I have recently started a Star Wars EotE game with my 21 y.o. son. He is the only player I currently have and we have gone through the basic adventure, Long arm of the Hutt and Trouble Brewing. I plan to run the adventure in the GM screen next. We have dropped all the starter characters from the box set and he is now running a Smuggler Gun slinger. He has a Protocol droid and the R4 from Trouble Brewing adventure as NPCs on the newly named Aloha Oe (ex Krayt Fang). I have thought to add other character NPCs for him like a pilot, hired gun and a fringer and give them xp and credits along with his character or just flat NPCs like the cards? Any suggestions.

We are having a blast with this game and love the system immensely.

The EotE GM Kit has some optional rules for advancing "Nemesis" level NPCs. I would check that out. They do a good job of keeping NPCs feeling like NPCs.

When playing a few games with my wife as the only player, she was playing Oskara (the bounty hunter from the Beginner Game) and I played Pash (the pilot from the Beginner Game) as a sidekick for her. He would just be around as another gun in a fight or somebody to go do things offscreen.

The Companion NPC works like magic in games with only one or two PC's. They work like regular NPCs, but with a couple important play differences that keep them in the "sweet spot" between DMPC and scenery:

Fully stat the character sheet and let the player make all the skill checks for him/her, even in combat. As GM, you retain veto power for clearly out-of-character actions, but this usually not a problem. But you as GM level-up the companion (or spend XP in this case) and continue to speak for the companion NPC. So narratively, nothing really changes, but game-wise, the player has a little more to do and the onus remains on the player to use the NPC to solve problems and advance the story. It's even okay for the PC to take a back seat to the companion from time-to-time because the player is still playing, and you aren't playing with yourself (so to speak).

The example above is awesome, and I would totally play-up Pash as the comic relief. Just imagine Han Solo played for laughs (more than he already was). Alternatively, I'd have him getting most of the glory (so long as the player was OK with it) while the PC does most of the heavy lifting (a la Remington Steele).

Though it depends on your comfort level, I'd recommend on keeping the number of party NPCs to a minimum to allow you to better focus on the story. I'm in a similar position with a home game I play with my wife, we each run a PC, plus share control of a 3rd Astromech PC to round out the groups abilities. One of us will GM, focusing on the other's PC, letting them shine. Usually the player will also control the astromech, freeing up the GM to focus on the story, but we usually both have a hand in steering him. As you may have noticed, though he lacks a dedicated player, we do treat the Astromech as a PC, earning a equal share in exp, at least when appropriate, though not necessarily a share of the credits, but improving the astromech and spending credits on him seem an appropriate use of group resources.

If you're looking for more of a Captain and his crew kind of feel, but would like to keep the paper work to a minimum (I'm lazy, keeping work light is a speciality of mine ) it might be worth looking at the Squad/Squadron rules from the AoR: GM's kit. If you do you can allow your son to play out the personalities of his squad and handle the bulk of the paper work. If you control a significant NPC or even a PC, you can give them a squad of their own if appropriate.

P.S. Love Lorne's advice, great for handling group NPC, and a much better description of how we use our Astromech.

I have recently started a Star Wars EotE game with my 21 y.o. son.

My son is 20 now, we've been doing the same since EotE came out. Usually he runs two PCs (a main, and a sidekick) and I often run an allied NPC that gets full XP and develops along. It's quite easy for a single player to run two PCs in this game, so he might want to consider that.

In our most recent game, however, we started with a Knight level character, and he's been running solo without any consistent NPC helpers. So long as I keep the challenges appropriately scaled, it all works quite well.

Though it depends on your comfort level, I'd recommend on keeping the number of party NPCs to a minimum to allow you to better focus on the story.

Good idea. If OP wanted to have a living breathing crew on the ship, then a thought I had would be to have a few crew members but the player and GM could have an agreement to only ever take one NPC along on a mission. It'll be like the typical video game setup that way, like Mass Effect. You could have a pilot, droid, combat specialist, face, ect on the ship but not have it be too overwhelming when it comes to missions and combat. When you dock somewhere, the crew could all be off doing their own thing while one goes with the player. Pilot tuning up the ship. Droid buying supplies. Combat guy buying ammo or maintaining the weapons. Things like that. That way the player can have help in the specific area they need for the particular mission but not too overwhelming or over powered.

thanks for all the excellent ideas. I really like the Mass Effect idea. Several NPCs with different careers and he chooses who to take on missions. I also think I will flesh out the characters and use the veto option, although he does a good job of running the characters.