I’ve read through the Mapping section of the 7.0a VDL Sibelius template from the writescore, but I can’t figure out whether or not items from the playback dictionary should be added by default. According to the writescore the template works with Sibelius version 8.

By default, the marimba played rolls until I manually changed “natural” in the playback dictionary to be a controller change instead of a Sound ID Change. Every time I create a new file in Sibelius the playback dictionary gets reset. I’m wondering if the playback dictionary should be the same for each file, and whether or not the playback dictionary should include various percussion terms that are supposed to be in the writescore template including edge, dead strokes, etc. or if I need to add them manually.

Sibelius 8.7
VDL 2.5
Writescore Sibelius VDL Template 7.0a
Kontakt Player 5
Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11.5

Are you starting each project/score with a fresh copy of the Template .sib file? Should have everything you need already setup.

If you're seeing something that's not quite working the way you think it should be, please let me know.

Would that mean changing the playback configuration from "General MIDI (basic)" to VDL? If that's the case, I've already done that, but the marimba by default plays rolls  and there aren't dead strokes in the playback dictionary.

Never mind,
I went to appearance and imported the sound set and it worked!