So I am confused and I hope someone can help me. It says in the rule that for RSG 1.9+ the timer starts after the game first loads, so if I pause right at the beginning when I first load in to set the difficulty to "easy", will that invalidate my run? Or is there a way to change the default difficulty before I load a new world so I don't get rekt by blazes so easily?

To make sure of the world, i have a trick, while the world is charging simply click in your PC in another window, so Minecraft is not the main window (ex.: click on your splits and wait lol) With that, the game just pause automaticaly just when the world start, and then you can open the Minecraft window again and play; with this, the game pause at first frame, and inclusive the world is not charged yet, so you cant see the world; therefore, you jut set up and the time will start when you click on the "continue" button At least with me work, there is not a lot of mystery lol :)