitter (8 July 2021) https://twitter.com/wincenworks/status/1413027319589924873

Screenshot showing the mix of "We're producing good old fashioned TSR TTRPG products with a new take." and "Add Wonderfilled, Inc to Home Screen"
The mobile view of the site at the time.

TSR LLC

Dinehart’s actual role in TSR is unclear. It is clear that until July 2021 he was the one primarily handling their social media, graphic design and branding. At the time he claimed to be the CCO (Chief Creative “Office”)3My Twitter (27 July 2021) https://twitter.com/wincenworks/status/1419987747696091143 and until his Narrative Designer site went down at the end of July 2022, it provided a summary that implied Dinehart considered himself pivotal in the “revival” – even the “creator”. 4Narrative Designer – Samples (Archived 2 December 2021) https://web.archive.org/web/20211202224552/https://narrativedesigner.com/samples

Transphobia

While he is no more reactionary than Justin LaNasa and his inner circle – he also was the one who started launched the infamous “You’re disgusting” tweet at a trans woman interrogating his actual stance. He then went on to defend this stance with claiming people were bots or “foamers” sent by Wizards of the Coast, then that online people were not “real”.

The screenshot of the display between Meg (@MegTheSorceress) and GiantLands (@GiantLands) where she asks them to affirm trans identities instead of dodge a question and they reply "You are disgusting"
I’ve been watching this for a long time and never seen a meaningful apology for this tweet or the sentiments in it.
Screenshot of a tweet where "Dinehart" (@SEDart4) stated; "In the Themed Ent industry they call fans "foamers" inside, at least Universal. the higher ups like to hire & take advantage of them. They have a sort of house on a hill, without competition they basically do what they want. My bet is WotC is the same. Full of villainy."
Self incrimination is not the own against Wizards of the Coast that he thinks it is.
Screenshot of a tweet by Dinehart (@SEDart4): I'm going to say anonymity and bad actors, and that online doesn't actually represent the real community. It, like most of the internet, is likely 85% bots, %10 sock accounts, and the remainder actual people. (30 July 3021)
Never a great rationale.

Importantly, he has never retracted on this and did more or less double down on it from time to time.5My Twitter (15 July 2021) https://twitter.com/wincenworks/status/1415466675189653506 (Comment deleted off the original Facebook Post)

A screenshot of Facebook comments on GiantLands. David Bruce Grant "I don't see how attempt to bully someone into saying that men are women is inclusion. The truth matters." and a response from GiantLands of "Thanks for standing up David."
Yes he thinks he’s being clever openly siding with transphobes.

Oh and just for the record, he was against marriage equality too.6My Twitter (16 July 2021) https://twitter.com/wincenworks/status/1415941417973665792

Screenshot of three tweets from June 2011 where Dinehart is doing the "I am not against them being together but they can't call it marriage" thing.
Yeah he was always terrible.

Wikipedia

Previously Stephen Dinehart enjoyed a substantial presence on Wikipedia – however it that came to an end when, after a particularly comical attempt to change the entire entry of Narrative Design to be entirely about himself – following investigation, it was discovered that the page was 1. insufficiently important and 2. likely made entirely by Stephen using sockpuppet accounts to avoid Wikipedia’s conflict of interest rules. The page and many of the other pages he created were deleted.

This is honestly the funniest thing I’ve ever read on Wikipedia.

Web3

Amongst other things, Dinehart is a big advocate for NFTs – not just as artworks but also apparently at the tickets to this theoretical theme park that GiantLands is going to launch.7David Flor (@BrainClouds)‘s Twitter (21 February 2022) https://twitter.com/BrainClouds/status/1495524680190545921

A screenshot of tweet by Dinehart (@SEDart4) tweeting "Spot on *****. The tickets to @GiantLands will be #NFTs" The image has had third party information removed for privacy.
Finally a use case more pointless than a jpeg receipt.

Presently there is a GiantLands page on OpenSea which is trying to sell NFTs of the cover art, and a random artwork by an artist who has previously expressed that he wants nothing further to do with the project. It has a creator fee of 10% attached to it, and Dinehart has confirmed that the artists will see none of it.8My Twitter (20 Feb 2022) https://twitter.com/wincenworks/status/1495317072301428739

Screenshot of the Openseas store showing created Feb 2022, Creator fee: 10%, 0 ETH in total volume to date.
If anyone ever buys then resells anything, Dinehart wants 10%
Screenshot of an exchange between Dinehart (@SEDart4) and Steven Wolfe (@THEStevenWolfe) where Wolfe is concerned if the artists will get a fair cut, and Dinehart says it doesn't matter because he bought the art outright and is going to use the money on his own business.
He wants to help artists by putting money in his own pockets. Classic Dinehart!