The game is based on the first Dragonlance campaign module, Dragons of Despair, and the first Dragonlance novel Dragons of Autumn Twilight.  It focuses on the journey of eight heroes through the ruined city of Xak Tsaroth, where they must face the ancient dragon Khisanth and retrieve the relic, Disks of Mishakal.

While Heroes of the Lance is a faithful representation of the books it is based on, it was a departure from the usual RPG style of most Dungeons & Dragons games, and many players lamented its difficult game play interface which consists of using one character at a time in horizontally-scrolling fighting.  Each character has different types of attacks and spells making them more suited to fighting different enemies but they merely act as "lives" for the player as in more traditional fighting games, removing one of the main strategies of role-playing games from the game.