I read a small story with this sentence:
お城から豆の木まで走り、豆の木を滑って家に帰りました。
The way I understand it, 走り is the noun form of the verb (polite form without masu) and is used in this phrase just like the て form to give sequential actions. This means that if we replace 走り with 走って, the sentence would be the same. Can someone confirm if I'm correct?
What are the other uses of this form? Can you do this with any verbs?
As suggested in the comments by someone, the different uses of this form is explained in detail in this post:
As for the difference between the two connections:
To summarize, some people suggest that the main difference is that て implies temporal order while the stem doesn't. This doesn't seem to be entirely true, according to this study:
"Through the use of TE-linkage, the speaker presents the two situations as being related in some principled way - e.g. causation, intention of a single individual, or reason for an action - so that the presented situations are viewed as NONINCIDENTAL.".
In the end, it seems the main difference between the two ways to link is simply a matter of formality. As described by someone else in the third link: "The conjunctive form (aka pre-ます form) sounds more dry/learned/erudite/scholarly/formal."