In the AD&D, the 1st edition, players were obliged to draw a map of their progress in a dungeon (usually) and there was a mechanic for it - 1 turn (10 minutes) for their slowest movement I think. In those days it was cumbersome describing the dungeon features, especially irregularly shaped rooms or caves and caverns, to my players. They couldn't tell the difference between a passage turn to a side passage without me showing it to them. Today maps have become more essential due to the meticulous nature of combat system of 3.5.
To those who use photocopied or scanned player's maps from the dungeon magazines lately or to those who DMs who make the extra effort of making player's maps; how do you present them to your players, as a whole or piece by piece?
I've done several things. Personally, my style is to describe what they are going through and let them draw it out if they want, but when they come to the combat zones, out come the dungeon walls and doors and I'll set the scene.
When I ran my players through "The Forge of Fury" adventure last year I copyied the map from the front cover and cut it into sections. (I edited it somewhat on my PC to hide secret doors and hidden passageways) As the group moved into a new section I could hand it to them to tape to the sections they had already explored. I tried to make each piece logical in the sense that the players can't see beyond a door, therefor the piece I hand them ends with doors.
This worked well for that particular adventure but it is not something I have done since then. It was very time consuming to modify the maps on the computer and a bit expensive in paper and ink costs.
I currently have the players draw their own maps and pull out the battle map if they hit an encounter. Big battle maps may sound cool in ones mind, but any thing bigger than 3 or 4 feet has proven to be just too unwieldy.
My two coppers - Rath