Dishonest Mapping

[Ghalev]

This all leads me to my question, how do you all do variants for players? The easy answer in most tools is layers, just turn off the ones they shouldn't see, but what about distorted 'hand drawn' variations of master maps, do any of you have any thoughts on how to do that sort of thing without just starting from scratch?

I'm a big proponent of in-setting/inaccurate maps and, as you say, it's most often something I do with layers (for indoor maps) ... but it's not just about turning some layers off; I also tend to have bogus layers that I turn _on,_ overlaying (for example) the cheap dungeon-map the PCs bought from some huckster's overcoat with a few misleading (nonexistent) rooms and corridors.

For overland maps with the distortions or simplifications of ignorance ... I've never found a better method than just doing it by hand. But that's me all over: all of my [fantasy] maps are ultimately hand-drawn, even if they're digitally assembled.

In Uresia (a fantasy world I currently publish for and that Guardians of Order originally published) the in-book maps are explicitly "in-setting" in their lack of accuracy and detail, but they're based on much more detailed "master maps" that I use for local zooms (since the locals know their own area a bit better - though still seldom completely - than any world map would represent). The master map includes (for example) literally hundreds of minor islands that don't appear on any published map. The master map also includes the default "true" version of the "Troll Lands" (unexplored islands past the edge of civilization), while the published maps contain only semi-accurate guesswork based on the few slivers of the Troll Lands that have been explored. More recently (work completed after the world was already published) the master map also includes detailed path-maps for all the flying islands, etc -- stuff that will likely never be published, but which I need to keep my own offhand-joke-references consistent (even if nobody else notices)

So it's not just something I do to _my_ players; I do it to other GMs' players, as well

[NeonKnight]

Well, here's what I do at times.

For overland maps, I will draw them (the PC Handouts) by hand, and they won't be pretty, often a single Mountain for mountain range, a single tree for a forest, certainly not to scale.

Something similar for dungeons. Boxes for rooms, simple lines for corridors, often only representing major chambers.

Why?

Well, if I look at me real life, before I bought a GPS Unit for my car (more for wife than me), if I had to draw her a map, I would only give her major roads, not all the minor cross streets. Even my GPS will not zoom into the little streets unless it needs to while I am driving.