If the target document has a master page that is blank and has the same name as the master page from the original document, it should work.

Empty? Like, nothing in the Paragraph Styles panel at all, not even “basic paragraph style”? If so, something may be wrong and you may have to rebuild your indesign preferences.
https://creativepro.com/help-my-indesign-palette-is-empty.php

Try this:
Download this IDMS file and then use File > Place to place it into a new document. It’s a snippet file of just one text frame with a numbered list in it. You’ll then see in the Paragraph Styles panel three styles, which you should be able to investigate to see how I did it. It’s quite simple once you get the hang of it.

Each level requires its own paragraph style. So “7” would get one, “7.1” would get a different one, and “7.2.1” would have a third paragraph style. All three would be auto-numbers with a Restart after Any Previous Level.
The codes like ^1 are from choosing from the little triangle pop-up menu to the right of the Number field. So ^1 means “the first level number”, ^t means a tab, and so on.

Yup: https://creativepro.com/multi-level-automatic-numbering-in-indesign.php