...exist outside of the game's parameters?
By which I mean: does he/she have a life in Nirn beyond that of the game itself, or do they cease to be when you exit the game.
I don't mean, "yeah I fleshed out a bit of a backstory for some reference.", I mean as a separately identifiable entity for whom time passes, and so forth...

Does that make sense?

Hi Namh!

My character only exists in game. For me when I'm not playing skyrim, tamriel will be in a standstill til I load my character's save again. So my character and the rest if the world be frozen in time as if someone pressed the pause button.

Not outside Skyrim (the land), at least currently (most of them were not born in Skyrim). But yes, they have lives outside of things I actually do with them in the game. I make up little stories, and think of it as a chance to meet my characters better.

Some of my characters do, others don't. The characters that really stimulate my imagination continue to live lives when I'm not playing. Time passes for them just as time passes for me. They go about their lives, waiting for me to return, sitting in chairs, eating, ambling around an inn, talking to other patrons, pacing in their houses. They don't like it when I leave them.

I had an Oblivion character last year who never made it out of character generation. We quarelled over hair color, we bickered over her name. Finally I gave up and abandoned that character altogether. But I can still feel that character standing in the prison cell, waiting for me to return. I think about that character often. I imagine her sitting at the little square table, drinking out of the mug, wondering when I'm coming back so she can finally, finally get into the game.

So, yes, I gues they do.

I would guess not, since they always seem to be standing right were I left them when I last turned the game off.

Now if I actually left them out in the woods, and when I turned the game back on they had gone up two levels and were back home getting some Lover's Comfort, I think I would start to freak out a little. (But wouldn't that be a cool thing to add to the game?)

I guess if this was to happen in my mind, using what Sponge Bob calls My Imagination, I would have to be sure that when I turn the game off that the character is home or at least in a city somewhere. Then I could Imagine that they were doing their own thing until I get back. The way I have to play though they are usually stuck in the middle of something when I have to quit.

All my characters have a back story...which my son tells me is "nerdy!" For me, It just doesn't feel right otherwise. Which is why I've "retired" characters I've taken up to level 20, because something didn't feel or look right.

I'm sad enough that if my character wants a day off from destroying Draugr, and would prefer some retail therapy instead, that's what happens. Given that, why the need for a life outside of the game?

*sigh*

The games narrative, not episodic, in format. Time doesn't go on in Tamriel when I'm not playing so my character and all of Nirn only exists when I'm playing

I would like to think some of them do, Sennia ( my thief ) is alway's at home or at an Inn, when I leave her. I imagine that she is reading or fixing up her armor, perhap's planning out the next mission. Chilling out and I just happen to catch her while she's at the more exciting points of her life.

When I'm not playing I do think about my character's and what they will be doing. I guess it beat's building my dream house in my head and trying to decide between a glass mosaic backsplash or a subway tile backsplash. Should the living room be a honey wheat color or more beige. Should Derik go check out that cool looking Nordic ruin or that cave with the skull's outside.

Yep I do thing's like that while driveing, weeding the garden, mowing the lawn ( rideing mower plus several acres equal's alot of time to think)

Lyerria, who's retired from the Companions and MQ, is on vacation, she decided to go somewhere warmer... So I imagine she is haveing all sort's of adventures w/o me in Elswer. So even characters I am no longer playing have a backstory to explain why they are no longer "here".

It depends. If I have a character with very specific aspirations, I somehow can't imagine them prancing off when I'm not looking. Like, "I MUST REPAIR THE WHITE PHIAL OF LEGEND- oh, hey! A butterfly! I'm going to spend the next 27 hours chasing it!" They're too goal-oriented to go off track, if that makes sense. As for other ones, ones with a more laid back 'I'll meander around and see where life takes me' kind of attitude, I leave the computer thinking that they'll probably keep right on meandering. My huntress, for instance, doesn't just stop in the middle of bringing down a deer and wait for me to return. That would seem odd to me, given as her habits are so simple that no real guiding is necessary. So I figure she probably bagged some more game, sold it to some passing hunters and then spent the night out under the stars.

It's interesting to see how people view this.
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I've only ever played one character and she, as far as I am concerned, is pretty much a separate entity in her own right. The fact that she is where I left her when I dip back into the game does not mean that she was in that position when I couldn't see her, in fact it would no longer surprise me if I arrived one day to find her gone...
Like some of you she has an extensive and rather convoluted backstory that, I believe, she tells me and I write down and yes I do think about her when I'm not there.
Sometimes I find myself wondering what she thinks about and sometimes, when it's late and I have had a couple of Ales, I find myself wondering what she thinks I am and how, to her, I manifest myself in her space...