A reliable way to create an interesting NPC that provides motivation and interaction for the PCs is to measure the difference between what the GM knows and what the NPC who is controlled by that GM does not.
Too many NPCs have perfect or near-perfect awareness of a situation. It's understandable that this happens. GMing takes a lot of brain power, and the closer NPC knowledge is aligned with GM knowledge, the less mental exertion is required to make them work in an RPG scenario. But sometimes the additional work is worth it.
Imagine, for example, the following scenario. A demon is trapped in a dungeon prison. The demon wants to be free, but doesn't know that if it tries to leave the dungeon entirely, the structure will self-destruct as a last resort to keep them from escaping, trapping them underground.
The treasure hunters want to get to the center of the dungeon. They see the traps and locked doors and other defenses, but they don’t understand that they were created to keep something in, not keep someone out.
The guardian of the land in charge of the dungeon’s defenses wants to stop the demon from escaping, but doesn’t know that if the demon is crushed by the self-destruct measure, its oozing ichor will seep into the surrounding land, poisoning it for 100 generations.
Without the PCs’ intervention, this situation is going to slide toward a bad outcome for everyone. The treasure hunters die. The demon will be crushed. The guardian will fail to protect the land.
The PCs can "win" this scenario, in essence, by collecting information until their knowledge is roughly equivalent to the GM’s knowledge. Once they know all the unknowns above, they will know more about the scenario than any of the NPCs. That gives them the tools to resolve the situation favorably. Even if they merely prevent the worst-case scenario, they’ve done so by leveraging information. They figured out what they knew they don’t already knew – their known unknowns – and answered those questions.
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