The Map as a Tool for Conversation
I am running two games now; an OSE open table west marches sort of game, and a Cairn 2e game online with a few friends.
Both games lean heavily on maps, but I have different approaches to them depending on the game, the medium, or scenario. These approaches have been subconscious and while on a long drive for work, I consciously thought about those approaches.
Just put the map on the table and let the players see it. Give them information to interact with and let me make choices. Let them engage with the story through the map. The map is often one of the best pieces of art in the book and the GM is only one that gets to see it. This a game. I don't believe that meta-gaming is an issue in OSR style games. If someone is meta-gaming to leverage the story or game in their direction, they're being a dickhead, and do you allow dickheads at your table? I'd hope not cause dickheads, by definition, are dickheads.
This has been my approach in Cairn 2e. We play online but only use Owlbear Rodeo for maps and simple tokens. Giving the players the world or region map makes this game hum along smoothly. We don't use video, so we only have our voices and the shared visuals to link our minds. Without the map our conversation is adrift and stagnated, constantly clarifying directions, locations, and characters.
Give them a partial map, and let them create as they go. The players have something to guide their choices in the world. As they explore new locations are added to the map. It is the players who add them based on the description I give, but there is always a back and forth clarifying distances, sizes, shapes, and details. Slowly they add to the world. Sometimes it matches my map and sometimes it is completely different. Both are fine.
I use this method in the OSE game, which is an open table, west marches-y sort of thing. The players oversee drawing connections between locations, discoveries, and adventures. I have put little world building into the preparation of this game, aside from a world map and some vague location descriptions. As they move through the world they build out the lore and unravel the mystery behind what happened to the world. Think of it a bit like Elden Ring I guess. Something happened in this world, but I don't know what and the players think I do and there coming up with awesome connections. The map their creating is alive, and it's used as form of storytelling when they refer to it.
Don't give them anything and just describe what they see. When exploring an adventure site, the I describe each space. Sometimes, they players get through without mapping. They remember places and spaces; however, it is much more likely that they will grab paper and pencil and start jotting it all down. I find they will often get distracted with accuracy, but I try to convince them that it's not too. The map is an abstract representation and doesn't need to be perfect, if another player can pick it up and orient themselves then that's enough.
All these approaches are conversations that use maps as the common ground.
This is a hangover from my time playing 5E but there seemed to be an over emphasis on verisimilitude when came to maps. Only revealing rooms as they appeared, trying to have all the different miniatures, or using appropriate dungeon tiles. Which is why dwarven forge is so popular. As I began to let go of that ideal the game began to flow, the conversations came easier.
TTRPGs are conversations aided by tools and maps are just one of those tools.