What your saying makes no sense if you don't have rule on lan interface to block access. I have plenty of boxes outside my dhcp scope. So example my lan network is 192.168.1.0/24, pfsense lan interface is on 192.168.1.253
dhcp scope is 192.168.1.210 to .219
So for example my linux box at 192.168.1.7 can query pfsense for dns.
dig i5-w7.local.lan
; <<>> DiG 9.8.1-P1 <<>> i5-w7.local.lan
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;i5-w7.local.lan. IN A
;; ANSWER SECTION:
i5-w7.local.lan. 1 IN A 192.168.1.100
;; Query time: 2 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.1.253#53(192.168.1.253)
;; WHEN: Fri Sep 21 11:11:19 2012
And here is windows box on .100 also outside the scope
C:\Windows\System32>nslookup
Default Server: pfsense.local.lan
Address: 192.168.1.253
> www.google.com
Server: pfsense.local.lan
Address: 192.168.1.253
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: www.google.com
Addresses: 2607:f8b0:400f:801::1012
74.125.225.177
74.125.225.179
74.125.225.178
74.125.225.180
74.125.225.176
So I would verify that you did not typo the dns server? Do you have more than 1 dns server listed on the clients on your lan?
I have more boxes outside my scope than inside to be honest, and have no issues - are these boxes on a different interface/vlan connected to pfsense, so different firewall rules than lan? Is there anything between them and the pfsense lan interface, another firewall, local firewalls on the clients?
Are you running say unbound, where you could of set ACLs on which IPs can query it?