How to keep the dwarf from walking to his doom

I found one of the easiest ways to simplify the game without hacking or removing many sources of Fun is to lower the population cap. I found that once my fortress grew to 100 dwarves or beyond, I couldn't figure out how to manage all of them and keep them working productive jobs. So instead they all just sat around throwing parties and pestering my productive dwarves. Until you get enough experience to handle a fortress that size, try lowering the cap to 40 or 50 dwarves.

To do this in v0.31.08, edit data/init/d_init.txt and change the value of this line:

[POPULATION_CAP:200]

Note: your actual population may still go above the cap you set, you just stop getting new immigrant waves after you reach or surpass that cap. And apparently births don't respect caps. Also I think (but I haven't tested) that you can change this mid-game if you save and quit first.

Nothing bad will really happen. The best case is that once you unforbid it, he'll just put it in a storage container that he owns. Worst case he'll go grab it again.